Williamson County Board of Education Meeting - May 16, 2022

001good evening i'd like to call this may 16 2022 meeting of the williamson county board of education to order board members if you'll please record your attendance 11 president one absent thank you sir now we'll ask our deputies to lead us in the pledge of allegiance which will be followed by a moment of silence deputies to the united for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you board members and guests you may be seated we now come to what we refer to as public comment items of particular public interest we have 15 speakers signed up to speak tonight there are a couple of folks who haven't checked in so we'll see if they're here by the time i call names and speakers as you're as you're getting ready what

002i will do is go ahead and tell you that it looks like you'll have about two minutes to speak tonight and mr casey hall is our time keeper mr hoff you'll raise your hand and you'll you will hear from him when your time is up thank you let me just go ahead and quickly read the rules that accompany a public comment 30 minutes will be placed on the agenda for the chair to recognize individuals and to make comments at the discretion of the chair this time may be extended and it will be extended a bit tonight williamson county residents and wcs employees shall have first priority to speak in the event time remains the chair may allow non-residents to speak all persons addressing the board will state their name you've already provided your addresses thank

003you very much and provide the name of the organization or group you are representing if that is indeed the case the board reserves the right to limit the time of any speaker and the chair shall have to have the authority to terminate the remarks of any individual who is disruptive who or who does not adhere to board rules and that is board policy 1.40 so speakers i'll call you up two at a time our first two speakers are beverly perry and bonnie young beverly i'm sorry i also need to turn on your mic so please go ahead okay the edmonton principal literacy coach and first grade lead teacher were suspended for eight days pending an investigation due to demands of one parent whose child is not even in the first grade team leader's class these

004three were removed from their position without warning explanation and pace stripped of their dignity and basically treated as criminals this fiasco resulting from lack of proper policy and haphazard investigation needs to be addressed immediately we must protect our teachers that is the job of the school board it can't be okay for one to make claims against staff and subsequently damage their reputation and career teacher trauma is real not only have you publicly shamed this teacher in a slanderous email from julie orr but you have traumatized her personally and professionally she was teacher of the year last year and made national news in regards to student equality yet district admin ignored that her student's current and past data her professional judgment as a seasoned teacher to pursue the agenda of one parent edmondson has long been

005a high-ranking school of distinction across our state currently being named 18th best as teachers we are required to teach state standards for our specific grade level as educated professionals we are taught to find the best resources to teach those standards based on individual student needs it is our job to reach every student expecting one curriculum to be able to do that is absurd i have spoken with multiple parents who have said their ames web scores have decreased in this last semester due to teachers being forced to use williamson county's adopted curriculum only being unable to deviate from the script has caused students individual needs to not be met the way this was handled was detrimental to teachers staff and first grade students and also deeply affected the entire edmondson community and beyond because of one

006parent's complaint what about the voices of all the other parents who thought the teachers were doing an amazing job we face a teacher shortage in williamson county schools the blatant disrespect given to our professionals by the district will be the cause of phenomenal teachers leaving in droves we demand you fight for our teachers and in doing so fight for our children we demand you do better thank you thank you our next speaker is bonnie young i'm bonnie young hello all right so this right here represents the parents who've been campaigning to ban and censor our children's books and getting teachers like mrs joyner at edmondson elementary fired or suspended because of their feelings about how things should be taught it's really loud isn't it but it doesn't really add up too much meanwhile here's the

007rest of your constituents okay we're over here you can't hear us because we're too busy leading fulfilling lives with our family to find hidden agendas and plots everywhere okay so how is it that these parents get to make the choices for our children for everyone else's who is giving them the power because there is a real plan to dismantle our public school system so that we will have to go the private school route with vouchers i know how this goes that's how my that's how my family made money by the way so that's also why our teachers aren't getting paid fair wages like my husband who's a special educator here he deserves to get paid to live here we live here and it is a slap in the face to be told you don't deserve

008to get paid enough to live here with your children and talking about bringing in teachers from out of the county that's ridiculous just pay the teachers here okay we used to not have any vacancies now we do and it's all because of these parents getting their way over the rest of us so please listen to the rest of your families that we love our teachers we love our school board please take care of us and our kids and stop doing the bidding of these extremists thank you so much have a good night our next speakers are michael miller and preston grady good evening i'm michael miller that actually planned for one minute not two so i'll slow down my pace terms like age inappropriate crt parent choice or facades that parents and indeed some current

009school board members and candidates utilized to shield their prejudice and ignorance under the guise of protecting childhood innocence while attacking our teachers in schools i urge this board to veto any policies which institutionalize or otherwise validate these ridiculous sentiments the hatred behind these terms is insidious scaring away great teachers and destroying this community at last month's board meeting a brave student at franklin high school shared her story of being a repeated target of anti-semitism last week there was a racial hate crime at ravenwood high school undoubtedly these are not isolated incidents and not unconnected from the earlier part of my speech new penalties were announced for such brazen acts of hatred i applaud that but i'll contend that they do not go far enough like decency hatred is learned and reinforced in the home therefore

010i suggest that any parents of any accused be required to complete the same course work on tolerance that their child is for the infraction they'll know verbatim what was said to their child be equipped to reinforce the message and maybe learn a thing or two themselves thank you preston grady hi my name is preston grady and i'm the president of ravenwood high school's gender and sexuality alliance gsa for short i'd like to discuss the new censorship and book banning policies that y'all are considering implementing i'd like to start off by saying that ravenwood's gsa includes over 90 members meaning that roughly 1 in 20 students in the school are lgbt williamson county gsas collectively have over 500 students which means that 500 households and thousands of students are affected by these policies nationwide lgbt youth

011are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual classmates let me tell you about our specific demographics in my club not a single one of our members in ravenwood's gsa are mentally healthy too often i have students in my gsa who come to me telling me that they're suicidal within the last month i've had to talk two friends out of suicide i'm an 18 year old not a trained mental health professional but i'm the closest thing that many of my students have to an accepting adult in their lives all of this said these policies do nothing more than say that lgbt students are not welcome within wilco schools by banning literature and education regarding lgbt students you're telling an entire group of people that they are quote not appropriate to exist

012in public settings for something that they cannot help additionally i'd like to add that i have a 10 year old sister at crockett elementary school within my house lgbt people are equal and respected don't you think don't you think that will confuse her how do you think she's going to feel when she hears that she is not allowed to learn about lgbt people in schools don't you think that will confuse her more than just leaving the subject alone allowing her to read those books if she so chooses and she is certainly not the only one in this predicament by censoring lgbt books you are saying that an ideal williamson county is composed of only straight people and the fact of the matter is we are much more diverse than this people flock to williamson county

013because of our kind welcoming nature and censorship is not reflective of that so when are our actions going to match our words in a final closing word tennessee ranked time thank you our next speakers are hannah kim and april garza wright hello i'm april garza wright i'm a parent and resident of williamson county and i want to speak to the racisms within our school the beginning isn't the mass shooting we saw in buffalo this weekend beginning is the racial slurs and the idea that one race is superior to another based on the lack of understanding and the differences that exist among us that are not celebrated and want to be exterminated why did russian soldiers ransack a principal's house in search of books teaching ukrainian language and history because education is the light by which

