001good evening after listening to the board work session from this past Thursday night I felt compelled to address a matter that weighs heavily on my heart the potential resending of the resolution against School vouchers that was voted on by the previous board in March this is more than a policy decision this is a gut punch to Williamson County students as well as numerous staff members who dedicate their lives to nurturing and educating our students during the work session a board member mentioned the importance of maintaining good relationships with legislators and while I wholeheartedly agree that collaboration is vital I urge you to consider the implications of prioritizing political alliances over the well-being of our Educators and students what message will you send to the Williamson County School Community if you choose to resend the prior
002resolution sent to State lawmakers thus supporting the possible sacrifice of our public dollars for the S sake of fleeting political favor as teachers we witness firsthand the struggles our students face we see the impact of underfunding and the disparities it creates resending this resolution sends a signal that you are willing to compromise on these principles and that hurts morale in a profession that is already stretched thin moreover the idea of fostering a good relationship with legislators should not come at the expense of our WCS staff's dedication and commitment our morale matters when Educators feel undervalued and unsupported it directly affects our students learning experiences let us not forget that public education is one of the backbones of our society all WSS WCS staff are the ones who Inspire motivate and guide our students every day
003if we begin to dismantle the guards that protect our public schools and resend a resolution put in place to help protect public school funding then we risk undermining the very system that has the potential to empower every student however together we can foster a climate of Education trust support and pride in our schools however as a newly inducted board if this business becomes one of your first priorities then you will be setting the tone that as a board you are not placing the interests of WCS students above all others in this decision your goal should be to strengthen all Williamson County Schools not undermine them thank you thank you Lisa Salman followed by Tony cell yes my name is Lisa Salman and I'm the parent of four current WCS students and two graduates my topic
004of comment is related to WCS board policies regarding the promotion of business businesses at school events by school sponsored organizations I would like to share portions of an email I sent to School's staff last week I attended the Ravenwood High School football ball game this season and was surprised and Disturbed to see an advertisement for core Civic on the big screen in late August the justice department announced it open an investigation into the conditions at a core Civic Opera correction center to determine if there are systemic civil rights violations students in our schools have civil rights what message does the promotion of this business sent to the community about the schools and the district's commitment to these civil rights course C provides no goods or services for those at school events core Civic sponsorships purchase
005Community Goodwill and Ravenwood is spreading this Goodwill I fear that as a community we have been unknowingly complicit in perpetuating unjust practices through promoting this business several weeks ago a Nashville attorney sued federal judges over a gag order barring him from talking about core Civic he has been prohibited from discussing discussing evidence that core Civic has threatened whistleblowers and retaliated against critics furthermore the Tennessee Corrections commissioner opposes independent oversight of Prisons both the state and core Civic are expending extraordinary efforts and reducing transparency and accountability on matters of significant public importance what message does it send the community about the school's commitment to respond to complaints in a civil manner when its School sponsored organizations are promoting a business that has engaged in retaliatory Behavior board policy prohibits fundraising activities that are not consistent with
006the mission of the school dist school or District a current business's sponsor practices are not consistent I did receive a response from Dr Vaden recently and she said the current advertising of core Civic is in keeping with WC board policies time is up I believe that promoting upholding our civil rights are of utmost importance and for the benefit of all thank you Tony C Follow by Britney Ruiz all right good evening my name is Tony Cil my daughter attends CHS I requested an opportunity to speak this evening after seeing you will vote on resending the resolution passed by the board during this year's legislative session I am completely puzzled why you want to waste time focusing on something that will have exactly zero impact on anything I'm further puzzled by what exactly has as you
007so concerned about the resolution is it that it stated the board's opposition to Governor Lee's efsa as understood at the time and as was being considered in the legislative session which effectively makes resending it meaningless given that the session has ended or that it expressed the board's opposition to any legislation that would create esas or voucher programs in Williamson County both of which only pose risks to funding for our schools or that it further urg the general assembly to one consider the effects that esas or vouchers will have on local school districts and two to seek out additional ways to support and strengthen Public Schools both of which seem hard to argue against if you are advocating for WCS bottom line the only things that resending the resolution would potentially accomplish are making clear your
008intention to allow partisan political organizations to drive your agenda and seriously calling into question whether your Comm to advocating for WCS students teachers and staff please vote against this proposal thank you all right Brittney Ruiz followed by Adeline Elizabeth Miller and I'm going to ask if the audience would please refrain from any displays of support or opposition to any of the speakers I think just out of C courtesy to them that would be my preference so thank you so Britney you have two minutes thank you so much this is my first board meeting and I just want to say it's a pleasure to meet a bunch of you all and I'm happy to be here I'm here mainly because I have kids in the school system currently and I have brought up issues over the
