001good evening and welcome to the monthly meeting of the williamson county school board our board members your attendance has been recorded by mr brian king prior to the start of this meeting and we'll move directly to our pledge of allegiance and our moment of silence our pledge will be led by our deputies tonight deputy jody cooper and deputy phil hunt pledge allegiance to the fire of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you board members we'll now move to the next agenda item which is items of particular public interest the public comment portion of our meeting we do have tonight 35 speakers everyone will get one minute we ask that you quickly move to the podium as
002your name is called and begin speaking mr hall the vice chair of the board who's on the end here casey if you'll raise your hand he is the time keeper he will give you a warning and then he will call time let me read board policy about 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 the time may be extended as we are tonight williamson county residents and wcs employees shall have first priority in the event that time remains the chair may allow non-residents to speak and that does not apply tonight all persons addressing the board will state his and her name addresses have been provided on the sign up sheet the board reserves the right to limit
003the time of any speaker and the chair shall have the authority to terminate the remarks of any individual who is disruptive or does not adhere to board rules our first speaker tonight is mr phil name's roberts i'm board certified in emergency medicine i'm also have a master's in metabolic nutrition medicine i'm here to talk about placing a hole or a big caution on the pediatric cover vac scene moderna would have them you believe that it's safe they've never had a vaccine they've never had a prescription drug they say they're safe but what are they measuring all they're measuring is symptoms that improve they're not measuring death prevention or hospitalization decrease this vaccine is a gene modifying therapy it is not your typical vaccine again gene modifying we have we've never had a successful gene modifying
004vaccine ever in the united states there have been no animal testing on this none this violates the nuremberg trial we give it to pregnant females we're talking about giving to kids and we think that's okay it is not ladies and gentlemen it is not okay all right the other thing do we really think that we can limit parents counsel and informed consent for 12 to 15 year olds i can tell you work in er for 12 for the years that i did if you think you're going to get informed consent for a 12 to 15 year old you're wrong don't do it so i'm asking you guys do a marvelous job i love you guys and thank you for everything you've done i've had five kids go through the high school here don't touch that
005there are enough trials going on around the country kids are already dying you do not want this on you thank you so much audience members please hold your please hold your applause during each speaker i'm going to call up two people at the time at a time from now on the next person will be speaking and the next person will be on deck to speak our next speaker is robert lewis followed by jeff stewart thanks board my name is robert lewis i am far less credentialed than the previous speaker but just want to thank you for the effort that you all have put in over this previous working session working with fostering healthy solutions you are here we are all here because we care about the education of our children key component of education is
006being willing to listen and learn and consider that there's something that we might not know that our experience hasn't yet taught us that we still have something left to learn so i'm super appreciative of y'all's effort with fostering healthy solutions and hope that y'all would continue that into the next session i know june's a big time of discussion for that it's deeply important to me and my family i'm so appreciative of the work that y'all put in thus far and just ask that would be continued that there would be the same care and concern given to our students in that area thank you for your work and your service appreciate it jeff stewart thank you i just want to start by making clear my belief that every parent here agrees that racism is evil we
007may disagree on how to deal with it but i don't think any of us thinks racism is acceptable i think there are some specific incidents that some of our kids have reported that may cause some disagreement as to whether or not those incidents represent racism but some of them are really clear and i don't think anyone here would condone them i also think we all agree that is a responsibility of parents and families to teach kids how to treat one another to teach them how to love their neighbor to treat everyone with kindness and dignity and to speak up when a peer says something hateful to another child we all expect our teachers to do everything they can to keep our kids safe while they're at school i imagine we all agree that includes keeping
008them safe from abuse at the hands of other students whether it be physical or psychological abuse and i'm certain we all believe it includes ensuring that the teachers themselves are not harming our kids whether intentionally or not i do not expect our teachers to teach morality to my children or to anyone else's children but just as i would want faculty and staff to deal with one kid punching another kid at school i want them to deal with racism when they encounter it this is not easy which is why i'm so thankful that you have decided to hire experts thank you thank you again would ask the members of the audience to please keep your claps and comments don't just please don't do that during during the time that someone is speaking thank you thank you
009next up we have ravita rahman and i apologize if i get the next name incorrect t t school hi i'm sorry first up is ravita ramen hello and welcome back i'm ravita rockmon 300 shadow creek drive and i'm speaking here today on in support of fhs on this day in 1954 our country faced racism and people fighting against equality during brown versus board of education supreme court court decision and here we are fighting the same racism again 67 years later if your child has never experienced racism at school that's good for you that does not mean that it does not exist and it does not occur daily from some for some students our students have the right to have a safe learning environment too i'm not as concerned about what the name is given to
010it i'm more concerned with the action taken to ensure that other children aren't tormenting our kids based on race sexuality or host of other things if you are not empathetic on how to solve this crisis please stop trying to prevent action racist acts are occurring constantly i heard from a williamson county family whose biracial child emailed a friend that she could not continue to take the torment of a white student telling her she did not belong at that school because she was black she told her friend she wanted to kill herself and if this continues we have to do something about this the time to act is now so i applaud the school board for your 100 unanimous support of the dni consultant i ask you to continue supporting equality thank you thank you to
011jail high hi my name is tajel hai live at 1577 red oak lane in brentwood thank you for prioritizing the school district's learning as it relates to diversity inclusion and equity by the numbers williamson county should districts should be have high pride in its high achieving students however by the numbers some students are being left behind black and brown students and those that are economically disadvantaged or disproportionately represented the numbers of students punished within our school with out-of-school and in-school suspensions and likely other disciplinary measures however those same students are under-represented and those that are selected for opportunities to get into gifted programs and programs of higher academic excellence the selection process for these programs is not transparent and it's not consistently objective my personal experience with that process has been less than positive bias
012exists we all have them it exists in the way our administrators make decisions that exist in the way our teachers present material to students bias is what allowed my child to bring home an assignment in commerce that linked a picture of a black student to the term scarcity and for the school administrator to respond then other parts of the world things are scarce he could not appreciate that his bias indicated stereotype that he healed and nothing nothing in the picture had anything to do with the lesson that was being taught he's a good person he didn't intend to have that but he needs the skills the and the lessons to be able to understand how to take blessings to our kids thank you thank you our next speaker is martha henley followed by inetta gaines
013good evening my name is martha henley i live at 9458 appleton court thank you so much for the opportunity to speak when my first born son started kindergarten i remember that feeling of sending him into the world and when he got home from school i couldn't wait to pepper him with questions about what did he learn in school that day but did my child tell me about learning letters and numbers and singing songs no well my child eyes sparkling could not wait to share with me was about the kid who got in trouble it was so exciting it was the most exciting thing that happened that day was a kid got in trouble and i think we can all relate to that drama is what excites is what makes an impression i don't have any
014indication that there was anything wrong with what happened at school that day but our children are watching they are learning what behavior and circumstances warrant punishment and they are also learning what behaviors are tolerated we owe it to our children to ensure that the policies driving this passive education are fair for everyone and have been thoughtfully examined not unthinkingly excited thank you very much i neda gaines good evening superintendent golden and school board members my name is aynetta gaines my student began at franklin high this year and yet she had to transition to online due to covet 19. she has some issues she had to be in the building for the tennessee ready test and when i dropped her off at school i immediately get a call and she's upset saying she's tired of it
015and she's going to the office what she was referring to was a certain young man on social media continuing to bully her she spoke with us and we called the principal she went straight to the principal and i will tell you who it is because i'm very proud of him this evening it's principal pantol at franklin high school so when we picked her up she was pretty happy that he had talked to her when i went in he was in a meeting and it was a very important meeting it was with homeland security yet he came out and talked to us and gave my student the courage to realize that something was done and so what i want to do is just commend him for that and of course the school policy says that he
016could not state what was done but he told my student that if a young man ever said anything to her for the rest of her time at franklin high he wanted to know immediately and this is how you deal with bullying it can be done there are consequences so thank you principal pantol next up is john paul basham followed by chelsea gilbert hey i'm john paul basham i live at 30 44 box bury lane i'm going to give you some of my personal experience i'm a half white and half colombian man who grew up in a southern city much like this one and rarely acknowledge my colombian heritage filling out the race section on any form growing up always brought inner turmoil as i struggled with the fact that i had functionally denied who i
017was my whole life the truth to my shame is that it was easier to function as a white young man than a person of color a person of hispanic heritage i saw life easier from my perspective than the perspective of my friends who were black and brown i'm now a father of four kids two of which are part hispanic two of which are mixed black and white and i refuse to let them grow up under those same circumstances and still my son titus through all my efforts was only four years old when he experienced his first very pointed experience with racist remarks against him so i want to say to you thank you time for your work and fostering healthy solutions your work gives parents like me hope that there are better days ahead chelsea