014we live what we are taught influences how we live at my son's school there have been multiple incidences involving the use of the n-word there are incidents there was just an incident last week our principal does what she can to remind students to be kind with their words but the expectations of zero tolerance of hate-based language and actions needs to be directed from the central office as suggested by fostering healthy solutions there needs to be leadership established within our school system that encourages the learning and diversity and inclusion there needs to be a culture of excellence not only for academics but also for diversity and inclusion our children can only benefit from learning to respect the differences amongst us and to celebrate those differences we must instill in the seeds of empathy and tolerance we

015all want our kids to feel safe at school to know that they have steps they can take to report threatening and intimidating occurrences at school i am here today to ask for the improvement in school policies that aim to reduce an unsafe school environment that kids of color are experiencing collectively we agree that bullying exists because we have listened to those affected by bullying and the negative impact an unsafe school environment can have on that child we listen and help that child i'm asking that you listen to the children in our school system and you accept that their experiences are with what their experiences are with racism in our schools and for you to create a no hate policy in our school that addresses hate-based actions against students hate actions are a form of bullying

016bullying by definition seeks to harm or intimidate someone this is exactly how people of color feel when they are involved in hate-based situations at school in the very place they are supposed to feel safe and supported stopbullying.gov states that research has shown that when adults are responded too quick thank you hannah kim good evening my name is hannah kim and i'm a senior at centennial high school representing one wheel code tonight during my time at centennial have received several instances of microaggression although they seem small and insignificant at the microscopic level the accumulation of these insensitive comments have impacted my self-esteem negatively for example i've received ridicule from fellow students and even a teacher for creating an asian american club that was supposed to be a sort of a safe haven for the small asian

017american population at my school a student asks if they can create a white american club in response is not only inappropriate but offensive responses like this one is the reason why my friends and i have created a club oftentimes i feel as though us minorities are reduced to be small ignored i've i can have enough compassion towards teachers to confuse names at the beginning of the school year but if you misidentified me for another asian girl who looks nothing like me when it's may i have no words to justify that careless mistake and if you're teaching a classroom full of people of color i would hope that you would be a little more cognizant of what you say calling my culture's food grows and that it looks it looks like intestines with a disgusted face

018may be a reason why i don't eat lunch at school oddly enough i feel as i've gained respect because i'm going to yale this fall but should i have to earn respect from others through my academic performance i've been lucky enough to oversee some of the less severe forms of microaggression i think that logic contribute largely contributes to me being a high achieving student i'm here tonight to advocate for all students regardless of their grades or race or gender or sexuality for that matter every student at wcs deserves an equal amount of respect and care and attention because we are the next leaders and if we aren't given good examples to follow we will be the exemplary models for adults in meyer thank you our next two speakers are to gel high and madison jones

019to jail high and madison jones good evening to jail high with one wilco what more do you need to see to acknowledge that he was a district administration and board are not doing enough to provide a safe and nurturing educational environment for all of our kids and in fact by your slow and inadequate education are complicit in the rise of harassment of non-white lgbtq and non-christian kids you received expert guidance based on significant research and input from the community from fostering healthy solutions one of the findings we are community divided that bigoted views are really comfortable being shared in our community people like me my children that don't conform to these ideals of white straight christians should leave they don't like it here i've heard that in this room that the school districts remove all

020books from school replace with the bible heard that in this room that we should continue to skew the teaching of history and other subjects to ensure that white children feel comfortable even to the detriment of other non-white students i've heard that in this room you did not need a consultant to tell you that we have these issues within our community you hear it here month after month even with this information right in front of you still seem surprised when these actions of these kids coming and telling you what's happening in their schools happen you're not doing enough about it since that report you spent needless time money and effort pandering to parents that want to campaign against the professionals of the school district that want to ban books that you want that want to attack

021teachers that are teaching inclusive things in their classroom that are making frivolous challenges about apps that people in the country are using without any problem that's what you're spending time on mind you people are coming here with urgent issues and you're not doing enough i need you to step up and take urgency and with the people that are speaking to your constituents and the kids that come here month after month and tell you what's happening and you still don't take that kind of urgent action it's enough is enough i've been coming to the school board meetings for years listening to the same things listening to the promises of what we're going to do and we are not doing enough we have to take this more seriously you guys have to hold yourself accountable for your

022own actions madison jones good evening my name is madison jones i'm a senior at nolandsville high school and i'm also representing juan wilco it's hard for a racially diverse group like onewilco to understand why in 2022 our public school board is debating about whether students should have access to significant literature or to be taught how to think critically about our rich american history how can we pursue excellence in education while continuously undermining our teachers librarians administrators and procedures it is beyond clear that every complaint raised about our school's curriculum has been assessed considered researched discussed and attended to in painstaking detail our public schools should never ever be used as a pawn by those seeking to minimize our history for the sake of our children let clear thinking prevail provide the opportunity for children to

023opt out of material that is not agreed upon by their peers or their parents we have the right to learn and we should not limit the knowledge of others because it may feel uncomfortable to others we cannot pick and choose our history our families of color deserve better our teachers deserve better our staff deserves better and i really hope that you vote tonight to review the committee's comprehensive transparent and well-informed recommendation thank you our next two speakers are jaden moore and jojo million jayden moore jojo million my name is jaden moore i'm representing the black student alliance at ravenwood high school i was a victim of a hate crime last week the student who did this was clicking clock which quit he was quickly caught with the help of the sros and my teachers but

024the issue is that he only got three days of iss and we voiced our opinions and unhappiness to our principal and our principal was very helpful and we got the policy changed to 10 days iss along with i'm sorry 10 days iss along with education about the victim's ethnicity we're hopeful to make this infinite we're hopeful to make this incident a difference and better for the future to come i want to make this clear that we are not attacking the ravenwood high school or the student who committed this act we're coming together and we're attacking racism as a whole to everybody who's not taking this serious you're part of the problem and i hope you wake up before it's too late if you're defending the student's actions we are not scared of you we will

025not stop and you cannot stop the change that is going to come we're hopeful to make this change thank you very much jojo million hello i'm jojo million representing ravenwood high school students hello i am jojo million a student at ravenwood fellow students of all races and i share a common issue censorship of black history culture and revolutions as well as constant oppression we as the school experienced an n-word put on a black student's computer while the punishment was iss there was no lesson taught on the historical usage of the n-word a better solution would be teaching the impact of racial slurs and as a restorative practice i think this action was a lack of accuracy and truth about black culture in our lectures to which avoid teaching about race as well as racism the