009last two two and a half years and I feel like I should bring it to the board's attention because I feel like it requires a little bit more of a bureaucracy lens to it because that's what the issue is the first one when I say bureaucracy meaning a lot of the issues happen to be from District level not so much the school I should clarify that the teachers are amazing my kids are both I have two girls that are at Legacy Middle School absolutely love that school the teachers are incredible principal is five star I have no major complaints with anybody at that school the issue has to do with specifically the Chromebooks so I have bark app I have apple I have all of these settings so that my kids don't get to access
010inappropriate content at home yet I find out and learn that my daughter through Google AI and Google Chat is able to have and search inappropriate content through Google AI and they're able to make characters they're able to pull sexual content down from there and the only time it gets flagged is if they pull it and save it to a document on the Chromebook so you guys don't even know that they're searching that until they save it to the Chromebook now a lot of those kids are pretty darn smart my daughter included and it wasn't until one mishap where she took the data from Google AI and saved it and then I got a call from the principal like I mean my daughter apparently had been doing it for months and I had no idea so
011I'm just concerned about the content both from Google and YouTube that they're able to access oh my gosh I already have 15 seconds okay and then the other thing is that I would like to take up the issue regarding grading specifically when I bring up like my almost had a failed grade on something or she gets a 43% on a grade I feel like I have to be like a helicopter mom to figure out what was the content that she was struggling at and how do I fix it and now I'm at zero time I'm sorry we need more than two minutes because this is my first board meeting but thank you all for being here and thank you for listening thank you so we have Adeline Elizabeth Miller followed by Kate kees hello my
012name is adelyn Miller and I am the President of my school's B Club a theater kid and an athlete I want to talk about the fact that our coaches and arts teachers aren't getting equal pay so have you ever walked into an Arts classroom and felt unaccepted or felt like someone was going to tell you had to leave for a certain reason no you haven't versus if you walk into a sports team and you're not good enough everybody tells you should leave or you don't get accepted to the team why should teachers who feel make you feel acceptive give you a place even if there's not one available get paid less than people who judge you and make you feel like you shouldn't be there because you're not good enough then there's also the fact
013that if you if you have to at different schools the theater and arts programs are taken differently at my school for example our theater teacher has to pay for her own most times has to pay for her own supplies to get our plays up and running and has threatened to quit because they have not given her the recognition and our theater and arts programs the recognition that we deserve for our plays and versus the sports get everything they ever ask for versus we ask for one little thing and they say you have to get it yourself thank you for hearing me speak good thank you Kate ke followed by Ashley Webster hi everybody my name is Kate Keys I have one graduate and one still in high school at Brentwood High I sent you all
014an email Friday night and I just wanted to reiterate that I'm very concerned about the suggestion that we resend the resolution on vouchers I know that several of you were got significant donations from a particular representative Jake Maman and so I'll be real interested to see if he puts up a vote for vouchers this year to me vouchers are absolutely against everything that public education is for and it's very concerning to me that new members of this board would as the first thing that they do put up a suggestion that we do any anything that undermines the integrity and all of the resources available to Public Schools as someone has said public lunches need to be made available consistently in other states where they've put in voucher programs those have by and large gone to
015parents who are already have their kids in private schools this is not a matter of choice everybody has a choice you can send your kids to public school or you can send them to private school but this is a public school board and your goal is to support public schools and so I hope that you will continue to take that very seriously and do all that you can to get more resources for our Public Schools not less to give our Arts teachers all of the support and resources that they need and I appreciate you're being here and I appreciate all of your efforts but I hope you will continue to work for the strength of public schools thank you thank you thank you Ashley Webster and then Amy Duncan hi there I'm Ashley Webster and
016I'm a resident of Franklin I have two children that graduated from Williamson County schools and my husband also grew up here and went to Williamson County Schools himself we moved down from East Nashville in 1999 specifically for the excellent public schools that we have here and so I'm thankful to you for serving those public schools and I want to ask you not to resend as a new member of the board suggested undoing something that a board that he didn't serve on enacted on a bill that was in front of the state legislature that has since failed so that's old news now like when we see the agenda for a meeting that's what's called past news they passed that resolution based on that particular piece of legislation both of them now are in the past and
017so I encourage you all to focus on continuing to make our Public Schools excellent and if I have anything to say about I just learned tonight that you're thinking of changing the dress code that it would DCT dict ate that boys wear boy clothes and girls wear girl clothes I haven't read into that but I would discourage anything of the sort thank you very much thank you Amy Duncan followed by Paige Perkins good evening my name is Amy Duncan and I've had the pleasure of working with and advocating for the lgbtqia students here in Williamson County for the past four years with an organization called Wilco Iris I'm here tonight to talk about the importance of feeling safe in schools our students are some of the top performers academically athletically and creatively within our schools