018gilbert hello board and superintendent golden i'm chelsea gilbert in franklin i have four kids in the system one middle schooler and three elementary kids at clovercroft and brad fiskus is our representative hi brad i know with the shortness of time i want to draw attention to a recent concern dr michelle fiskus medical director tennessee vaccine preventable diseases and immunization authority over all of our children has emailed local vaccinating partners to let them know that there will be possibly some exceptions to acquiring the necessary parental consent in order to pre to pre-exist vaccinating some children i will read from her letter the mature minor doctrine in tennessee permits health care providers to treat certain minors without parental consent according to the rule of sevens under the age of seven there is no capacity skipping ahead between
019the ages of seven and 14 there is a rebuttal presumption that there is no capacity and a physic physician generally should get parental consent between the ages of 14 and 18 there is a rebuttal presumption of capacity and the physician may treat without parental consent i asked the board to investigate michelle fiskus i asked her to step down thank you our next speaker is lee cook followed by jay halterman i believe that's jenny halterman hi good evening my name is lee cook i live at 1012 biddix i have three children in wcs this one i don't know who she is but i hear here tonight to touch on three points of concern that i just wanted to share with you first i recognize that people of color are grossly misunderrepresented in williamson county as it
020comes to not only this board before me tonight but the faculty and staff at my children's school and i find that to be concerning disappointing secondly it's my understanding that there's currently no formal training around diversity and inclusion around topics like unconscious bias that our teachers and faculty experience so i greatly support that i personally go through that every year maybe even twice a year with my corporate job and i see no reason why faculty and teachers shouldn't experience the same training and thirdly i believe we need a better system of reporting and tracking we might have systems in place but i want to make sure that students feel safe and comfortable reporting those incidents thanks jay halterman hi there i'm calling for all coveted policies to end and never return the average high school
021student missed 50 percent of in-person education this year and the average middle schooler missed 40 percent the board must vote today to end communication with the health department going in both directions we as parents are calling for the board to use your power over golden as our representatives of parents and end this unlawful specimen no comments during the speaker please and end this unlawful practice of giving private information to the health department manipulation and coercion of minors to get the facts by selling it under the banner of school makes it morally right good and expected thing to do it however has been the most lethal thing it has been lethal to 4 000 people so far none are approved by the fda all are experimental under the nuremberg code is it is illegal to mandate
022it the recent letter of from the health department makes the williamson county's time schools the most dangerous place to be giving the banks to seven-year-olds and up without parental consent calling for your vote our next speakers are kay jackson and c kelly hi my name is kristen and i live in nolensville i have two children that i a fifth grader and a seventh grader that i removed from williamson county schools this past year to homeschool i would like to send them back this next year i first want to address critical race theory critical race theory identifies individuals as either oppressors or oppressed bullies or bullied in critical race theory one is an oppressor a bully not based on behavior but based on gender or race it teaches our child that they are either born a
023bully or a victim of bullying it allows no room for actions to speak louder than color or gender it forces our children to believe they are either good or bad this is not the way forward the way forward is to teach our children that they can do better than their ancestors regardless of their ancestral roots my second concern injecting children without parental consent currently we must sign medications in with the school nurse i'm not discussing prescribed medications i'm talking about long-approved over-the-counter medications like tylenol and cortisone cream and provide detailed instructions on how or when they may be administered to our children even sunscreen is not allowed to be applied to children by anyone other than the parent there are good reasons for this i can stand here and quote statistics to you about any
024of these topics many will but at the end of the day we just want the choice hi my name is serena kelly i'd like to talk about the critical race theory and the fostering healthy solutions i'm proud to be teaching in a time when equity and access is not just acknowledged but it's prioritized the integration of uniqueness into a society only serves to make that culture stronger to turn it away forsakes the growth and enrichment of the society itself non-inclusion anywhere it is found acts to the detriment of the society of which it proclaims to serve i believe that exposing students to works from different genders ethnic and cultural backgrounds is not just being politically correct it is simultaneously pointing the student towards a holistic growth while also setting them up to be successful in
025a global workforce i moved here with my family from australia four years ago my children are very capable of understanding that two things can be true at the same time we can be an imperfect country and still be a great country time thank you our next two speakers are dustin cocktail and k james my name is dustin cochter and i'm a resident of williamson county's 12th district and i have three children in elementary school thank you for the unanimous decision to hire fostering healthy solutions to provide some much needed assistance and guidance to help make our schools safer and more welcoming for everyone you put your reputations and positions on this board at risk and you opened yourselves up to all sorts of harassment and hate please stay the course and continue to support the
026work of fostering healthy solutions as a parent of black children i know that talking about race can be complicated and messy but it's critical work for all of us and for my fellow white people i recognize the discomfort you feel about this but we can move through it beyond the discomfort and past the shame and guilt that you may feel for being white if left unattended for too long white guilt can become the best friend of white supremacy so we must listen and learn excuse me deputies deputies i'm asking everyone in the audience to show the respect that you would like to be shown or you have been shown when you have spoken please please continue sir thank you so we must listen learn and act and do what's right our schools should be inclusive
027environments where the humanity and dignity of our children is not up for discussion or debate and they should also be places where our children can see people who look like them as teachers and administrators for the students who are hurting or feel powerless we hear you and we support you thank you kay james hello my name is kim james and i live in the nolensville area i have three young children that attend an area elementary school that are six eight and ten years of age we moved to this area about three years ago what i'd like to highlight here today is that there's without a doubt a very real and dangerous issue as it relates to acknowledging and celebrating diversity in the williamson county school system and in the county in general what i'm requesting
028as a parent of three beautiful brown children is the school system to stop treating black and brown parents and children in wcs like we're invisible and expendable our children are part of this community and deserve to feel safe seen and protected within williamson county schools the false assertion that there is no need for di training in the school system is a blatant attempt to preserve the privilege hate and ignorance that is a serious issue in williamson county just recently we've had kids say extremely hurtful comments to my children like black people are ugly or the n-words are stupid anyway a sentiment the child says was told to him by his father we've also experienced the hurtful effects of teachers racial biases our students deserve to be treated equally and i applaud you all for your
029dei efforts our next two speakers are terry sinclair and debbie pace please at the work session thursday it was stated that there are only 244 cases of covid with no stipulation made as to how many of those are asymptomatic and that was countywide there's 32 schools with zero cases 15 schools with one to two cases and three have more than two does the continued enforcement of mask wearing provide any benefit that outweighs the negative and unintended consequences i'm here to ask you to make masks optional effective immediately instead of waiting till friday set free our students radiant smiles let them light up our schools with their happy faces let's finish out this challenging year on a positive note there's no justification for a delay i'm a school bus driver and it was hot today and
030it's supposed to be mid to upper 80s as the week progresses with a mask it's suffocating to me and i can tell you those kids are not comfortable in a hot bus with the mask on i have two children two grandchildren that are in the williamson county schools but i feel like i have 70 children debbie pace my name is debbie pace i live in brentwood and i have six children two have gone through the school system and i still have four over the last 20 years i've watched the school board steadily walk away from the values that drew me and all of us to this community the function of the school is to educate our children the school board has no authority no scientific standing and no legal basis for regulating health care in
031the schools including dictating mask wearing mandating healthy children be sent home and isolating them this is not your job masks in vaccine administration is not your job our children are our responsibility and we need the school we do not need the school system to co-parent we are demanding that you do the right thing because if you think this is going to go away and we are going quietly to comply and sit by to watch your blatant disregard of our rights as parents you are sorely mistaken next two speakers are david holliday and don ann ritter mr holliday hey good evening my name is dr william holliday and i would like to address the critical race theory question i'm not racist i've never been racist but critical race theory is racist mark's all critical race theory
032is marxism described disguised as good manners it's a lie it tells our children and i've seen this on the brain pop videos that they're racist just because they're white there's not an option for i'm not racist it's how racist are you what could be more racist than that it tells our children that people of color are all oppressed if they're white it's their fault it tells our children that this country is a racist country and needs to be fundamentally changed and that we should all feel a deep sense of guilt for being american particularly so if you're white critical race theory all but granted sainthood on a brain pop video to a man who was a career criminal a drug addict and who held a gun to his pregnant girlfriend's belly you don't hear that
033on the news time time thank you our next speaker is dawn and ritter hi i'm don ann ritter i first want to thank all of you on the board of williamson county schools for getting our kids back in school as quick as you did versus california or other parts of the country i'm concerned i'm a concern for our kids wearing masks i had to pick my daughter up several times due to severe headaches and that's from hypoxia from not enough oxygen to your brain that is not healthy i also don't let them take her temperature at her forehead which is also an unknown and very debated thing to your pineal gland and also is conditioning your kids to a gun to their head i'm concerned about the critical race theory exactly what david holliday said
034the stuff they're teaching is somewhat backwards i've had experience with some of my daughter's friends that are completely confused and the last one is the vaccinations and the doctrine mature doctrine that's being lobbied by by mr fiskus's wife who's on the timothy board of health we have the letter that's a concern nobody has the right to do that to our children jim bicknell i believe and marisa dip diploach say the hard names for you for the same time all right my name is jim becknell i live in spring hill i'd like to thank all of you for waking us parents up for over playing your hand with the masks and waking up a sleeping giant i know that you think that by getting rid of the mask mandate you had no authority to give that