026inequality of removing black history from enrichments does not only hurt black people it hurts students of all races students can handle the truth and prevent these situations from continuing to happen from the music that they listen to or the shoes that they wear students should be able to learn not about only the hardships of slavery but the beauty of culture that has formed of the things that they love and enjoy today teaching our youth about our past can create a resilient future that promises less fire less violence and safer environments for places like brentwood where we call home i hear you distress i hear your aggravation but we cannot claim to have justice nor liberty if it's truly not for all thank you our next speaker is when we call up two folks kristen gillian

027and kate keese good evening my name is dr kristen gilliland i'm the director of outreach and advocacy for the warren center for neuroscience drug discovery that's part of vanderbilt medical school and but we're located in cool springs i want to introduce williamson county schools to a free outreach program we're offering in hopes that you might implement it into your middle schools high schools and possibly even elementary schools why are we invested in this twofold one is to address the number of increase in cases in middle tennessee of substance abuse and substance use and abuse depression anxiety suicidal ideation worst-case suicide self-harm cutting and overdose deaths of adolescent children and young adults why am i invested in this because i lost my son at the age of 22 to an accidental overdose after he suffered from

028drug induced schizophrenia from smoking marijuana during middle school this what is the program there's a website that teaches about adolescent brain development it has a documentary that goes over adolescent brain development teaches kids about their brains how beautiful they are what's going on why they feel the way they do we go into neuroplasticity to teach kids the importance of building a healthy mind and everything their actions their environments their thoughts everything they do it how it impacts their brain we also talk about coping skills for anxiety depression giving them mindfulness techniques breathing techniques self-compassion and self-love and i can tell you that everything i'm hearing tonight that will help with that as well i grew up or my son grew up in an affluent community san luis obispo and there was plenty of drug use

029because of the number of the amount of money that kids have and everybody wanted to keep it quiet they have lost so many children to suicide and overdose kids are smart they need to know this information knowledge is power we at the warren center want to deliver this to them and i hope that you will find some time to get to with me so i can talk to you about this free beautiful program thank you kate peace hi everybody my name is kate keys building muscle happens when you work out and you tear little muscle fibers and more muscle fiber is laid down and that's how you get stronger by breaking things up it's uncomfortable growth can be uncomfortable that's actually how you know it's happening my family has been in this country for more

030than 400 years mostly in south carolina they did terrible things they probably did some good things but to deny the fact of what they did is to deny their humanity and mine and the humanity of everyone in this room no one in this room is perfect i don't think anyone would claim it we do good things we do bad things we must tell the truth about all of it repeatedly it is uncomfortable it is hard and that is how we grow i need you to trust that my children are strong enough to handle this i need you to tell them the truth i will have conversations with them at home to help provide context for that but you have to tell them the truth i understand that you all are thinking about changing the schedule

031and maybe leaving early one day i would suggest rather than leaving early that we take that time to do some small community building to have truth-telling circles to have difficult conversation courses clearly the parents struggle with this the way you all have been spoken to in this room is unacceptable time thank you our last three speakers ravita rachman alana truss and ashwing well hello again principal vaden's prop response prompt decision to change the rhs policy for racist acts led me to tears of joy this weekend that something has finally been done the money spent to analyze racism in wcs with the consultant was well spent but we need action now one will call along with the black students are tired of waiting for our protection dr vaden's revisions to encourage a system-wide policy against racism

032has been shared but did you all catch how easy that was for her at the most diverse school in the district the adage what are you going to do about it was resolved with factual and thoughtful action now ravenwood has consequences that wcs has never had before consequences that one willco has been asking for for quite some time when our leaders respond to racist acts at school with this is not who we are they are wrong this is exactly who we are that's why these incidents continue to occur i challenge every principal in wcs to listen to your black students the trauma and racism and create policies for change ravenwood students who protest it i am so proud of you we are asking the school board to follow the recommendations in the fhs report with

033the same urgency that you use for the 35 book complaints at scales you have the ability to act now the question is do you want to thank you elena truss hi i'm alana truss i'm a wcs parent a local clinical psychologist and also a member of one wilco i'll start first of all by expressing my extreme pride in these students here and those who supported them last week in the face of a racist incident they bravely stood up they asked to be seen and heard i'm also grateful for dr vaden who supported their peaceful protest committed to more impactful consequences for future racist incidents if dr baden can do this so can our district predictable and meaningful consequences will certainly serve to reduce these behaviors consequences though provide only a surface fix changing behaviors but

034not hearts and minds true change requires understanding the honest history of race in our country its ongoing impact and why these incidents are so hurtful unfortunately this is the very history that state leadership and some of our community members are trying to keep out of our schools under the guise of it making students uncomfortable i promise you that learning this history will make your children uncomfortable i also promise you that our children can handle this discomfort and that with the right supports this discomfort will fuel the kind of deep change that we need in our schools i'm here to ask that this administration lead this change on ensuring that we're tackling the racism present in our schools on both a surface and a deep level by ensuring consistent and meaningful discipline practices and by committing

035to requiring that history be taught accurately thank you so much our final speaker ash thank you so much for that information everyone at this time we'll take a five minute break so that if if some of this if some people who are here for public comment need to exit that way it won't be a disruption to the meeting so five minutes please be seated specializations board members if you'll please be seated i can't believe we didn't think about it either thank you everyone our next item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda for tonight is there a motion to approve mr welch makes the motion to approve is there a second abria makes the second is there any discussion if not board members please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes 0

036no thank you sir the next item is the approval of the consent agenda is there a motion to approve mr brown makes the motion to approve is there a second mr cash makes the second any discussion board members please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero now thank you board with that vote you have approved the following the april 18 2022 school board meeting minutes the easement at trinity elementary and park the tdot easement at fairview high and middle and the recommendation for field trip requests it's now time for communications to the board and the first of these is the superintendent's report mr golden thank you madam chair and thank you all for being here tonight i want to say first that i very much appreciate public comment especially the students so often

037when we have students speak to us we later speak about the value in hearing our student voices and the last comment that we heard for this for the student who wasn't here who was in orchestra reminded me of our arts event just last week and for those of you board members who were there you know that a lot of heartfelt thoughts deep thoughts can be expressed in art and we heard some of that and some of the issues that were brought up in public comment were brought up in some of the art that our students presented to us at that senior arts showcase for those of you who didn't watch that i definitely encourage you to do that i also want to let you know that some of what some of what was discussed also

038reminded me of the goals that we set as as board members and as a district related to my work as superintendent one of the items that i attached a little over a week ago maybe two weeks ago when i gave you my report my most recent report of my goals included that fostering healthy solutions recommendations report and i want to remind us that the first three items that the fostering health healthy solutions report addressed was policy handbook with some recommendations to create templates so that there's consistency district wide related to related to our our standards for teachers and students second disciplinary action reviewing our disciplinary decisions at the administrative level to ensure consistency district-wide and communication we talked to items such as the piloting of our bullying app and some other items we have some