018they are Stellar students and they deserve to be protected by policy so they can Thrive and grow just like their peers by removing the words gender identity and sexual orientation from your policies what message are you sending to our students how does this make them feel protected and valued although perhaps and hopefully unintended the message this sends to our students is hurtful and isolating much research has been done on the effect of inclusive policy within our schools and the direct ways that it impacts our students glisten put out a climate survey in 2021 and it says that protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression within school policy provide School staff the guidance they need to appro appropriately intervene and respond the importance of this issue is not only you know about the
019kids in our school being safe but also their mental health and the Trevor Project is another organization that we really respect that put out a survey that said over 45% of lgbtq Youth seriously considered attempting suicide this past year but notably students who found that their school to be affirming reported significantly lower rates of attempted suicide that's a big deal so I know we can agree that our students lives are important and I hope that we can all work together to make them feel included and loved and valued thank you thank you Paige Perkins followed by Angela Frederick all right hello everyone my name is Paige Perkins and I'm a senior at paig high and regarding the new dress code I'm a member of the queer community and I feel the proposed admission of sexual
020orientation and gender identity in the WCS dress code is unnecessary and for me that's because it may be true the word sexual orientation and gender identity may not be as explicit as just saying gender and sex in a relation to close depicting hate speech using the word sex only doesn't Encompass sexual orientation or or gender identity and personally I've never experienced bullying for being queer but I've experienced firsthand The Bullying friends of mine have had and it's not great and removing these words could allow more lenience towards a bullying of queer people at WCS and I feel a better compromise would be to include the word sex but also keep sexual orientation and gender identity and for me I don't feel that this proposed change is about you know like boys wearing girl boys girl
021clothes girls wearing border clothes that's not what it's about it's about clothes depicting hate speech towards the LGBT community or people who are have different or sexual orientation and gender identity so it's important for me that all of these words are enumerated enumerated in the dress code thank you thank you just remind the audience to please refrain from the displays thank you so much Angela Frederick followed by Eve Boger my name is Angela Frederick and I'm the president of the Williamson County Education Association also known as wcea I'm speaking tonight to make clear WCA wca's position on the issue of school vouchers WCS is the economic Foundation of this community taking taxpayer dollars to fund private school tuition would divert much needed resources from our Public Schools as such wcea is opposed to Governor Lee's
022Universal voucher proposal thank you thank you Eve Boger followed by Laura C hi good evening I'm Eve Boger and I help run Wilco Iris a student L and adult facilitated nonprofit for queer youth in Williamson County my comment tonight pertains to the first and final policy vote happening on the dress code which removes clearly stated protections for sexual orientation and gender identity in the policy meeting there was a lot of discussion and uncertainty around whether these categories were protected under current law ultimately the WCS attorney did an amazing job and had to explain to the board that sexual orientation and gender identity remain protected not withstanding the fact that the new title n regulations have been enjoined from taking effect if the board was struggling with the current legal terminology with the benefit of having
023direct direction from legal council then how are our Educators tasked with enforcing this policy expected to know that sexual orientation and gender identity are protected if these terms are removed from the policy what are the board's plans to train staff and administrators with enforcing this policy on these issues removing these categories feels misleading and sends the message that they are no longer protected classes will there be schoolto school training or a clarifying addendum to this new policy for parents and students who aren't familiar with Title 9 it seems like a good compromise to include sex as with title N9 Rec interpretation and also keep sexual orientation and gender identity to be clear to all families and admin on what we're doing with the dress code so we are also happy at wico Iris to serve
024as a resource for you so our students can continue to feel safe and protected at school thank you thank you Laura C followed by Becca Ripley thank you my name is Lura C I'm a Franklin resident and a proud graduate of Franklin High School I'm also here to speak on proposed changes to the dress code policy we have clear existing policies around the dress code that include protections for our LGBT qia plus students it is clear to administrators teachers staff members parents and the students themselves changing the policy to eliminate the specific language protecting students on the basis of quote sexual orientation and quote gender identity for the more ambiguous term sex reduces this Clarity why would we introduce confusion where there currently is none why would we create more work for Williamson County Schools
025Employees including in some of the ways Eve just outlined who are already so busy with the important work work of educating our students helping students in times of Crisis and helping families get through challenging days add to that the almost certain likelihood of lawsuits that this change will lead to by changing the policy you risk wasting taxpayer dollars money that belongs to taxpayers like me given the uncertainty of the election outcome in November an ongoing litigation around Title 9 protections it is more responsible to leave the existing policy in place until we have more clarity about federal policy going forward since we have extra time tonight I'd also like to add my voice to those opposing resending the already passed resolution opposing vouchers nonpartisan Public School advocacy organization socm estimates that the voucher program Governor
026Lee has proposed will cost the Williamson County Schools $ 33.8 Million by year three of the program to maintain the quality of our schools we will have to make that deficit up somewhere that means there's likely to be property tax increas Ines since we are so heavily dependent on property taxes for our school funding as a wico taxpayer it is beyond me why you would vote for an almost certain property tax increase and to harm our schools please make other choices thank you thank you Becca Ripley followed by Addie Ballard hi everyone my name is am I my name is Becca and I have sons who attend grassland Elementary and Franklin high thank you so much for your choice to serve our local communities by Faithfully representing an advocating for our County's Public School students