035will just go away and leave you alone now but i'm here tonight to tell you we're just getting started in the past year thanks to you we parents have become keenly aware of what happens here and we don't like it you do not get to vaccine our children you don't get to mask our children you may not have wanted this battle but this battle is coming judges 15 15. we the parents have our metaphorical jawbone of an ass and we're ready to smite a thousand men your move our next speaker is marissa deep i'm sorry if i mispronounced it's fine my name is marisa diplock i have two children in williamson county schools i'm here to talk to you about this experimental vaccine that you seem to be willing to get ready to roll out
036into our schools knowing that the covid experimental vaccine is still in the safety trials phase and has been has only been given the green light due to emergency use why would you even consider possibly having children vaccinated on school premises children are not at risk the vaccine is personal protection only me getting it does not protect any of you and you getting it does not protect me even if it does protect you there's still that's still up to be discussed you say it's not going to be mandatory for school admission but i'd like you to take that one step further i'd actually like you to request that the children actually have their personal doctors administrate administer not on school premises also will you be allowing parents to take exemptions for the vaccines like you do
037all the rest of them because i'm not wanting my child to be vaccinated time especially time my child is not going to be part of an experiment and i am not going to ask your permission time to exempt them from it randall allen and ryan parrish thank you for your time board my name is randall allen i've got two boys that will be in indy in a couple of months and i just implore you folks to lead us you're leading my boys and they don't know it the policies and procedures you all didn't vote on you gave it to the superintendent you gave it to faceless unaccounted for bureaucrats in the health department i implore you now that you've learned from the past as you look into the future lead us lead my boys make
038these decisions and be held accountable to the voters don't give them to bureaucrats that we can't have any accountability to that they can't have any ability to us thank you ryan parrish hello my name is ryan parrish and i live in franklin i grew up being taught that all people are created equal and to love my neighbor is myself but i often ask myself if that's really what i believe why is it that i found myself instinctively locking my car doors when i see a black person standing on a street corner why is it that i felt obliged to smile and nod my head when walking by as if to prove that i'm really not racist why is it the person that i am in these little harmless moments is so much different than the
039person i want to be as much as it embarrasses me to find myself perpetuating these little inequities i can't even begin to imagine what it feels like to be on the other side of them the looks of suspicion the superficial smiles the little changes in body language and posture nobody least of all our children should have to live like that racism hurts us all my biggest fear isn't that my children will grow up to be white supremacists my biggest fear is that they'll end up like me where the person they are in those little moments doesn't line up with the person they want to be education honest conversations and learning about our biases and blind spots may not solve everything but it's a step and it's a step in the right direction so thank you
040our next two speakers are e miller and stephanie zieger e miller stephanie zieger hi there i'm emily miller i live in nolansville i have one child in wcs and one that will attend soon first i just wanted to say thank you to the board thank you for your hard work in all areas of our education and thank you so much for hiring fhs a qualified third party to help us have difficult conversations and make our schools better i just wanted to say that as a white mom of white children this still matters to me because why one in it matters to me that students of color are encouraged to equally take advance in ap courses that they're equally disciplined for the same infractions that they have a safe and comfortable place to report racial racist
041incidents that happen to them and then that those incidents are tracked in an accurate way within our district i just want to say please keep up the good work that you're doing and thank you stephanie zieger hi my name is dr stephanie zeiger and as a mother of two elementary students in district 2 and an educator i fully support the boards and districts work on diversity equity and inclusion understanding the diversity of our student body is important to develop a community of respect within our schools that does not emphasize a single perspective but embraces multiple perspectives whether from books conversations assignments or interactions with one another in the classroom or on the fields diversity equity and inclusion work matters equity is essential so students no matter background are supported and have the resources to reach
042their maximum potential inclusion is necessary to ensure all students can participate fully in our community and are respected for their similarities and differences diversity equity and inclusion work matters from our youngest kindergartners beginning to learn who they are in our school community to our seniors that will hopefully be empowered global citizens our students do not need to leave a part of who they are at the door when entering our schools or be excluded due to their socioeconomic status race sexual identity or neurodiversity i employ the board and district to compete continue this important dei work and i'm eager to support you as you move forward shanna lively followed by aaron newman please good evening as a parent of two children in wcs i'm appalled and disgusted with the direction and overreach of the school board
043and superintendent schools are for academics athletics and arts i do not send my child to be given values a vaccine or be indoctrinated to not only what to think but how to think get rid of the covid restrictions address the disturbing issues and wit wisdom and take the time to understand crt instead of spreading the lie that crt is not being pushed and not already in our schools this is dishonest and reckless our kids deserve better and as a parent i demand it to be better aaron newman good evening and thank you for opening this up for all of us to speak i'm erin i'm from nolensville there have been some testimonies from people in the community that there are several board members that actually don't know what crt is so i'm here to invite
044you and everybody in the audience to crt 101 wednesday may 19th 5 pm liberty hall at the factory williamson county board of education policy manual 1.202 titled duties of the board members reads the duties of an individual board member shall be as follows to become familiar with education laws rules and regulations of the state board of education and the state department of education and school board policies further your policy manual 1.2021 code of ethics for school board members article 6 my relations to myself section 1 reads i will inform myself about my duties and responsibilities and current educational issues by individual study through participation in programs needy providing needing information according to your policy manual you have a duty to learn about this issue thank you our next speaker is jason michael father followed by
045anna anna riglin i thank you first for protecting my child this last year it was a tough year and you made tough decisions and i feel like my child was protected and i just wanted to say thank you to that i come though in this brief moment to do my best to speak in favor of dei and racial awareness in the classroom i could come as a pastor i could come as an academic trained in critical race theory but instead i come as a parent of a knowledgeable high school rising senior and i speak because i want him to know about the racial history of our country and how racism still exists today in the fabric of our culture i want him to know about the tulsa massacre the native american massacres that came with
046the vaunted gold rush the fort pillow massacre redlining voter intimidation the genocide of whole peoples inside of our borders and the brutal truths about slavery reconstruction jim crow hatred bigotry and how it still produces power to create racism today i want my son to know this so when versions of the same are encountered in his life my boy will know how to stand clearly and firmly against it so i thank the school board for their efforts in diversity you are to be commended and i suggest that despite those who speak otherwise the board continue to strive forward to understanding amending and reconciling our children in education thank you ann riglin good evening thank you for allowing us to speak and express our concerns my name is ann rigdon 3408 redmond hill nolansville parent of three
047children in williamson county schools one in each level elementary middle and high school i'm a nurse i'm a resident of this fine community and i'm a proud army veteran i believe america is the greatest country on earth and that all men are created equal as a war veteran i can assure you we all bleed the same color i come to you tonight to express my concerns over what my rising second grader he is seven will be exposed to in his ela class not his social justice class that he signed up for in college but his ela class i believe the witt and wisdom curriculum is robbing our young children of their youth and introducing strong adult themes far too early i believe this is intentional and as the great minds website that has proliferated this
048curriculum details that these topics will occur strategically and reoccur strategically there's a push by some of those that have our curriculum do the right things stick to your policies don't parent our kids the conversation starts the next speaker is susan macy followed by liz custer my name is susan macy and i live in district six in brentwood i'm here tonight to voice my opposition to bringing foster healthy solutions into our schools i've heard the fosters and wcs leadership say things like we are just here to gather data or no fhs will not be implementing critical race theory but it's already here in whitten wisdom i have done much listening and studying and with the deepest love for everyone in this room i reject that all white people are oppressors i reject that all people of
049color are victims that all systems in america are racist and that we haven't made some of the most laudable progress in this country when it comes to race issues please hear this also i passionately acknowledge that our children need to understand what bigotry hate racism and most importantly self-worth are so they can live right but i don't want them anywhere near crt and it's single lens race-based political divisiveness my concern is that fostering healthy solutions will lead us straight there our children depend on you all to get this right so get it right our next speaker is liz custer followed by david blackwell hello my name is liz custer i lived in brentwood raised my three kids at edmondson brentwood middle and brentwood high school i've always been proud of their education that they got
050in williamson county and they're grown and married now and thank you although maybe you weren't a board member at that time i now live in liebersborg have four grand babies and one on the way two of which will be in williamson county schools i'm seriously concerned that the school board would even consider this vaccine issue this vaccine is an experimental children are not experiments they're not lab rats we cannot experiment on our children they there are treatments my father has a compromised lung he's almost 80. he got the china virus he took the ivermectid the other man ma'am i believe it's called coveted 19. please continue he got that and he and she needs to continue please everyone be quiet we're almost done thank you thank you and he took ivermectin vitamin d zinc he's