039room to grow in all of those but i see some growth that we've that we've worked on this year and that we'd be working on this summer to make sure that we have a growth course towards consistency in the consequences for that but it is about teaching respect we've worked on that over the years with different programs and that needs to be an ongoing effort to to encourage all of our students and teachers to teach each other to treat each other with respect a part of that is getting to know people the more you know someone i am convinced the better you will be able to treat others the more consistent you would be able to be in being decent to others so there's there has to be an element of getting to know each

040other at the school level as well we did have a couple of public comments at the very beginning that i'd like to briefly address we have an obligation every time there's an accusation of someone not following what we should be following to investigate and we're going to do it every time we're going to do everything we can to treat all with respect in those settings and sometimes as part of that our human resources department needs to suspend individuals pending that investigation ultimately when it comes to a decision those those suspensions pending investigation do not have a bearing on the ultimate decision related to whether in and to what extent someone needs discipline i will tell you publicly then in the example that was raised no teachers received any monetary suspension because that was what was

041right that was what was appropriate based on the human resources investigation sometimes investigations are hard but they need to be done every time when there's an investigation when there's a need for that investigation also i want to mention to you some other items unrelated to public comment and i briefly addressed this at our work session the state has passed 81 new bills related to education in this past legislative session we are in the process and some other entities across the state are in the process of analyzing those i actually expect to be attending a superintendent seminar in just a few days with with the beginnings of that analysis so that we can double check ourselves and make sure that we're taking the right action to be compliant with those new state laws in addition to

042the quality work that we're doing right now in trying to grow how we serve everyone one of those big items is the budget item what's what's being called tisa the tennessee investments in students act if i've actually if i've mentioned that appropriately want to make sure everyone knows that funding model does not go into effect this coming school year it's a year out there's going to be a lot of work towards that we're under the existing a state funding model this year related to that our county commission will be voting on our budget in late june we actually have a couple of items that are that are related to next year's budget on the agenda and it specifically relates to our pay charts that's the last item on the agenda board members i want to

043thank you for that work finding ways to to make the profession of education especially in williamson county meet the you know have the ends meet meet the needs of our teachers is a is a critically important element i want to thank you board members for where you've gone this year we spent a lot of time in the middle of this year finding a way to get a pay increase for our teachers mid-year we're doing the same again for this fall as we continue to fight that battle to make sure we can provide our teachers and other staff a living income in this ever changing environment one piece related to that is inflation i think we all know inflation's happening we have seen that our sales tax numbers have increased in part that's because the cost

044of goods has increased i am convinced that when that happens we have a responsibility to pass that on to our professionals who are doing the work they're the ones feeling the increase in prices it's important for us to pass that on so that we can improve our teacher and staff retention and grow them finally final item i wanted to mention is we do have one difference well actually i'm gonna actually two differences in tonight's agenda compared to the work sessions ms garrett will speak to the one item that's been postponed to june related to our early release late start planning we did have one call for one number that's changed and we will address that when we get to that item related to one of the budget items to to close out the year with

045that carol birdsong tells me we have an overwhelming number of celebrations and y'all this is the time of year where those celebrations largely come and so we are so excited for us to share some of the great things our students have done this past year most especially this past month so yes sir mr golden and school board members as mr golden was saying if you missed the fabulous fine arts showcase you can go to the district's youtube channel go to the infocus email newsletter click on that link and you can watch it and you can see 13 of our fabulous students perform in all areas of the arts also you can go to in focus or the front of our website right now if you are so inclined and learn about the ravenwood high school

046jrotc robotics national champions yes i said national this is a first for ravenwood and a first for our school district so exciting they are national champions and it's in tipping point that's why you need to go to the website and in focus to read exactly what that is because i cannot explain that to you but i do want you to meet mark bell adwi sadawati and connor tasik and they are their advisors chief warrant officer for russ hayes now we also have 10 perfect act composite scoring students that we want to honor this evening brentwood has four this is raymond gardock william hong molly mcmullen and luca santilli from brentwood from franklin nathan hannah wimpy from ravenwood matthew mueller andrew salman sophia wong and caitlin wotak now always one of my favorite the national academy

047of television arts and sciences yes i say it every year these are the student awards from the folks who do the emmys this is big stuff these are regional awards once again high school has won for the best newscast their instructor is ronnie adcock franklin high school brought home a lot of awards in this is matt perry who won for best nation graphics and special effects this is emmeline warden who won for best arts entertainment cultural affairs and folks i want you to meet graham nguyen graham won three awards best nonfiction best director and best writing i would love it if you would go look at franklin has youtube channel or look at our in focus newsletter where we honor these students graham peace is his families and his own personal journey dealing with mental

048illness depression and suicide and it is powerful and raw so i would encourage you to take a look at that their instructor at franklin is carrie thompson for best public service announcement anna laura morales simone jones and ryan moody from ravenwood high school best sports matthew bowen and owen reed ravenwood high school and best commercial olivia freeman and ella ridlen megan sanchez and chelsea kite are the instructors over at ravenwood now we're going to talk about deca and these students are from brentwood high school first place in personal financial literacy colin carpenter first place in role play in entrepreneurship series ishan chandra first place in principles of finance james camardis camera rats i'm going to mess it up i'm sorry james lisa niece is their teacher at brentwood franklin high school savannah mann first place

049in marketing communication series fisher anderson and adam ray first place in sports and entertainment marketing their teacher anita rohenbeck page high school sam ross first place principles of marketing leah roby principles of hospitality first place tristan brown their teacher from ravenwood high school first place financial consulting on car appointee first place in community giving project showing it show me i practice these names too kumar harshia shri amuja let's see shanee mcgee is their instructor also from ravenwood international business plan gian riodiza and ari alabi now technology student association state leadership conference high school division engineering design champions from page high school aditya dungaygala and jabez ceravani jackson ovila brennan wallin their teachers laurie mauldin and kathy dye and y'all we have four four count em four country music association music teachers of excellence to celebrate

050elena galas y'all seen her before she was our elementary school teacher of the year from edmondson elementary school this is tiffany turner from britt middle school and from page middle school evan burton and from nolensville michael holland yes we have a lot to celebrate congratulations to all of our students and staff members madam chair that's my report thank you mr golden moving on to the board chair report i want to say congratulations tonight to our transition students who are participating in their graduation ceremony this very night and very sorry that some of us could not be there but we greatly are we want to express our congratulations to all these students and all these families so just wanted to headline with that and then mr golden did mention that i was going to provide explanation

051about why we decided to move the late start early dismissal discussion and vote to next month when i went and looked back at the april discussion at the work session there were two points that influenced my decision the first is that there was conversation about a survey but there was never commitment made by staff to actually perform a survey there was there there was a statement that we that staff would discuss the survey so that is one thing that i think that we discussed in our work session that we thought was something that we'd asked for did not receive but in the actual if i would if you go back and listen to the discussion it was never staff never said we will conduct the survey now that's i'm that's not saying that i'm i'm