027teachers and families as is evident tonight I am not alone in my worry that a recision of last March's resolution regarding School vouchers Freedom scholarship act Universal School Choice whatever we're calling it today would undercut Public Schools including negatively affecting teacher morale please don't lose sight of what you're doing this communicates to our hardworking Educators not only do vouchers actually hurt Public Schools rather than help them March's resolution dealt with last session's version of the voucher Bill and tonight we're looking at two more weeks till we have an election why is this time and effort being spent when we don't know what next sessions bill will look like and since I have a whole another minute I would just like to emphatically support everything that's been said about the dress code and making sure that
028we keep every student safe in every situation and these are some dangerous sounding changes so let's keep our students especially the ones that may be on the marginalized side let's keep them safe thank you thank you Addie Ballard followed by basil rmore good evening my name is Addie and I'm a senior at Independence and today I wanted to speak about the prop proposal to remove the words gender identity and sexual orientation from section three of the WCS dress code policy I disagree with this proposal as it is unnecessary in blatantly singling out students a part of the lgbtqia plus Community this will cause queer students to feel unsupported and unsafe in their schools and communities and as a student who already feels uncomfortable in an environment that tolerates hate speech removing these words from the
029dress code only furthers that alienation that students like myself feel overall it's something that doesn't need to be mold over and that time could be used elsewhere thank you thank you and basil rore basil will be our final speaker good evening my name is basil and I'm here to address the proposed change to the hate speech section of the dress code I'm a senior in high school and a transgender man I invite you all to view the Fallout of this proposed dress code change from the perspective of a student that's protected by the language that some of you seek to eliminate I've seen firsthand how fellow teens can not only be prejudicial and cruel to members of the queer Community but also be simply impulsive and attention hungry while sex can be interpreted to include
030sexual orientation and gender identity this is not something that the average child would know the attention changing this rule would get would spur disruptive and unkind students to act out it doesn't matter if these students would actually receive dis iary action by simply just removing this language from the policy kids like this would be enabled and encouraged to act out in a way that would threaten the peaceful School experience of lgbtq students I do not want to come to school worried that some kids stupid stunt would hurt my community this rule encourages or this rule change encourages bullying plain and simple you've heard from past speakers about the effects bullying can have on the mental health of queer teens the seriousness of the ripples this action can affect cannot be overstated please oppose this language
031change and keep students like me safe thank you thank you all right that's our final speaker so I want to say thank you to all 17 of you for for signing up to speak tonight especially the students takes a lot of Courage we will now move to approval of our agenda I do want to point out one change that we had an item the policy change regarding dress code 6 point policy 6310 was on the consent agenda that has been moved to the regular agenda the regular voting agenda tonight so just want to flag that for everyone and I will entertain a motion and a second for approval of our agenda second okay have a motion in a second all in favor we can do this by Voice vote right Bobby all in favor say
032I any opposed okay agenda is approved we will now U go to our consent agenda and I'll just read off the items that are on consent agenda for tonight we have the approval of the September 16th 2024 Schoolboard meeting minutes we have the request for lease of the cafeteria and collaboration space at Legacy Middle School by Skyline church building modification request Centennial High School storage shed building modification request page High School storage shed building modification request page High School Fountain request building modification request page High School lacrosse wall and the recommendation for field trip fee requests is there a motion to approve the consent agenda motion by m Clemens second by Mr Cash Any discussion all in favor of approval say I any opposed consent agenda is approved we will now move to Communications to
033the board and the superintendent's report Mr golden thank you Mr chair and thank you board members for being here and I want to especially thank our public speakers tonight and I said especially thank our public speakers but I want to specifically thank even more directly our students who spoke it impresses me every time I hear from our students their thoughts and there's a little bit of pride in in hearing our students speak for some of them it may be the first time they've spoken in a public adult environment and I continue to be impressed and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm optimistic not just about the future but about our present with our students in our building I do want to speak a little bit to some of the public comment that we've had number
034one I want to make sure that we talk about this regularly that every student needs to be safe in our schools and we address it proactively and sometimes reactively because you really have to have every tool in your toolbox and the proactive part is our school administrators talking to our students on the front end of every school year and keeping that conversation going about making sure that every student is safe and then sometimes we do need to initiate discipline when a student acts inappropriately and I and I know that we have an agenda on the item later but sometimes the federal terminology changes but that basic structure that every student ought to be safe and feel safe will not change in Williamson County and we're going to keep that effort going so I also want