051fine there are treatments for this disease that are not in being publicized but they're out there and they're very effective so he's fine he lived right through it so dr robertson is correct he has the experience that my father has that backs up the data this is an experiment and it has no place in our school system thank you our next speaker is david blackwell yeah i'm a nurse of 22 years i'm also a case manager with regards to what our schools here in williamson county are teaching my son went off to university of tennessee to study medicine and he said he was in no way shape or form prepared for university of tennessee when he left centennial high school so on that with regards to the mass the maths don't work that's been published
052science on the cdc website for years we called it the mask of shame when hca a corporate for-profit hospital system demanded that they wear those if we didn't take the flu shot this is all about a coercion campaign the ontario nurses association in ontario sued on that and one on the science alone so look into the science look into the ontario nurses association the nasa need to go thank you our next speaker is jenny connolly followed by corey martinez and then laura kleman who is our last speaker so jenny conley corey martinez and laura clayman hi my name is jenny conley and i am a mother of four i have two in college and two in high school and i live in franklin and i have a master's in biochemistry i'm opposed to the schools
053being used to distribute the vaccines children should not be injected with experimental drugs kovit's not a threat to our children i went to the cdc's website today and i looked all deaths from or deaths from all causes from last year 43 258. the deaths from covet were 287 that's 0.7 percent the suicides from kids ages 10 to 14 was 596. it was almost three times the mental health risk is much greater than the death from covid so i'm also taught math in high school before i moved here and i am so i'm going to give you some numbers as well adverse events i went on the cdc website today in 2021 there were three or these are deaths 300 3726 the past 20 years this is from the vaccine adverse event reporting system the past
05420 years or 3995. time okay so thank you there are as many deaths in the past thank you just these few months of the past 20 years our next speaker is corey martinez hello corey martinez here fresh top of the year from los angeles wonderful to be here with all of you so we have a pretty good understanding of what overreach is and i came up here to really address the mask issue but after hearing everybody speak honestly it's more of a common sense issue as far as defining the line between parenting and school board or schooling education rather so the masks definitely mean something to me to speak on because that just symbolizes the compliance to be honest after the science has been proven that our kids don't need to be subject to the
055psychological damage that's that is doing at the moment continued by the politis of the crt and everything that these people are speaking on as well i feel goes along with that you know it starts in the home parenting is very important to to separate from schooling i'll stop there for now thank you so much and our final speaker this evening is laura clayman after ms clayman's remark we will take a 10-minute break so those who want to leave without disrupting the meeting people with small children please go ahead and feel free to leave and then we'll reconvene in 10 minutes after the public speaking portion of the meeting ms clayman hi i'm laura clayman president of the williamson county education association and to end this really long evening and this really really long year i
056couldn't let the year go without saying a very heartfelt thank you to all of you many many late nights i think you guys went past midnight more than once more than once and i know how many hours you have poured into this you haven't said she had to read my 60 page document and the teachers also you helped us survive this year allowing those flex days i've had so many thank yous and teachers who've said really that was the only way we made it through this year so truly thank you also very very much for all you have done for us this concludes our public comment we will recess for 10 minutes board members please be back in your seats at 7 31. thank you okay she just watched us we're waiting on just one
057board member to come back two oh mr hall would you mind stepping out and seeing if you see mr mitchell that's also a vice chair duty first i believe i see him surely you're not waiting on me no not at all not at all so we're ready to move forward with our meeting now the first item on the agenda is the approval of tonight's meeting agenda do we have a motion to approve motion to approve from mr welch is there a second second for mr fiskus is there any discussion i see no discussion thank you thank you for asking mr wimberley and his microphone is not on if you would just mention the question it was asked the question that was asked was if we are using our voting devices tonight and we are okay
058if there's no further discussion we will move to a vote to approve tonight's agenda thank you the motion passes our next item on the agenda is the approval of the consent agenda do we have a motion to approve mr mitchell makes the motion mr ha makes the second is there any discussion board members i don't see anyone having wanting to have discussion if not we will move to a vote via our electronic devices thank you mr king mr king was there something that is there a microphone issue oh it looks like it's on if i may manage turn it off and turn it back on and see how's that is that better okay with the approval of that consent agenda board you've approved the april 19 2021 school board many minutes you've approved the following
059board policy for second reading board policy 1.403 agendas you have also approved a request a physician-supported request for a child to be excused from compulsory school attendance and you've also approved the following tongue twister approval of e-plan applications and budgets for fy 2021 22 142 school federal projects to include esea grants title 1a one delinquent one neglected title 2a title 3a 4 idea part b idea preschool grants idea partnership for systemic change k-12 and carl perkins grant with superintendent authorizations the next item on the agenda is communications to the board and the first item in this segment is the superintendent's report mr golden thank you madam chair and i want to thank our community for coming out and speaking this communication is just one of those great examples that i see as what's wonderful about
060our country that we make sure that with this elected body and us and the work we're doing that our community has an opportunity to to speak to us and one nice thing about where we are right now in this country is there's so many opportunities to share so i want to encourage individuals to continue to communicate with you and with us about about where they are what their opinions are on issues because we are ultimately you know a service organization in the in the way we serve our students madam chair and board i do want to hit four items three of which we talked about significantly at the work session i'm going to just give you a very short synopsis of where we are with our safety protocols and mask where we are with with
061curriculum where we are with fostering healthy solutions and then i'll finish up with a one little extra reminder for us so you all know that i announced on thursday night that we were not asking you to extend the reopening framework that you all voted in in july and i do thank you for going through that process back in july and approving that reopening framework what i told you substantively is that we determined that when school lets out at the end of the day on friday that we determined that there was no need to continue the basque requirement in our schools and we spoke to details about that and i really would like to invite anyone to to go back and look at the recording of the work session so that you can get some additional
062detail related to that but you know that we set the goal of being on campus this year if we could safely do so and we grew and grew over the course of the year and mass were part of that was part of what we put in at the beginning in july the cdc recommended that schools require those to to to return to campus and that was part of that plan that we presented to you we determined now that when we finish school that need will be gone and i recognize that was not soon enough and that has not been soon enough for some but you all also know that's a little too early for others and so we've had to explain that and make sure that people understand while the cdc is still recommending they
063be required 95 of our students aren't going to be on campus this summer and the issues related to social distancing are largely gone and so based on that recommendation we're not recommending that you extend that reopening framework and i also want to let you know a couple of items that were specifically addressed by by members our com of our community number one we are not administering a vaccine vaccine to to any of our students we did send we did send a survey out members of the health department asked us if we had any interest in providing the vaccine to students so we surveyed our families we got a pretty significant response of yeses in the thousands but we also did an analysis of our community and found that they were actually at the time we
064did this 44 different sites where that were the vaccines available so we determined there was no need for us to to provide the vaccine over the summer to our students that is a parent decision i will also tell you we have not at any point required anyone to take the vaccine and we never even implied that we are requiring someone to take the vaccine so i want to make sure that's clear as well in our community finally i know that there is some discussion about the health department we have not received anything from the state indicating that we should require it or that we should do anything with respect to students under the age of 18 making their own decisions they have not suggested that to us i know that there's some discussion in social
065media no one from the state health department has indicated that to us as as as as a requirement felt like it was important for everyone to hear that whatever is out there it has not been directed at us from the state department and so i felt it was felt like it was important for everyone to know that from a from our perspective those issues are optional we've made them optional for our staff we've and it's optional for our students we have no intention of requiring the covet 19 vaccine so second i do want to speak to curriculum and i know that you all and we had a really good discussion at the work session on thursday night about curriculum and a number of you mentioned what i think of us of as there's nothing new
066under the sun we talked about these curriculum discussions that many of our predecessors have had from probably from the time school boards existed that school boards discussed curriculum that is the kind of qualitative discussion that is valuable for our school board our school board over the course of decades has had policies in place related to that and i very much appreciated the discussion i want to let you all know that i really appreciate dr allen and his staff and the discussion they've been having i again encourage folks who are hearing this meeting to go back and look at that work session to review that very in-depth discussion among you and our staff what i want you to know is what we let you know on thursday that dr allen and his staff have been reviewing
067especially the elementary ela curriculum working on adjustments as they professionally deem appropriate and we will have a communication with you at the june meeting of where they are with that and again i very much respect that robust discussion and we're going to make sure that we're professional in everything we do in serving students and do right by our students i also know and you all know this too that it's hard for parents of 40 000 students to disagree and we've known that for decades as well and so we talked about the details of the process the state goes through with a curriculum adoption in the process we go through and then to the point that i've mentioned earlier of our professional staff reviewing the curriculum and then ultimately ultimately the last thing that i want