052not saying that staff drop the ball i think that you know this is a situation where maybe a detail was lost and here's another situation where maybe a detail was lost as a board we were asked specifically and there's documentation of it in the board packet with the draft plan we were asked to please carefully consider this proposed change over the next few weeks and send any questions to our leadership team in preparation for the may board meeting so it looks like that maybe that slipped our minds so in the spirit of teamwork i felt like the best chance for a robust sort of discussion and opportunity for community input would be to move that to the june meeting one of our board members did say in that discussion did invite public comment and did

053say you know we really do need to check with the public on this but if we feel like that wasn't done then i feel like it's only fair for us both to accept some responsibility for that and then move forward so what i would ask is that as we prepare for the june meeting we do provide that feedback prior to the meeting and be prepared for a discussion at the work session and if if we will provide that information to staff early enough for them to prepare to respond i think that will be really helpful as a reminder staff has been at our request getting our work session packets out six days in advance they're getting them out every friday and our discussions are on the following thursday so they will continue this practice and

054will not only have time to turn in information before the meeting before that six days but if there are changes that are resulting from our input to staff then we'll be able to see those six days prior to the meeting so i just i did want to give the board and the public an explanation about that moving ahead yeah sorry yes come on go ahead just wanted to ask so obviously we're you're asking us to to get feedback just a point to jason or what's your what's your plan for between now and before you make a decision on a on a proposal do you know what you what you plan to do well number number one we do want to continue to hear from you as board members what we heard at or what i

055heard my understanding of what we discussed at the work session was that there was that there was no consensus that there was a mix that i put into three buckets basically and maybe that's that's too much of a oversimplification one an acknowledgement of of the likelihood that the wednesday wednesday recommendation was a possibility to consider leaving the secondaries alone with their with their mondays and a consideration of a wednesday for for elementary school students and then three are concerned about adding elementary at all and again maybe a gross oversimplification but by given another month we'll have an opportunity for us to have some more one-on-one conversations about what each of you think of it think about this proposal one big piece of the elementary and we alluded to this at our meeting was when when

056we discussed hearing hearing a little more from parents we talked about adjusting the the transportation plan with elementary and you may notice that in the april proposal and the may document there's a difference in that transportation because we make it clear that for families at the elementary level if they can't pick up their children during those draft 11 days they can they can keep their children there and we would eliminate any inconvenience for them by running the second route for those students who chose to stay so we expect that we'll hear some more feedback from parents more feedback from from teachers and administrators and we'll be soliciting that over the next few weeks i don't project right now that we're going to be doing a formal survey of folks but we will make sure that

057we increase the solicitation for their thoughts mr brown thank you madam chair and i first of all i appreciate the decision to postpone it i agree with that i think that's exactly the right thing to do one of the things that occurred to me in the last few days of asking questions soliciting feedback from from the public and from from just anyone who wanted to provide it is that there was opinions were kind of all over the map as far as what the answer should be and i'm sure you picked that up and the feedback you've gotten jason we have so it occurs to me that yes we need to do more individually as board members to solicit our own input and provide that to you which i commit to do i strongly think though

058that there needs to be some formal way of the of the district asking for feedback and having it be not relying on just anecdotal feedback from the board from individual board members i mean that's going to be helpful but it's not going to be as precise as something that came from the district i think it's incumbent upon the district if you're asking for this change and we and you think that it's important enough to make the change which you all made a strong case for at the work session and i said i said on thursday night that i thought the presentation was really good the arguments were really strong so if the substance of this is is important enough i think there's it's important enough to put something out there to to the public to

059ask for that input so i would suggest thinking of a way to do that and there's survey tools that are fairly simple to use i think that could get you some kind of maybe not scientific feedback but at least some more precise and formal feedback so it's always suggest that if you can the other question i have is you know i've kind of gotten mixed feedback from from teachers about this process and so i'm wondering you know we heard at the board at the work session that teachers were i don't know if the word was overwhelmingly but something to the effect of teachers were strongly in favor of this model were teachers for lack of a better term surveyed and asked for their feedback you know on a building by building basis what was the

060process for getting that teacher input on this proposal i was requested by the building leaders building teacher leaders to find a way to get elementary school students planning time and like you i've heard some examples in the past few days of some who might have said i didn't participate in that i don't want that we do have 3200 teachers to your point there will there will be some disagreement among them one one of the elements of this that i that i wonder about is the question of if something is being recommended that you're good with you don't make comments we've actually superintendents have been solicited in that context at the state level in the context of tisa if there's something you think is good somebody else may say they don't like it and that element

061may be eliminated because you didn't speak to it so i do anticipate that you're going to hear more from teachers over the next few weeks good or you know pro or con based on that but but that's where it started for from the teacher side for me now we've been talking about this for months internally with some external discussion had a committee review it in october if i'm not mistaken and what i have consistently heard from the teacher leaders is we need we need similar time now i don't doubt that there will be multiple ideas about how that time can be can be cleaned and that's and that's actually what i've picked up on from teachers and from parents too is that there's not really a dispute over whether the time is needed or the

062there'd be value in doing this yeah that's really not in question it's more the how yeah yeah thank you mr haw thank you chair one of the things i think of and to kind of go with the points that mr brown mr galbraith made about getting that feedback and if the board members are doing that independently it'd be nice to have a common set of information to work off of and i feel like the best source of that is the presentation not just the powerpoint in itself but the commentary that goes along with it i think the powerpoint had some powerful examples that do need the talk track that goes along with it as well so i think it'd be helpful to direct folks to that and if there's something that we've kind of been

063able to flesh out as far as the frequently asked questions to address the topics of transportation and what are the benefits of this why would we propose such a bold change maybe some of that could be articulated in a document that does solicit feedback much as we do for rezonings and other initiatives that we have or as i you know send an email to this email address or something like that not to be so prescriptive as that but we do solicit feedback in many ways other than surveys and i think in this particular case it's important to have a one source of truth to describe the proposal and the pros and cons that have been articulated by staff and yourself superintendent goldman just so that people are at least responding to the same set of

064information when this is being considered so how that is done you know i'm not sure but i think that it would be important so that we're not playing telephone and distributing this information while we try to solicit feedback thank you for that it does remind me one of the comments that mr welch made and i'm paraphrasing it but it to your point it is recorded and it's on our website how you do a survey and how you ask a question can has a potential to have a significant impact on the on the outcome mr brown you thank you madam chair i forgot to ask one thing i apologize let's say we get to the june meeting and we're back discussing this again and there's not not consensus still at that point is there a point

065at which calendar-wise you need to make a go or no-go decision on a calendar something that affects the calendar for next school year it's june thank you for that yeah so yeah we do expect at this stage we'll be asking for a vote and i believe i have that responsibility to our elementary school teachers to ask for a vote board members thank you for the discussion i'll just end my report with a big thank you to everyone who works for this district i think we entered this year thinking it's going to be easy it's going to be a great year and it has not been without its challenges and struggles so we cannot thank you enough anyone who works for this district thank you so much and i know you're counting down the days and