035to encourage our students and our parents the moment you see something that concerns you speak to your administrator because in addition like I said to us speaking to it on the front end and we do need to take action when an when an incident occurs I also want to thank our students who who continue to speak to funding for our Arts staff I will tell you a little bit about where we are the wcea and our and our human resources team I've created a committee to to review where we are we've done a little bit of market analysis is one of the front-end items related to planning for recommendations for for pay next year and what we have seen generally speaking in the Arts is that from a supplement perspective we pay a little bit
036better than our neighbors and so if we are going to make a change it's going to have to be about something internal rather than external Market but I want you to know that we are still working on that with our leadership team and with our teacher team as we make some plans related to that finally Mr chair I want to mention that we have upcoming Community meetings on an effort that we've been putting in to our bus system last year we piloted what we call Hub stops at mil Creek Elementary mil Creek middle and Nolanville high school after having some conversations in three different parts of our County about the appropriate location for a pilot what we found is that having fewer stops in neighborhoods where students can get safely to a bus stop was
037an incredible success in those areas as a result we are working on rolling out that process at some of our other schools we have three upcoming meetings tomorrow night at 6: pm at Hunters b elementary school we're going to have a discussion with Hunter B grassland middle and Franklin High School parents at particular neighborhoods who we have projected out have the capacity to do this Thursday later this week we're going to do the same thing at Perry Creek Elementary School for Hillsboro and Independence along with of course Perry Creek and then next Tuesday eight days from now we're going to have a similar meeting at Creekside Elementary for that feeder pattern for Creekside P Creekside page middle and Page High to work on a proposal for Hub stops the purpose of this meeting is to
038hear from parents especially about issues that we might not notice in those neighborhoods do we if we in the in the event that we do not notice particular things I'll give you one quick example when we did our work last year we had some parent share some concern about a particular road that ran through the middle of a very large neighborhood and the traffic that shoots through sometimes when our buses aren't even there we want to hear those kinds of things from our parents about what they might know about their particular neighborhoods so with that Mr chair our next item is our student staff and school spotlights as a subpart of our my superintendent's report Carol Birdsong thank you superintendent golden board members we have lots to celebrate already so we are going to start
039with yes you know about this but our national Blue Ribbon School we have not honored them at our school board meeting yet so this is Chad Walker principle on that side in the white shirt and Daniel fosi the assistant principal congratulations to Jordan Elementary School they now make us top us out I think it's 17 Blue Ribbon Schools across our district this is Ashley she is at brenwood high school perfect ACT score and y'all we already have athletic state championships so this is the Woodland Middle School cross country team these these fellas won in the class doublea their coaches Andrew Swanson and across town in girls daa the Heritage Middle school team won the state championship in girls cross country Jeanie par their coach in volleyball this is Brentwood Middle School's girls volleyball team and
040they are your state champion Deja love their coach at the high school level y'all we are State Champs in boys and in girls at Brentwood High School they are your boys golf team state champions Chris Saunders their coach and across town at Paige High School you got your girls golf state champions Jamie IOP their head coach now these celebrations were announced earlier this fall but we haven't had the opportunity to honor these staff members this is Steve Brock and he was named the tsaa coach of the year for boys track from Brentwood High School also Kristen Young from brinkwood high school Nam tsaa coach of the year for boys tennis and Independence High School Mark Wilkins was named coach of the year for boys basketball and you all may or may not have been able
041to meet Steven wack yet but Steven wac was named distinguished School administrator by the Tennessee Association of school librarians congrat congratulations to all of our students and staff members okay do we have any questions from the board for Mr Golden I see none so we'll move on to board chair report and all I'm going to mention tonight is is really a thank you to the board for the Public's benefit we had a board planning session this afternoon where we spent four hours together as a board talking about the upcoming year our goals some of our processes our board Norms how we want to work together as a board some issues that we know are coming down the road that we want to be prepared for talked about our strategic plan and gave an update to
042our new board members about that so just want to make the board or make the public aware that meeting took place I thought it was a really productive time and want to thank the board members for indulging Us in that we have one comment from Mr Welch thank you actually want to go back to superintendent report and Mr Golden do you happen to know what percentage of schools qualify as Blue Ribbon Schools nationally I don't know the exact number but it's quite rare it is the it is the Premier award for schools right this year there were six in the state of Tennessee the National Blue Ribbon program started in 1982 and in the last seven years if I'm not mistake I'm trying to catch Carol bird song's eye I think we've had at least
043one every single year pretty incredible run and so 17 so about a third is that's right amazing thank you yep okay any other comments questions okay let's move on to new business the first item we have several things under our 2425 School Board budget first one is the approval of the general purpose School fund Amendment 10.24 Innovative School model grant grant Jason do you want this or you want to go to Rachel first I'll I'll speak to it and if there are any questions we can turn it over to Rachel thank you Mr chair this is the funding we received from the state for the Innovative schools model grant that we're asking you to move from last year's budget to this year that is a project we're working on to build an Innovation Hub on