068to mention is parents do have that opportunity to opt out so we really go from the very macro at the state level all the way to allowing parents to make those individual decisions for their students because we recognize that everyone's opinion can differ on that i am very proud of what we've done and what we continue to do to serve students and help them grow and you all can see some of that discussion as we go back to the to the work session i will also tell you that in these times it is more critical every day to keep constant attention on the materials that our students have with internet access with apps and all those kinds of items the material is constantly evolving we have news apps that provide news and so often that's
069updated daily and so it really is an important element for our for our teachers to focus on to make sure that that what they're teaching is grade level appropriate and we have a really good professional staff that monitors that and keeps an eye on that so again go back and check that discussion among the board be looking forward to a discussion in june about where we are in reviewing that first year of the statewide ela adoption we go through this pretty often cyclically as we evaluate the materials that we adopt and prepare for our students third thing i want to mention is where we are with fostering healthy solutions of course you all heard a number of folks share and again i appreciate that share and we have heard from our families both needs and
070fears about where we're going and we've spoken to this many months but i know we have a lot of folks here at this first public on in person on campus well to the extent we're on campus meeting in close to a year that we are driving our work with our community's needs we don't have a national agenda in mind we're driving this to serve our students and help our students feel safe and that takes attention as well so i appreciate the comments that others have made about that are the fosters have held six of their nine listen and learn sessions they have they the way they structured those those zoom listening learns is maximum at each zoom so that they could so that there could be room for participation if i'm not mistaken we've had
071somewhere around about 250 total participants in the in those first six we have three more scheduled for june 4th and 5th certainly want to invite anyone to come in and share their their what their experiences and their concerns to help us work on this the fosters are also reviewing and have have reviewed our student discipline handbooks they're going to be making recommendations and identify items that they that they saw you know given a different eye other than from those of us who prepare those handbooks finally they are they have completed the receipt of the surveys from families from students from teachers from our parents they're in the process of compiling that we expect them to get the those materials to us in the next couple of weeks and once they we put all that together
072we're gonna make sure that we don't make any decisions without the board leading that you all are our leaders they are not writing curriculum they made it clear and we've made it clear that we are not promoting critical race theory as part of this our state legislature many of our state legislators have spoken to that as well and we are to your to the discussion that you all had as a board really focused on grade level appropriate materials for our students and we will continue to work on that so i do want to encourage folks if you haven't yet participated participate in one of those three final listen and learn sessions or if you have any thoughts that you weren't able to share please send us an email and we'll forward those on to the
073fosters as we work on that final item i want to mention madam chair graduation ceremonies are this week friday and saturday i'm excited and nervous about it because ordinarily graduation ceremonies are inside and so our administrators are watching the weather i will tell you that the weather projections right now show it to be in the high 80s both of those days and sunny so you know that's that's just keep an eye on that i know many of you are going to be coming to some of the graduation ceremonies we've got that structured i think it's going to be neat seeing what it looks like for all our students to have those graduation ceremonies on campus and i am so proud so proud of the work our teachers have done miss clayman thank you for mentioning
074that what a leader she has been for the wcea they have a great team there and i am i am so grateful for the good working relationship we have with our with our teachers association with that madam chair carol birdsong has about 50 student spotlights tonight but i know that's the next item miss birdsong we do have one question on the floor so could i ask you to hold on for just a second please thank you mr cash and let me let me remind everybody before we get started that robert's rules of order state that a person can have up to 10 minutes for a question and mr timekeeper if you will please dust off the timekeeper there mr cash i got you on dan there you go hello there you go okay thank you
075madam chair i've got a question a couple questions for jason they shouldn't take too long jason on the curriculum it's mentioned quite often and sent out in emails quite often about opting children out how does that make these children feel in my opinion you know they're going to go into a place another room with another book or whatever and little fellas and you know i mean in grade school they're gonna wonder why they're being punished before you know they know even what the opting out is about so i don't i don't think that's you know i mean it helps but i don't think that's anything that can help the situation out i appreciate it the second question i had is with fhs the surveys and are we going to be able to as board members
076read the surveys when they come back so i would like ms hall to answer that about the details of that we have we gave numbers at the work session so that we have a few thousand of those from each of the respondents and so ms hall i know that question has been asked if you would i'm listening vicky i turned you on you got me on okay thank you mr cash you will have the opportunity to look at the survey responses there will be a an aggregate like an analysis that's provided to you also the board can request all the raw data if that is something that you want you will have the ability though to see every comment that was made on the surveys all of that will be provided thank you next is
077mr galbraith thank you madam chair just a question for for jason well first first a comment just to the to the crowd about half of y'all have already gone but it was very good to see i'm guessing 150 plus of you all out in the in the audience standing room only for for those i don't know how much that i don't know how well the video would would get across but so my question for for jason so i love seeing this but we're we're here and we're we've got a bunch of people standing room only side by side mask optional so what's the can you just tell everyone the rationale behind continuing the mandate of of mass through the rest of the even the rest of the four days given that we're we're basically saying
078that master options as i mentioned the opinions of our community you know are wide run the gamut we've had folks ask us to to end it immediately we've had others ask us to ask why we're not continuing into the summer so there are a number of reasons we researched it we have professionals working on every detail related to this and as you may recall i mentioned some big buckets when we spoke at the work session about about about this question and so number one when we said our plan to be on campus if we could safely do so the board knew that part of that plan included mask required in the heart of that was if you all recall back to july that we determined that it was important for us to follow the cdc
079and health department guidelines that we could feasibly follow and we knew on the front end that we weren't going to be able to socially distance students and so that was a big part of it the feasible part wasn't feasible with socially distancing but masks were feasible those recommendations that we require mask in school are still in place so that's that's a big bucket that the consistency of making sure that we follow those health authorities languages there and i recognize like i spoke to there are many who disagree there are many who concerned that that we're doing that we're doing away with them when that need of the social distancing is no longer there when the vast majority of our students leave so that's my best big bucket answer that we spoke about on thursday about
080why we are continuing the mask requirement in our schools through the end of this week through the end of this school year because we can't socially distance everyone through while all students are on campus i will also like to to ask mr anderson if he would you know as you know he's been leading this and working with our health care professionals if there's any additional you know any additional items he'd like to mention related to that thank you we are staying with the plan as was originally approved by the board and moving forward through the cdc guidelines the health department guidelines to finish up this year the way we are also didn't want to make any adjustments and changes to what's going on right now during test times and during the end of the school
081year we're just trying to stay consistent and not make any additional changes that would that potentially could interrupt what's going on in the classroom during this last week of school mr m excuse me whoever did that you're out of order this is the absolute final warning deputies if anyone speaks out during any of the remarks during this meeting i'm going to ask you to escort them out next time please okay thank you both where are we elliot i believe you're up hold on there you go okay can you hear me yes thank you madam chair first off i want to thank you for fashioning a method that allowed everybody that signed up to talk tonight an opportunity to do so as that was not not required so i think it was important i felt it
082important to call out the fact that you figured out a way to allow everyone that wanted to talk an opportunity to do so thank you no clapping the other the other point i had jason can you remind me what our protocol is for graduation both on the outside from a from a mask required and distancing and also what is the plan if mother nature isn't kind to us on friday or saturday night sure so number one all but renaissance graduations are scheduled to be outside for the last six weeks or so we have not required mask outside based on some changes in the cdc and state health department information so those masks will not be required and of course as you just as a reminder that's been the case outside for a long time you
083asked carol says stop saying good question but i gotta say it that's a really good question about where we go if we if we have rain number one there are there are schedules for rolling it to the next day to sunday and so if i'm not mistaken dr webb parents have been informed of those alternate dates finally if the rain continues then they will be inside in the gyms that will be mask recommended and it's going to be very much limited because they're the gems and we don't have the capacity for for all the families who could come into the stadiums and dr webb if you would can you give some additional detail about how many family members can come in yes thank you mr golden and so each school has advertised already their rain
084date if we are not able to have a successful graduation on the scheduled date our first priority will be to delay it just temporarily on the same evening if there's a small shower that's coming through our first attempt will be to delay that same evening and graduate the same night if we're unable to do so due to rain we would postpone and attempt to graduate the following day in most cases it's the following day as the rain delay if we are unable to at that point each school will determine the gym capacity we will allow parents to self-seat and maximize our gym capacity based on the number of graduates that we have graduating at each particular school and so the number of tickets that each graduate would receive would vary from building to building but
085we would attempt to graduate inside peacefully and quickly and our gyms are all have the capacity to live stream and so for those who would not be able to secure a ticket to come indoors for the indoor graduation we would allow it to be live streamed and share that broadcast with everyone at home thank you very much thank you i see no other questions madam chair if i may sure one additional thing since there are no questions i want to mention something that i've been in denial about kevin fortney who is our director of facilities in construction is officially retiring at the end of this month this will be the last time he is sitting up here to answer your questions now one of the reasons i'm in denial is practical that he has agreed