066i hope you have a wonderful summer moving ahead to new business the evaluation of the superintendent is an annual agenda item and this vote is to approve the evaluation results that we discussed at our work session on thursday night is there a motion to approve ms supriya makes the motion mr mitchell makes the second is there any discussion if there's no discussion please cast your votes up mr mitchell just a moment please there you go go ahead so i had communicated i guess to mrs brooks that one of my comments was transcribed incorrectly can i get that corrected i emailed you a few minutes ago i saw that i think you emailed me about 5 30. so board members the earlier today berger mosley firm reviewed the comments double checked them because they we determined

067there were some errors so i believe everything has been corrected mr mitchell if you will double check what is posted on the board agenda is the double checked and revised look then thank you and so any other board members if you find an error let me know but i believe they have all been resolved thank you mr mitchell if there's no further questions or discussion board members please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero now thank you board members the next 11 items are budget items the first four are summer school related and item one is approval of the general purpose school fund amendments for the bridge camps grant mr golden thank you madam chair this is the first of four items related to the state summer camp summer school bridge program the

068structure that the state has for funding that state fully state funded program this year is to submit the funding request first and then be reimbursed so these these are the maximum funding dollars available available from the state we won't use it all but we need to get this approved first for the state purposes do recommend approval is there a motion to approve mr welts makes the motion mr hall makes the second board members any discussion please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero now thank you board members the next item is approval of the general purpose school fund amendment for cerney summer learning camps grant mr golden thank you madam chair same explanation for this particular grant from the state a similar program for for the summer school programs do recommend approval is

069there a motion to approve mr cash makes the motion mr pria makes a second board members any discussion has anyone requested discussion a little oh there we go okay board members no discussion is requested please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes 0 no thank you the next item is approval of the general purpose school fund amendments for the stream mini camps grant mr golden thank you madam chair same explanation we do recommend approval do we have a motion to approve mr wimberley makes the motion miss priya makes the second board members any discussion i see no discussion requested please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero no thank you board members the next item is approval of the general purpose school fund amendment for a summer transportation grant mr golden thank

070you madam chair this is the fourth of the summer school program grants this one is obviously for for transportation but same explanation otherwise we do recommend approval do you have a motion to approve mr brown was that you okay mr brown makes the motion mr hall makes the second board members any discussion no discussion requested please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero no thank you the next item is approval of the general purpose school fund resolution for additional sss expenses mr golden would you please explain asset the as an acronym or abbreviation maybe okay great madam chair this is for student support services many of our special education services 504 services etc at the end of most every year we do have an amendment to the budget for combination of legal services

071and private agencies based on iep services this is the budget amendment for this year we do recommend approval for that is there a motion to approve as cleveland makes the motion mr cash makes the second board members any discussion no requests for discussion board members please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes zero no thank you the next item is approval of the general purpose school fund resolution for the trustee commission mr golden thank you madam chair there's a statutory description of the amount of property tax we are to return to the county trustee's office based upon their work in collecting property tax this is a required transfer and this is based on actual receipts of property tax and a percentage of that do recommend approval for this transfer back to the county motion

072to approve mr wimberly makes the motion second mrs priya makes the second board members any discussion there you go thank you john i see no request for discussion please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes zero now thank you the next item is the approval of the general purpose school fund resolution for the esco payment mr golden thank you madam chair this is the program that we entered into a few years ago to make some substantial capital improvements to our buildings funded by the energy savings and mark samuels gave you some detail about that at the work session where we are ahead of that this is the annual payment for that again paid out of savings we do recommend approval board members is there a motion to approve mr cash makes the motion is

073there a second mr galbraith makes the second board members any request to speak or discuss i see none please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes 0 no our next item is approval of the general purpose school fund resolution for additional insurance expenses mr golden thank you madam chair this is the item that actually has a different number from the work session based on the workers compensation insurance you can see the proposed adjustment is 375 000 for that this item is a fairly typical item brought to you at the end of the budget year because it's based on actuals the risk management office actually let rachel farmer know today that they anticipated the possibility of a little bit more workers comp claims so we have adjusted that from the work session we do recommend

074approval from you on this item is there a motion to approve mr welch makes the motion mr ha makes a second any discussion please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero now thank you the next item is approval of the general purpose school fund resolution for additional substitute pay expenses mr golden thank you madam chair this is a requested increase based on actuals for substitute pay this current budget year followed the previous year with a lower budgeted amount for substitute teachers we have had substantially more substitute teachers especially especially from a ratio perspective in the second semester as our fill rate has increased we also have what we call super subs two at each school that have been filling in so this is a very substantial alteration to the budget based on the

075comparison of actuals versus what we budgeted for a little over a year ago so do recommend approval is there a motion to approve ms supreme makes the motion miss durham makes a second was that i'm sorry was that it okay great any discussion board members i see no discussion requested please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero no thank you next up is the approval of the general purpose school fund resolution for additional fuel costs mr golden thank you madam chair our fuel costs have been more than budgeted this year no other explanation recommend approval motion to approve mr mitchell makes the motion is there a second ms aprea makes the second board members any discussion requested john if you'll flip that screen please thank you mr galbraith go ahead mr farmer do

076you any idea in what percentage increase this is over the over the for the total of the year the 40 40 increase wow right at 40. we were a million dollars budgeted with that's more than i thought but not surprising diesel largely thank you ms farmer i don't see any other requests to speak board members please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes zero no thank you the next item is the approval of central cafeteria fund resolutions additional cafeteria expenses mr golden thank you madam chair this end of year adjustment for our food service department includes the pay increase that you all approved back in february plus increase in food cost and related expenses at the same time we haven't had an increase in sales so there is sufficient fund balance in the food

077service budget for this to for this to work so we do recommend approval of this adjustment thank you is there a motion to approve brown makes the motion mr mitchell makes the second board members any questions or discussion mr brown thank you madam chair similar question to jays on the previous item what do we know the percentage increase in food costs i'm going to defer to rachel or rachel farmer or mark samuels for that and ask if either one of them has that information i don't see any other questions board members please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes 0 no thank you the next item is the approval of the esa grant so this is an annual agenda item mr golden thank you madam chair the esea grants are as you mentioned annual

078budgets annual budget items we do recommend approval your approval of these grant figures and ms farmer is here of course if you have any questions do we have a motion to approve mr wimberley makes the motion to approve do we have a second mr cash makes the second board members any discussion mr golden i would ask for you to clarify what these are for the public thank you these esea grants are in essence our federal grant package they include what perkins grants every student succeeds act grants etc thank you thank you john for adding the top of that thank you mr galbraith thank you madam chair miss farmer is this the totality of our of our federal funding it is to this point there could be additional funding that comes through but this is the

079basic what we start out with each year that we know is a carryover from year to year okay and so this represents a i mean i know people we're talking about we're talking about funding for for schools and so this on our i mean i'm thinking about our next year's budget this year's budget was what like more more around four something like that for the for this current school year for the federal project the total total revenues 420 428 million is very so to your point mr galbraith our federal funding is somewhere around two percent of our total budget that's close to two percent so most of right i just want to make sure that everybody understands that we're we're not we're not getting we're not getting a ton of money from the feds but