044the north side of Franklin High campus it's moving the funding again from last year's to this year's for for spending purposes okay do we have a motion Mr Cash in a second Mr Beasley any discussion because this is a budget item we'll take a roll call vote on the device so please record your vote Mr bosik your still may not be working can you give us a verbal vote Yes okay thank you the vote is 12 yes Zer no thank you the U funding is the amendment is approved number two we have the approval the general purpose School fund Amendment 1024 State special education preschool Grant thank you Mr chair this is a grant including some funding from last year and a grant this year to partially fund our program for students with disabilities age
045three and four before kindergarten and this again offsets some of the spending we have in that program do recommend approval do we have a motion Mr Wyatt moves it in second by Miss Clemens any discussion okay seeing none we will go to a vote on your device Mr boset the vote is 12 yes Zer no thank you the amendment is approved next we have the approval of the education capital projects Fund in category transfer for Hillsboro k38 renovation thank you Mr chair this is a proposal that's in conjunction with our 5-year Capital plan to prepare for some renovation at Hillsboro School which is a prek well it's actually a K through 8 at the moment this proposal includes architectural and Engineering work to prepare for the substantive work and the proposal includes funding this out
046of contingency money prior to us making request for the full project cost from County Commission okay do I have a motion Miss edma second by Miss Reeves any com any discussion Mr galberth thank you Mr chair Mr Golden remind me or remind us all the what's the approximate cost going to be that we're that was I'm assuming it was in the Capital plan it is in the 5year capital plan I'm trying to catch Brian's eye off the top of my head we've got it in our documents Brian I believe it's somewhere around 3.5 million something like that let's look it up because I don't want I think I have a number but I don't want to say it publicly if it's wrong so well you make me feel better for not knowing off the top
047of my head well as we're sitting here none it's funny because I had pulled that up during the work session and I just can't remember I may be a little low but the presumably the the cost that would be that would be in the capital plan would have would have included the architectural fees so it's potential that we've got a little bit of cushion based on what we what we have in there that's exactly right Mr King oh I'm sorry he was noding to your second question 8 million 8 million so I apologize for even tossing a guess out we Project 8 million but again the architectural work and Engineering work will project that's what we had in our 5year Capital plan as a placeholder gotcha and help me I guess I thought it was
048in here but what is what is the project itself it just says that the work is part of the private Capital plan it's Renovations some some some major renovations to Hillsboro School Brian yes sir thanks for the question Mr go a lot of our renovations are kind of minor stuff where Ceiling Tiles and Floors and that kind of thing this one is actually going to be a quite bigger project because we're going to redo the front entrance based on our safety team's evaluation and some other things we're going to redesign that the entry to Hillsboro Elementary Middle which is why the cost is high and it also includes Plumbing HVAC evaluation of all those as well so at least at least that part is to is to kind of get it up to up to
049up to our code AS relates to student safety and the entrance and yes sir right thank you all right I see no other discussion so we can proceed with casting our votes Mr bosic the vote is 12 yes Z no all right the transfer is approved item four approval of general purpose School fund resolution 11.24 for buses thank you Mr chair this is our annual request for buses with a proposal to to fund it out of fund balance I want to give you a little bit of specifics related to that our numbers have been of students have been fairly stable we've done an evaluation of our gen general education buses 10 general education buses have to retire this year based on the state requirements we actually propose to replace them with six because our mechanics
050have become more efficient with their work in part because we've actually staffed it on the other side of the equation we are going to need to retire two special education buses and we are making a request for the replacement of those two plus four additional special education buses based on the increased demand so the net result is actually a request to have the the U a total of of of of of 12 new buses in this proposal can I get a motion and a second on this resolution motion by Mr Beasley second by Mr bosk any discussion and I do have a question Jason just for clarity this item one approved will be going to the County commission for their approval that is correct we anytime we have a request related to fund balance it
051requires both your approval and County Commission approval all right thank you all right I see no other comments we can proceed to a vote Mr bosik yes the vote is 12 yes Z no the resolution is approved item five approval of general purpose School fund resolution 11.24 inter cat inter category transfer for salary 24 and 25 thank you Mr chair this is a proposal to move the other salaries and wages and supplements from the pay increase that the County Commission approved after you all proposed it to the specific categories within the budget as you mentioned this is a an inter category rather than an intra category move but there was no new money proposed it's just moving what was already approved all right can I get a motion motion by Miss Clemens second by Mr
052bosk any discussion seeing none let's proceed to a vote Mr BOS the vote is 12 yes Z no all right the resolution is approved approved that gets us through our Schoolboard budget items we'll now move on to board policies we have four of these for first reading followed by one for first and final I'm going to for starters turn it over to Mr galberth for any kind of discussion or readout from the policy committee and then we'll take each one up one by one thank you Mr chair the first first policy up for first first reading tonight is policy 4301 inter Scholastic Athletics just a just a brief a brief intro and then Dana I'll ask you if you have anything to add but the change we're making is down on page three lines 42