086to work on projects for us so we're going through the state process of getting him approved to do some part-time work for us but i do want to thank him i haven't counted him yet but kevin is responsible for building about half of our schools so if you would please thank kevin mr forney would you like to say anything your microphone is on thank you it's not working there it goes thank you mr golden i appreciate that and thanks to all of you too 20 plus years ago i came to work for the school district from the private sector it's been the most rewarding experience i've ever had i appreciate the opportunity that was provided that has been provided and i look forward to finishing up some other things before i finally call up final
087quits to give you an idea of what we've been involved with i've got a department of four and we managed to to figure out how to get these buildings built on time with quality and within budget in the time i've been here i think we have 49 schools right now i've touched one way or another 47 of them so we've had a great time doing it the most rewarding thing is to see children go into either a new facility or a renovated facility i'll share with you one exciting day for me was when we built and opened the old pinewood gym i saw the new pinewood gym we had a little girl a kindergarten girl you understand pinewood never never did have a gymnasium and to see the smiles on some little tykes face faces
088was probably the most rewarding that i've had so thank all of you and we'll go on down the road thank you mr courtney and finally it's carol birdsong's district update time thank you it's kind of difficult to follow kevin trying to be up beating pepe here so but we are all gonna miss kevin a whole lot but at least you'll be around a little bit so anyway board members it is great to be back and i am so excited to be celebrating some students and staff with y'all tonight and this is such a huge honor i want to introduce you to nelson rose nelson is the state of tennessee's 2021 us presidential scholar they pick typically two this year there were three they pick a male they pick a female and this year they chose
089one for the arts nelson is the male representative for the state of tennessee i just want to add that he was able to state who his most influential teacher was nelson goes to brentwood i'd add harriet medlen y'all know harriet we had her here not long ago to celebrate her 50th year of teaching just had to throw that in y'all okay so congrats to nelson his mama is also one of our teachers all right i will move on to robotics y'all we had a great year in robotics this year so this is brentwood middles caitlin arnold and ashley shue their coach is adam petry they are moving on in the robotics competition they got the innovate award and they are a world qualifier for competition in robotics also from ravenwood high school mark bell judah
090benjamin kade henderson owit sadawadi connor tasik their coach is russ hayes their award world qualifier as well tennessee history day yes these are siblings aiden russ austin russ and madeleine russ spring station middle school their coach is christopher herrod and y'all they won twice they won for junior group website and they won for oral history so they're moving on to national competition and i don't know they really do like down south the hold on go back the history day because this is eli martin i think he's that one on that side first place from summit high for senior individual exhibit oh same picture so alicia dinwiddie and jacqueline dinwiddie are also in here and they won for senior group exhibit and sofia hall one first senior individual paper they will move on to national competition
091their teacher is jackie zageltski now we're moving on to science olympiad these are the codebusters from brentwood middle school this is jacob dawn and catherine perez and from woodland middle school these are your botany winners adicha pradeep and vandant mezra then ravenwood high school had several honorees this is eli bullock papa and sophia wang and they were in botany first place in botany first place in chemistry lab amar farah and ryan jordan also ravenwood first place in geological mapping sofia mcatee and aaron wu their teacher april berstetta and some of my favorites as you all know over the years from the national academy of television arts and sciences yes these are the folks who do the emmys from brentwood high school in the student production awards for the state and moving on to the national
092competition noah true eliza lenny and stuart beaton for best public service announcement their teacher is ronnie adcock from franklin high school this is sarah scott best editing her teacher is carrie thompson the next two are from page high school matthew spinning and his best director and joe eaker best photographer terry flowers is their teacher from ravenwood high school this is will stafford best fiction and best writing two awards and this is brooks taylor best sports megan sanchez is their teacher and again they will compete at the national level lots of students this year folks moving on to the national level very very very impressive so let's talk about distributive education this is emily kalinski and in the deca she placed first in principles of finance from brentwood high school also from brentwood high school this
093is mj brown first in apparel an accessories marketing series also brentwood high school you've seen him once you see him again this is nelson rose in human resource management their teachers are lisa niece and melissa bashore and also in deca first place from page high school this is madison slater and emily mckenzie in travel and tourism team decision making tristan brown their teacher from raven wood high school this is meredith sedberry accounting application series also from ravenwood high school harshitha meropali personal finance literacy also from ravenwood high school sydney floyd and parrish rothman in community awareness project and from ravenwood high school omkar opry financial consulting their teacher is shaney mcgee and last but not least from summit high school michaela dubbock and ella mclendon their teacher is rebecca brusher school-based enterprise certification these students
094all move on to national competition and folks we're just not done yet because we are going to now talk about the tennessee technology students association and i don't know we brought home everything i don't know what to say about this but fairview middle school first place in leadership strategy xander mcelroy sofia meese hayden dimanchen and that is their whole group sarah reynolds is their fabulous teacher from page middle school carson woodring cyber security champion from page middle school and you're just going to see all of these students they took a group picture so erica bowman alan fodor abby jones gabriel redding and adia ventra inventions and innovations champions connor parton and ronan nolan one for technical design and then for mechanical engineering erica bowman yong patel ronan nolan seth vick gutton and michael eisen colleen
095lowe is their teacher at page middle school and guess what we are not done with page middle school still in tsa off the grid champions yui tarauchi puja pathoraju virenya katha alan fodor and sloane strickland and for forensics technology sarithi mogan and john v vashita forensic technology now we're going to challengey technology issues yoga patel and satwik and also i mean i'm getting tired also from paige middle school we still have a couple more alan fodor and ariva lalani coding champions and community service video abigail robeldo adini bindra srithika ke komani and gabriel redding their fabulous teacher again as colleen rowe and you're going to hear about colleen in just a flash but y'all we're going to athletics and we're going over to brentwood high school where we are honoring the fabulous shay eggleston now
096y'all might remember shae from last year she is our tennessee state gatorade volleyball honoree state champion state gatorade second year in a row everybody her coaches the fabulous barbara campbell angie noble and kathy cram let's talk about staff i told you about colleen lowe from paige middle school well here we go again she is the advisor of the year for the tennessee technology students association well-deserved with all of the honors that they brought home from franklin high school this is ray sheets the outstanding teacher of american history by the tennessee society of the daughters of the american revolution and you've seen her many times already this year but this is stephanie higgs from crockett elementary and stephanie won the horizon award for the tennessee association for the gifted and this is anna cusselly leah from
097one she teaches at water group in hillsboro she received the curriculum award for the tennessee association for the gifted and last but finally not least emily hollett who teaches at creekside grassland elementary and grassland middle school and she received the curriculum award also from the tennessee association for the gifted wow y'all congratulations to all of our students and staff and madam chair if i may just as a reminder we only report at these meeting state and national awards and years ago i think we started doing that because mentioning so many others were overwhelming but you all know that when we talk about our vision to provide a supportive environment to challenge students to excel in academics athletics and the arts participating in these kinds of activities is huge it helps those students become complete students
098and i'm very proud of all our students and teachers who participate in all these activities and we celebrate the first place but oh my how how much good all these programs do for all of our students and that's my report thank you mr golden we'll move now to the board chair report yes sorry i missed thank you i just wanted to report on that jason try again yeah there you go it's not blinking oh it's live thank you but we had a couple of state champions this weekend the ravenwood boys lacrosse one for the second time in a row and the franklin girls beat the defending champion ravenwood in the state championship so just wanted to recognize them please thank you mr galbraith and we are hoping that we'll have some more athletics to report
099in june as well thank you both now it's time for the board chair report rick and sheila would you like to give a quick legislative report or okay great thank you just wanted to check okay thank you for the for the report that you gave us at the work session it was really helpful appreciate it great so i just want to say as i said at the work session it's it's been one heck of a year and it wouldn't be right if we didn't say thank you to every teacher to every bus driver to every person who works in our cafeterias to our central office staff and to our administrators and to this board i know that everyone has given 200 percent this year it's been a time of challenge being the board of a
100public school system and having a goal of at all times being focused on what is right for all students so it's nice that it's going to be summer and to reflect on this year one thing that i've kept in mind and i read this quote i've thought about this a lot this year this has been a touchstone for me and it says remember sitting in history thinking if i was alive then i would have and the answer is you're alive now whatever you're doing is what you would have done so i've held that close this year i hope the summer will be a time of reflection and a time for us to say you know let's let's move on from the pandemic let's learn the lessons let's look at what we think worked well what
101we think didn't work well and let's end this year with the renewed sense of commitment to each other and to our people who have worked tirelessly for the students of this district as you can tell from carol's report so that's all i have to say please please don't clap that's all i have to say and if if there's nothing else there i think that covered everything we're going to move to new business and the first item on the agenda is the superintendent superintendent's evaluation it's the annual agenda item and board members we did discuss this evaluation our charge is to vote to accept our charge is to vote to accept the results of the evaluation that we discussed on at our work session on thursday night so does anyone want to make a motion mr