080but also is there do we do anything i guess strings attached or these are all four specific programs that we have to fund and to the extent that we that we get this money are i guess we always talk about unfunded mandates so are these programs funding the programs are the is this are these grants funding the programs that they're asking us to do are we using state and local dollars to to do these i will speak to that question generally and then ask miss farmer if she would to speak perhaps more specifically most of these federal funds are partially funding programs that we must have our practice is if there's a federal fund available that's first priority to fund it and if we have additional work that we need to do it has to

081come out of state or local thank you i gotta i got a head not thank you board members if you'll please proceed with casting your votes your vote is 11 yes zero no thank you moving on to board policy second reading the first policy for second reading tonight is 4.600 report cards and grading systems mr golden thank you madam chair as you mentioned this is the second reading traditionally we put second reading on the agenda for the for the consent agenda but we wanted to make sure that we added this for a for a separate vote based on the discussion we had at the work session do recommend approval of these blue line changes thank you board members do we have a motion to approve mr hall makes the motion to approve is there a

082second ms supriya makes the second board members any requests for discussion i see none please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero now thank you the next board policy for second reading reading is policy 4.6051 credit requirements for graduation mr golden thank you madam chair likewise this is for second reading and i do want to mention one content piece of this high school courses taken in middle school will now be able to earn a letter grade rather than a pass fail with passage of this so we do recommend approval thank you is there a motion to approve ms supriya makes the motion mr mitchell makes the second board members any discussion i see none please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes zero no thank you the next item is board policies

083for first reading the first one is board policy 1.901 charter school applications mr golden thank you madam chair we had a substantial discussion at the at the board policy committee meeting and the work session related to this the core of the recommendation here is that if a charter school applicant goes through the full state process with two processes of review if the board turns it down twice and it is approved by the state the recommendation would be that the state actually that we are actually not the for lack of a better term dana i may have the term wrong monitoring organization or responsible organization so we do recommend approval at first reading thank you is there a motion to approve mr hall makes the motion to approve ms cleveland makes the second any discussion board

084members i see none please vote your vote is 11 yes zero no thank you the next policy for first reading is policy 4.205 enrollment and advanced courses and this is a new policy thank you madam chair we do recommend approval first reading for this proposed new policy that reflects tsba recommendations and state law from 2021 that is referenced in that policy recommend approval thank you is there a motion to approve mr hall makes the motion to approve second mr mitchell makes a second board members any discussion mr mitchell thank you madam chair mr golden and dr webb i'd like to ask that next month in our policy meeting we discuss possibly maybe adding something or at least creating a sop where students doing dual enrollment that there be some type of parental acknowledgement that there

085is not necessarily the tracking of grading and tracking of of progress in that class i know that every year at this time we have students that and parents that all of a sudden are discovering that they're not passing the college class and that they're at risk of not graduating and that we don't have the oversight of these required classes especially if the dual enrollment is a requirement for graduation and so i think we need to increase our communication at the parent level indicating that there is not they won't necessarily if they're not looking at the grades at the middle of the semester or that there's a risk of not graduating if the student doesn't pass the class thank you for that suggestion for to use to use vernacular there are college teachers teaching college classes

086and they treat them like college students and they may not right if they don't show up for the class there's not calls home got your student didn't show it's very much a college class and we're not and you're every year we're having students that are you know having to do summer school for lack of a better term to make up for that loss of credit i see no one else requesting to speak board members please cast your votes yes your vote is 11 yes 0 no thank you the next policy for first reading is an also a new policy policy 6.300 code of conduct mr goldman thank you madam chair this proposed policy is part of our process for standardizing discipline as you all can see there are different levels of misbehaviors with with recommended

087ranges of discipline we do recommend approval for this draft at first reading thank you is there a motion to approve miss cleveland makes the motion of mr hall makes the second mr mitchell thank you madam chair mr golden could you given the use case that occurred i guess this week at ravenwood can you indicate where that would fall in this new policy well i did not investigate that particular that particular incident so i can't speak to any particular student's behavior that you've asked for but i can speak in more general terms misbehaviors level three and four victimization of any student harassment sexual racial ethnic religious bullying cyber bullying or hazing likewise that language that i just read off level three is also in level four and so there's a potential depending on the surrounding facts

088and circumstances for it to be a much more serious discipline at at those different levels and the discipline if we could read those off for those two levels of of infractions i guess this level of misbehavior includes acts which result in violence to another person or property or which pose a threat to the safety of others in the school these acts are so serious that they usually require administrative actions which result in the immediate removal of the student from the school and the intervention of law enforcement authorities that's level four level three this level includes acts directly against the persons or property but whose consequences do not seriously endanger the health or safety others safety of others at the school and the disciplinary options as i read there is in school suspension detention restitution that

089is correct out of school suspensions and alc and the alternative learning center yes sir thank you so just to give a little visual there's a potential for some of the disciplines on these to overlap right depending upon the and then the investigation and the severity of the infraction would determine basically which of the two that's correct levels that would land okay thank you thank you i believe we had another yes mr galbraith thank you madam chair that and thank you mr mitchell as my exact question was to delineate the fact that this is in in both three and four and it's a it's a subject of of the actual the incident but but a minimum it's it's three and in these things but just wanted to speak to speak to speak to the comments and

090one that one particularly particularly that stuck with me of one of the speakers and just a reflection on on us as a school system and where we are in in terms of in terms of not not promoting racism but doing doing what we can to to ensure that it that it has a as minimal effect on our students as as possible and one thing i heard that i think is completely on on us as as the board policy administration is the consistent predictable and repeated having consistent repeatable and predictable consequences and so i mean that's one thing that we can put in policy i think this is this is certainly i don't know if it's a step to to do more or more of a reflection of of what we are already doing but communicating

091it effectively and making it policy i think is a good thing as well as as well as putting it in making consistent in the handbooks and probably communication around what that looks like for for students next fall is also on your on your plate correct mr gordon yes sir it is and a key element of this and so many other discipline issues is letting students know your standards on the front end and then adhering to them every time thank you and so just as a point of clarification our board is the policy making body but you mentioned administration of policy as well just to clarify for the public is listening administration of the policy is the staff's responsibility that's correct okay thank you mr mitchell thank you madam chair also one other thing i guess

092for the public to point out this is the first reading we'll review this again next month at both the policy meeting and i guess and we'll have an opportunity to talk about it at a work session and then additional public comments and discussion here as well so if there are people who are feel like they would like to give feedback on how this is coded out and and explained that there was opportunity to do that i don't see any further requests to speak board members please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes zero now thank you the final policy for first reading tonight is policy 6.307 drug free schools and this is also a new policy mr golden thank you madam chair dana osbrooks prepared this and thank you ms allsports for preparing this