053through 44 essentially that allows for the those those clubs who are using using the name school colors a mascot of WCS to be included in communication and recognition by by both the schools and the district so how do you want to I guess do you want to do we need a motion and then we'll need a motion in a second to get it on the floor for discussion if is there any more overview that's needed for that okay I don't think so for policy 4301 can I get a motion motion by Miss Clemens second by Miss Reeves all right any discussion on that policy inter Scholastic Athletics as explained by Mr gorth Mr Welch I guess I'd like to hear what is the first off I like it great addition and to recognize some of
054our kids that play for their school are for our schools and you know wear the colors and everything else so give them their due just not exclusionary just because it's it's not a twsa played elsewhere can you help me understand the criteria though can anyone who just suddenly names their Sports and we's the right colors you know what is I guess what is the application process if you will because I love the concept but I guess I'm wondering what guard rails are there you know if someone want start the quiddit team tomorrow and we start doing that because three kids are involved or what have you and they declared themselves state champs well thank you for that we have a we have another policy that describes club-based Sports and that so 's a reference there
055to club sports and there is some criteria for that which would be some nonprofits and if I'm not mistaken Miss osbrook at the at the policy committee that was included in the in the discussion some of the criteria for club sports so are you good okay that's right yep you would like to go oh no the but but well the core of it is that generally speaking club sports are nonprofit entities that put together teams based on their organization standards not WCS standards but theirs generally speaking it's run by others who who do not specifically use our name with permission because we haven't copyrighted our school names but generally speaking fit that definition that we've established within that policy all right I see no other comments just as a reminder this is first reading so
056this will go back to policy committee one more time and then be back before us in November for final vote all right let's proceed to a vote staff I do recommend approval for first reading Mr Bostic the vote is 12 yes Zer no all right the policy is approved on first reading policy 4.49 on online learning yes so this is also for for first reading and this is kind of technical so but I'll ask Dana if you want to to give an overview of what we're what we're accomplishing here for this sure so online learning program has been the program that WCS has had even before our Virtual School Vanguard and what is a recent change is that the state of Tennessee is now providing Accredited Online programs so we have updated policy to reflect
057that as well as how our students who participate grades 9 through 12 in our online programs can pick the courses and how that's done the other piece and it may be on the next page is oh nope sorry was at the very end is updating and reflecting our change regarding grading and how the online courses through our online program will be reflected on transcripts and calculated within a GPA thank you all right can I get a motion motion by Miss Wyatt second by m Reeves any discussion Mr Welch so the grade acquired in the online course outside of WS would count same as a WCS grade okay thank you was that a yes yes okay any other discussion Mr Golden do you have a recommendation do recommend approval thank you let's proceed to a vote
058Mr Boston yes the vote is 12 yes Zer no all right the policy is approved on first reading number three we have policy 4. 6051 credit requirements for graduation thank you Mr chair also for for first reading several things here and I will try to hit them all and Dana you can see if I miss anything but we're making several updates here one for the new how the new computer science course is going to be reflected whether it can take a math or a or a science graduation requirement there's an update to the J TC substitutions and then some some language where we were updating with regards to our other policy that we're talking about a club sports there's there's some language around what qualifies for the half a point of P2 credit and then
059oh sorry the computer science is again there for at the bottom did I miss anything Dana the only other piece I will point out the part in red was updated after the policy meeting and that is what you mentioned Mr galberth the club sports but on the last two pages of the policy High School courses taken in middle school we are updating the grade to 60 or above and changing from both it's for each semester and that will be recorded on the high school transcript with the earn letter GR and the corresponding GPA all right can I get a motion motion by Miss HMA second by Miss Glens do we have any discussion seeing none let's proceed to a vote Mr Gold do recommend approval thank you hey it worked the vote is 12 yes
060Z no all right policy is approved on first reading item number four policy. five sorry 5104 Equal Opportunity Employment there's there's a this is an administrative change that we're we're looking at making updating for a specific case reference and Dana I think we'll let's talk about this one and it'll all also be related to somewhat to the to the change that's being proposed to to the dress code and the and the other policy but we you want to take this one first then we'll talk about how they're how they're different sure so this is the Equal Opportunity Employment policy this applies to Personnel so this is this is regarding our staff and this is under the federal law title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 so with that I was asked by a
061board member to review this policy in light of some recent changes regarding Title Nine and litigation and to see if that we wanted or or recommended any changes I do not recommend any changes to this policy other than the case that is in blue at the bottom which is Bostock versus Clayton County Georgia this is a case US Supreme Court case June 15th 2020 was when it was decided and that case held that firing individuals because of their sexual orientation or transgender status violates title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the statute I talked about just a second ago that deals with employment because that is a Prohibition on discrimination because of sex we've had some conversation about whether changing the wording and just deleting that piece as well as pregnancy because all