102mitchell makes the motion is there a second to accept to accept the evaluation mr welch makes the second is there any discussion if so please press your button yes mr wimberly i think i'd like to say that gosh you know it's been a tough tough year can you hear me by the way i'm reverbing off there you go okay what you missed you've heard before and that is that it's been a tough year i didn't that's not original thought but when you look back on the year that we've had our classrooms open most of the year there have been some exceptions and yes we've had difficult times but our classrooms have been open kids have been in the classroom our scores are tracking well our outstanding achievements are as strong as ever in fact i
103think carol's report tonight may have been as long as public comment tonight i understand mental health cases in the school are about the way they have been in past years williamson inc when they did their state of the county report williamson inc which is our chamber they mention over and over how important williamson county schools and franklin special schools have been to the vibrancy of the county which has continued throughout covet through all of the hardships and the reality is these things don't happen by accident they require good leadership good leadership of a strong team of senior staff of educators of as nancy mentioned all of our personnel of kids parents and i really believe that jason despite all the odds when it comes down to it the things that we as a board said
104were most important you've done real well and i just want to say thank you for that mr welch and well i always like to try and beat rick because he always ends up saying about of what i wanted to stay and steals my thunder that's scary yeah i know it is i don't know who it's scarier for you or me and as usual you did but but there is one other point that i did want to make which you didn't touch on that i think the evaluation this year this seemed to be very different from years past which you know it was so coveted driven not surprisingly but in years past you know we always look at kind of more of the things that rick touched on heavier we did hear as well but but
105that's i think what really dominates it you know where where are we driving the kids it's the wrong term i'm gonna go with it driving the kids in terms of their academic achievement and growth because at the end of the day you know that's the forest for the trees this is what it's it's all about is providing them a world-class education making them critical thinkers and preparing them to be citizens of this great nation that we didn't build ourselves that we inherited from our forefathers and we are left to carry on that tradition for the next generation and so that's why we have public education so we can prepare those citizens who are capable of continuing this great nation of ours all this point to say you know my ramblings are bringing it back is
106you know this year it became much more of a covet driven and not surprised to that and so i think if and that's fine and that's what it is and of course we've got 12 different views on that here on the board we've probably got you know 80 000 different views among our parents i'm sure there's not one of us that sees the exact same and that's finally come together but i want to make this point with it is that the covet plan that mr golden followed was this board's plan i think that's important to to put out it was our plan voted at the beginning of the year that we voted unanimously or i'm sorry not nationally we voted overwhelmingly on that way the only amendment that was offered to that plan was one
107that the majority of the board felt was a bit duplicative and it was had to do with evaluating mask as we went ongoing which is something that mr golden did so with that in mind i think it's just important to call out that missile did not have the authority to deviate from that plan in fact had he deviated from that plan it would have been he would have been insubordinate in violation of the directives of this board and it was would have been a offense that he could have been terminated for the other thing i want to point out is not once during this year did any board member advocate a change to that plan or let me take it back not advocate did not bring forth any action to change that plan at no
108point was there a motion to change any parts of it was there ever a vote there was a lot of talk there was a lot of discussion but at the end of the day doing is doing and talking is talking and there was no doing there was just a lot of talking so i think as we kind of gone all through this and you've taken a lot of slings and arrows i think it's important fair to point out that the plan that you followed to the letter was our plan and we did not change that plan so you followed out our instructions and we can vary on your performance of how you did it but the plan itself again that was us not you thank you mr fiskus thank you thank you madam chair and
109i too want to thank mr golden i do want to thank mr fortney for whenever i've asked to go and visit a construction site he's he's let me do that and he actually gave me my own construction helmet so i've got that in my garage that but as the father of a senior this year of the in both of my children will have graduated will have spent all of their career from trinity elementary through page middle to page high school they have been formed by this school system and your leadership throughout that time i believe you were there you've been here for all of them in one way or another and you did it during this difficult year and my son thinks it was pretty cool that he could do school and do laundry at
110the same time in his pajamas or whatever he got out of bed in at the beginning of the school year but but i do want to thank you and as i looked at your evaluation i did as mr welch commented that how did we perf how did we move through this school year with that goal in mind of making sure that we did the best that we could to make sure that our schools had students in them but more importantly that our students were still achieving academically and that our teachers were still able to do the things that they felt called to do as teachers and i just commend them as well because i was a teacher for 13 years i taught middle school science and high school science never had to teach it over
111a zoom classroom computer and i don't know i couldn't imagine how i would have done that and so we have an awesome team around us behind us here in these seats we have awesome teams out in the 49 schools and so i just commend you for that work all of you i see no further hands raised if not we will vote your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you our next item on the agenda are items related to the 2020-2021 school board budget the first item is approval of general purpose school fund amendment 5.21 sro grant mr golden thank you madam chair this is as we stated at sro grant asked that you approve our receipt of that and move it to the appropriate expenditure line do we have a motion to approve mr
112ha a second from mr wimberley is there any discussion i see no discussion we can move to a vote your vote is 12 yes 0 no thank you board members our next item is approval of the general purpose school fund amendment 5.21 literacy training grant mr golden thank you madam chair likewise this is a grant from the state for literacy asked for your approval for us to put those in the appropriate locations and do you recommend approval recommend approval okay great is we have a motion from mr mr mitchell and do we have a second mr welch seconds is there any discussion i see no discussion then we can move to a vote your vote is 12 yes zero no you board members the next item is approval of the general purpose school fund resolution
1136.21 additional student support services expenses mr goldman thank you madam chair this is one of those items that's very difficult to budget legal services related to special education services and so this is a request to cover some of those expenses for this year and recommend approval okay do you have a motion to approve mr fiskus makes the motion to approve mr mitchell seconds is there any discussion i see no discussion board members please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes 0 no thank you our next item is approval of the general purpose school fund resolution 6.21 trustee commission mr golden thank you madam chair this is one of those necessary expenses that is related to state law that each each budget budgeted group returned some of their received funds to the county trustee so
114recommend approval for this required transfer thank you board members is there a motion to approve ms cleveland makes the motion is there a second miss emerson seconds is there any discussion okay if there's no discussion we'll move to a vote your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you the next item is to approve the general purpose school fund resolution 6.21 esco payment mr goldman thank you madam chair this is the annual esco payment which is the payment on the debt that has actually funded a number of energy related improvements i mentioned to you at the thursday work session that this year we were about 41 000 to the 41 thousand dollars to the good mr samuels and ms farmer are working on a full history of the esco process up to date we recommend
115approval for this and this has been a good project for us thank you is there a motion to approve mr wimberley moves to approve miss emerson seconds any discussion board members i see no discussion please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you our next item is approval of the general purpose school fund resolution 6.21 covid19 related needs payroll mr goldman thank you madam chair these are a number of end of the year requests to cover payroll some of it's related to covet especially super subs and i do want to say super subs have been a game changer for us with substitutes in the in the schools and we did include that in next year's budget as well recommend approval for this have a motion to approve ms apria makes the
116motion miss emerson seconds board members is there any discussion i see no discussion so let's vote please your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you our next item is the approval of the general purpose school fund resolution 6.21 covid related needs general purpose mr golden thank you madam chair this particular item is for for payment of covet related expenses that were not covered by a projected federal money tima and fema state and federal so recommend approval to cover those unbudgeted expensive expenses from the kovageu thank you do we have a motion to approve mr wimberley makes the motion and mr mitchell seconds any discussion board members i see no oh mr mr cash i'm sorry please please go ahead thank you madam chair i just wondered mr golden are we are we ever going
117to get any of this money back we don't project we're going to get any of this money back from from tima or fema i know miss farmers here i may ask her to give a little bit more detail however we did with sr2 right have about six hundred thousand dollars or so that we were able to put into fund balance because our application covered some additional expenses we still have s or three coming that's going to be specifically related to learning loss a percentage of that we're going through the learning process that the state's giving all local school systems related to sr3 we are going to explore with sr3 whether we can cover some of these expenses related to that and miss farmer did i describe that well you did yeah i was just curious
118i mean there's there's a couple million dollars here easy yeah 956 500 to be exact you're correct about that well under the school fund resolution 6.21 to the trustee yes so all that i mean i got you combined those and that's that's over a couple million dollars and i'm just i'm wondering you know if there's any chance of getting that money back thank you mr galbraith point of order madam chair but i've got a couple of messages from people that said that the live feed is down i don't know i don't know if y'all are aware of that if there's anything that you can that we can do about it but or can we can we just can we just let them know that the process that for putting it up on putting the recording
119up on the website is different than than live stream so do you know anything about the live stream not working these meetings are the new it's youtube and channel three comcast when we're in here okay i just kind of just got a couple of messages that said that it's out so thank you for asking that madam chair if i made a mr galbraith's point these are recorded and they will be posted so if some feed was lost it'll it'll be recorded okay absolutely thank you i do have a question mr golden about this so these are things that we found out after the fact that would not be approved correct that's correct these are so what we did with with the team in fema is we applied for everything that we could possibly get i