093for first reading drug free schools with some detail related to that's based on some tennessee laws plus cross-references to some other policies of ours including zero tolerance offenses in student suspension or expulsion this is for first reading do recommend approval thank you is there a motion to approve mr priya makes the motion mr mitchell makes the second board members any discussion no discussion requested please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero no thank you the next item is an annual agenda item and it's the approval of the pekka memorandum of understanding mr golden thank you madam chair every three years our teachers go through the process of letting us know whether they want to continue the pekka process which is the professional educators collaborative conferencing act because we do live by acronyms as

094you mentioned earlier our teachers went through that process started in december actually they provided us with some signatures in december we provided a state required survey of teachers as part of that survey the teachers select who they want to represent them at the table as a result of that selection the the pekka process those pekka representatives that you see referenced on the board with that first line are those who were selected by the teachers the teacher decision left them exclusively represented by pekka representatives selected by the williamson county education association as part of that process you can see a highlighted yellow version of the proposal for this year that reflects changes compared to the prior version but i do want to make sure everyone knows whether someone is a member of the wca or not

095the representatives there sitting in for pekka ensure that upon your vote this agreement this mou applies to all our teachers and so you are committing yourself to all our teachers with your vote tonight we do recommend approval of of the 2022-25 mou thank you mr gold and i'll make the motion to approve as their second mr cash makes the second board members any discussion and john if you'll please flip that screen back thank you so much i see no request to speak board members please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes 0 now thank you our final agenda item for tonight is the approval of the certified and classified pay schedules for the 2022-23 school year mr golden thank you madam chair we have our recommended pay scales that range from the professional pay

096scale for our teachers to supplements to curriculum specialist salaries to classified positions and we have a we have a number of of items related to that i know that we had some some a brief discussion at the work session but i want to point out a piece of that county government standard for budgets for this year was a two percent raise this fall that was in part based on county government's decision that took effect in february of a dollar an hour pay raise for all their employees we at the time in february gave a dollar an hour employee pay increase to our hourly employees and a three percent to our teachers one of the goals you set for me was to make a recommendation based on market conditions the market conditions for us are very

097different than a two percent pay raise for this fall this recommendation reflects that includes substantial increases for for certain positions ranging from special education bus attendant where if i'm not mistaken we have we have a proposed pay increase that's that's in the 30 percent range and all the way down to smaller smaller pay ranges based upon market conditions this is a significant change from last year a couple of examples the zero experience bachelor's pay increase from fall of last year to follow this year if this passes and if our budget passes goes from forty thousand one hundred and fifty dollars if i'm not mistaken this hall to forty five thousand dollars at the other end there is likewise a substantial increase for the more experienced teachers our hope is that this can provide a combination

098of retention and recruitment but we know that there will be constant motion with this because the market is changing so fast so we do recommend this approval for for to take effect in july and miss hall and some others are here if you have any specific questions thank you mr golden is there a motion to approve mr mitchell makes the motion and mr priya makes the second board members any questions i do want to say very appreciative of staff staff's efforts throughout this year you've been handed lots of different variables and asked to participate in this at at unique times during the year and so thank you for for your continuing efforts with this with these classified and professional pay scale any other request to speak mr brown thank you madam chair i think everybody

099would agree that what you see on this chart is not adequate in in the big scheme of things i think we'd all agree with that and we hear it over and over again from from teachers and we know it to be true but i guess the question i've always wondered is when did the answer to is what what is realistic when you think about the context of public education more broadly whether it be in tennessee whether it be in other jurisdictions other states i mean what do you where do you see the range for a starting teacher going up to let's say in another state or another locale i mean when you put it in the context of we're used to that 40 000 number being thrown around and we're moving it to 45. clearly

100it's not enough clearly not enough in williamson county or maybe anywhere but by comparison what do you see other places i'll give you an example the tennessee education association annually produces charts that show rankings for each what we call lea another acronym local education agency school systems in the state this current year before we had our mid-year pay raise our zero experience bachelor's teachers were if i'm not mistaken 68th county statewide that's tennessee this change if nobody else changes will bring us up into the high teens if i'm not mistaken but the reality is others will be moving as well our average was somewhere if i'm not mistaken i'm not going to get the exact number somewhere in the low 30s when you took when they took every every bit of our pay chart and

101analyzed it so that's state middle tennessee is a little higher on the cost of living compared to other portions of tennessee we ought to be on the higher end of tennessee because the cost of living here is higher likewise we have had many discussions about housing in this area you've addressed that in part with recruiting and retention with the significant reduction in the teacher the teacher tuition rate as one more recruiting tool for for those who can use that our neighbors i can't speak to specific dollars related to other states we hear stories we know that as an example mississippi recently greatly increased their pay historically mississippi has had a reputation for being one of the lowest paying systems in the country in part i suppose because of their cost of living but again they're

102seeing some changes i'm going to invite ms hall to see if she has some specifics related to that but we are finding ourselves recruiting brand new teachers out of state that includes recruiting at some of the colleges in ohio middle tennessee is a magnet right now for growth and miss hall may have some specifics related to what she and her staff hears when they go on recruiting trips out of state and i may mention a little bit after her answer let me now you are okay good i did attend a national conference this fall with other school personnel officers across the country and one of the points that was discussed in that meeting was how quickly you could get or a district could get a teacher to 75 000 that was kind of the general

103tone and the goal of that session that we were in and they had done research about how 75 thousand dollars is a monetary amount that is comfortable for individuals to live it's it's where they're not i'm stressed about money at that point so that was that was eye-opening because i think it takes our teachers quite a while to get to 75 000 so that was one point and i did speak with some other people from other districts in the state of tennessee last week and one thing that i hear over and over is those districts that are borderline like with georgia and with kentucky often lose teachers to those neighboring states because you know it's just competitive there and if i may add one piece to that because that's actually a great segue i am

104cautiously optimistic about tisa about 85 percent of our total budget is people the tesa projections include williamson county schools receiving double figures in the millions more from the state than we have in the past right now about two-thirds of our budget comes from local from the decisions our county commission makes a little bit less than a third if i'm not mistaken comes from state government and then the two percent from federal when the state bumps that up in another year i project that we're going to have the ability to compete with our neighboring states a little bit better than we have historically mr brown are you done oh yeah thank you okay mr cash try again mr cash you're welcome try again yeah can you hear me it's we're having a little problem with the

105mics right i'd just like to thank the staff and mr golden for making it possible for the teachers to get a more equitable raise and i'm sure they all appreciate it but i would also like to see us work harder on getting a better more equitable raise for our secretaries service people skilled trades folks i was looking at some of the wage scales and it takes years to get up to to i think what i feel is the average for those folks and i'm afraid we're to lose some of those if we don't also pay a little bit more attention in that area thank you sir thank you for that we agree with that i think the consensus of the comments tonight is that this is not the end this is this is part of

106the process board members i don't see anyone else requesting to speak so please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes zero no thank you everyone i'd like to thank john spurlock tonight for subbing in to record our votes and run the video and our tools it's not an easy job you did a great job you're welcome to come back anytime and with that our meeting is dismissed thank you