120miss holman of course who was since retired projected that in her professional experience of decades it was worth applying for but there were no guarantees and so portions were covered by team and fema and portions weren't but some of the things were it was nothing was out of the ordinary it was quite a surprise that we weren't approved for the things we weren't approved for is that right well we just didn't know until we heard so i can ask miss farmer disappointed i think is probably a good word for for those approvals for tima and fema rachel i'll turn it on it's on okay yes yes the only thing that we have gone back we're plot we're in the process of appealing is about 270 thousand dollars worth of expenditures that's feedback we have from
121help at the state through the team office with fema there were a lot of things i think everything when they initially came out felt like they would qualify and if you look expenditures are related to online school apps and internet connectivity which we did get some reimbursement for but not everything and then also some cleaning clean ppe supplies clean extra cleaning all those were items that we felt like would probably qualify or should qualify the need has been so great with fema that they are really restricting what they're paying the state representative actually told us that related to all the cases they filed no one has received payment yet but we finally did get a firm denial and so we are going back and appealing a couple of items just because we feel like that
122they are we don't understand why they wouldn't be approved thank you but i will tell you it's a lengthy process on that too we're still looking the state looks at it has 60 days to hold it and then it's 120 days out with fema so we're still 180 days before we would ever hear anything from the time we do the film thank you miss farmer mr wimberley thank you madam chair so to me i guess the question is what type of effort is it going to require for us to recover for from these expenses well so number one we plan in our budget for what we knew and what we had so this coming year's budget is still on track every bit that we recover is going to be ultimately fund balance and so we're
123going to keep on trying because every dollar matters and you know to miss farmer's point when team of fema has a limited pot it's up to us to press to get the appropriate share out of that pot okay thank you pardon me i see no further discussion board members if you'll please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes zero now thank you and the final budget item for tonight is approval of the 2021-22 revised general purpose budget mr golden thank you madam chair traditionally that's rare that we come back to you for revision to the budget you all know what triggered that the county had a meeting related to the benefits expense per person and that bumped up our expense the county commission budget committee actually approved our budget without additional expense a little
124bit ahead of you because we had this opportunity we added in a proposed reduction to the online school budget because we have firm numbers now after not having had it when we went through the budget process so the net request for you is before you and this is the number if you approve that we will take to the county commission for approval in july recommend approval is there a motion to approve mr welch is there a second miss supriya any discussion mr galbraith thank you madam chair mr golden or miss farmer can can you just can you explain to us where we are in terms of the the need for for revenue and exp revenue and fund balance to cover the expenses that we're showing just as where we are right now it's still i
125know we still got two more months to go but just let us know sure miss farmer we actually had this discussion this afternoon sure there's a couple of things we still do not have sales tax adjusted numbers yet for april we do feel like there will be an extra a little extra money more than what we budgeted for just based on the trend so we do have feel like there'll be adjustment there and going back where the gap we were having at is about 5.7 million after this adjustment we also know that the property tax reappraisal has occurred and they are budget committee is where the county commission is meeting this afternoon and we feel like through that adjustment we will be able to close this gap we feel like it will be covered we
126should have firm numbers in the next by the next month for sure but we're going to but we're going to close we're going to close the gap probably because we usually do but we are we are using the roughly 11 million of the of the one-time increase in sales tax to to make this balanced budget correct it's not necessarily a one-time increase yes but this will be the first year we get it but then it's going forward but we have to budget for that so that's great revenue it's a one-time increase and then it'll be incremental from from there on but yes those funds because we like i said we do have to budget for that and that was included in our revenue number thank you mr golden did you did have you had conversations
127with the with the mayor about that to see if there's a way when they're setting the tax rate if they could allow us to to keep some of that money into our fund balance yes sir i have we are having a meeting concurrently with them and i'm going to give him a call to find out what they talked about my understanding is they were going to talk about that very possibility tonight and if i get any information i'll email you all with some details of that right and just for the record we only we only we only set the expense part we work with the county to to set a revenue number that roughly balances the budget but that's we're a couple of months ahead of the of the county commission setting the tax rate
128which ultimately will determine how much how much money we get thank you thank you i see no further questions we can move to a vote your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you board i believe that was our final budget item yes ma'am all right then we're going to move on to board policies for first reading item number 3604 public records request mr golden thank you madam chair this first item in policies danas brooks shared the detail with you again this is first reading and i'm trying to remember she specifically mentioned this but she borrowed some language from the state processes that she included in this proposed policy so recommend approval for first reading do we have a motion to approve mr hall makes the motion do we have a second miss cleveland makes
129a second is there any discussion i see no discussion board members if you'll please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes zero no our next board policy for first reading is policy 5.100 personnel goals mr goldman thank you madam chair this proposed policy is a new policy specifically paragraph three of that policy is something that's required based on a vote of the state legislature last year and so we are introducing this policy and again for first reading and recommended approval we'll have some more discussion on it next month thank you is there a motion to approve mr mitchell makes the motion to approve ms emerson seconds board members is there any discussion i see no discussion please move to voting your vote is 12 yes 0 no thank you our next item is board
130policy 5.202 separation practices for classified employees mr goldman thank you madam chair again for first reading this is the proposed policy related to classified employees i want to if i may point out a couple of things one in the past months we worked on having a consolidated explanation for our professional employees our teachers this is for classified employees i did have a discussion with ms clayman over for the wca friday morning she reminded me that she does actually have classified employees as members of the wca as well so i failed to point that out at the work session i wanted to make sure everyone was aware of that do recommend approval for first reading is there a motion to approve mr hall makes the motion is there a second miss emerson makes the second are
131there is there any discussion i see no hands raised board members please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes 0 no thank you the next item is policy 6.405 medi medicines mr golden thank you madam chair this policy is is including an add-on to asthma so we recommend approval and i take that back one additional item related to adrenal crises and we do recommend approval at first reading for that those editions is there a motion to approve ms emerson makes the motion is there a second mr hall makes the second i see no discussion let me just give you a minute to raise your hand if you no hands raise board members please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes 0 no thank you mr king next up we have a policy for
132deletion policy 5.3051 families first coronavirus response act mr golden thank you madam chair this particular policy addresses some federal rules and laws responsive to covet there's no longer a need for this we recommend deletion i recommend approval is there a motion to approve the deletion of this policy mr cash and followed by a second from mr mitchell board members is there any discussion i see none please vote your vote is 12 yes 0 no thank you our next item is 2021 2022 late start days mr golden thank you madam chair this as i mentioned on thursday is the time we take proposed late start day information to you we sometimes use the phrase power mondays and these the proposed calendar is there i will tell you ms claiman mentioned this and i know that we've
133had a lot of discussions among our leadership team about finding time for teachers to collaborate we do recommend approval for this but i would be remiss if i didn't tell you this is an ongoing work and ongoing challenge that we're going to continue to work on to make sure that we find collaboration time for teachers we do recommend approval of this the of these late start days thank you board members is there a motion to approve ms supriya makes the motion to approve ms durham makes the second is there any discussion board members yes mr galbraith thank you madam chair mr golden you said at the at the work session i know well first of all i know there's a there's a lot of happy kids who are going to get there and i think
134parents who are going to get their late start mondays back and but you mentioned that you all had a discussion about the about the flex days i just want to make sure that this by by doing this now we're saying that there's there will not be any flex days for the for the next school year that's correct i do not propose any flex days for next school great thank you i see no further discussion board members if you'll please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes 0 now thank you and our last item on tonight's agenda is approval of williamson county schools representative for growth plan coordinating committee mr golden thank you madam chair the growth plan coordinating committee is a product of state law where the county municipalities work on their growth plans
135part of that rule requires a representative from the school system to make sure that they contemplate the impact of their growth plans on schools requires a representative and mayor anderson asked me to serve and it requires a board vote so i do recommend your approval for me to serve as the school representative on the growth plan coordinating committee thank you is there a motion to approve miss emerson makes the motion is there a second mr mitchell makes the second any discussion there's no further discussion board members please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes 0-0 thank you board members that include that concludes the items on our agenda tonight and just for public note for purposes of transparency board agendas have to be published i believe it's 48 hours prior to a meeting with
136all of the business that will be conducted by the board on that agenda and that process was followed i think there might be some people who who might be here or be listening in for the first time that might think something might have been added to the agenda tonight so i just want to make sure that you understand that for purposes of transparency and compliance with the law what's on the agenda has to be published 48 hours in advance i believe that's everything board members any anything else that any announcements from anyone it is good to be here in person board members and staff thank you so much for your service and this meeting is adjourned