062of those you have to be a certain sex to occur would that be sufficient I've discussed that at policy as well as our work session Human Resources assistant superintendent Vicki Hall and I made this recommendation back in 2021 to include that language because there are some instances where using the word sex is not going to be that in and of itself is not going to be enough there's a couple of instances dealt with in the US Supreme Court case and some examples that I'm confident we will talk about during Second reading but at this time legal and hr's recommendation is to not make any changes other than the addition of the legal reference at the bottom all right do I have a motion motion by Mr Welch second Mr Beasley any discussion Mr golden recommend
063approval all right let's proceed to a vote again this is on first reading the vote is 12 yes Zer no policy is approved on first reading we'll now move to item C board policies first and final reading this means we will votee on this tonight and that will be the only reading and discussion of this particular policy change and that's related to policy 6310 on dress code thank you Mr chair yes as we as we discussed this the change here is to update this update this the language here to to reflect the recent changes in in interpretation from I think we're we're updating a couple of legal references here in the TCA as well and so Dana you want to you want to take this and talk about the specific changes sure okay hang with
064me for a minute we're going to have a little history lesson so we updated the dress code policy in 2023 and during the process of updating that policy during our policy meeting and work sessions I was asked about the language that's now a striketh through don't move it to him on number three sexual orientation and gender identity and I was asked specifically where did I find that language and why is it included so I give you that history to say this in there are several different regulations that I review as one of the lawyers for the district when drafting policies one of them is called the federal registry it is where the Department of Education Federal Department of Education provides guidance regarding the interpretation of regulations and in this particular case the one that I
065relied on in 2023 was the enforcement of Title Nine with respect to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in light of Bop versus Clayton County Georgia you may recall that is the case that I just talked about under employment that is title 7 which was decided in 2020 in 2021 this interpretation in the federal registry was had basically the effect of law OCR and the department of US Department of Education said school districts you are responsible for not discriminating based on sexual orientation and gender identity under Title 9 and we are using the Bostic case under title 7 as the basis for that interpretation therefore we put this language in this policy couple of things have happened since this policy was updated in 2023 the first one is that in August of 2024
066there were to be new new title 9 regulations that were to be implemented they came out in April of 20124 school districts were given a couple of months to begin that process Williamson County Schools began the process of looking at how to implement and before they could be implemented in August the attorney general for the state of Tennessee along with some other states filed an injunction The District Court actually in Kentucky as well as the six circuit at this point have enjoined Tennessee from following the 20 the new 2024 Title 9 regulations giving you all of this history because the Federal Register the department of Ed the enforce M piece that I read to you a minute ago now has a giant red statement on it that federal courts have vacated this document the document
067I relied upon in 20123 and enjoined the US Department of Education Office of civil rights from implementing or enforcing this document against certain States the state of Tennessee is one of those States it's a long history lesson to say when I was asked in September of this year by a board member to review this policy I looked at the guidance I had previously relied upon to discover that is no longer guidance that the US Department of Education or the office of civil rights will enforce and in fact there's a federal ruling that they cannot enforce at this time that is why you see a difference in this policy compared to the employment policy because that law is still the supreme law of the land by the US Supreme Court I will say one more thing
068after my lengthy history lesson sorry at this time the case before federal court involving the state of Tennessee is still pending I may come back to this body and say based upon the order of the six circuit which is a circuit we're in or a US District Court we need to change this policy again but today sitting here based upon my request from a board member that is why the legal recommendation is to make this change again I will Echo what superintendent golden said our expectation with enforcement is that this is gender neutral that language remains just this language is changed because of the interpretation that has also been changed thank you for that explanation can I get a motion in a second to get this on the floor sure motion by Dr Johnson second
069by Mr Bostic any discussion on this item I hope I got that right Dana I do have a question for clarity so is it fair to say Tim if we could go back to the language on the screen again please is it fair to say that in section three there where the strike through has been done and the word sex has been added that language reflects as written reflects what's in the federal gu Federal Regulation or federal guidance yes it does at word for word more or less yes yes okay thank you any other questions comments all right as reminder this will be first and final reading so our vote will be final let's proceed to a vote I do recommend approval thank you the vote is 11 yes one no thank you the policy
070is approved all right item D approval of the Tissa accountability report year two Mr Mr golden thank you Mr chair when Tissa passed a little over a year ago we're actually in the second year of Tissa they included an accountability requirement that's manifested in this particular document the Tisa accountability report this is the second year we proposing this and it includes three goals that the state of Tennessee has asked us to propose one of which is actually required which is third third grade ELA proficiency we've actually met the state required goal for for that and we've actually raised that goal a little bit our three goals are third grade ELA proficiency Algebra 1 proficiency and an increase in our percentage of College and Career ready numbers do recommend approval to you one other comment related
071to that I mentioned at the work session this particular accountability report does not drive our work but it reflects our work and so we included those goals based on the work we were already doing thank you can I get a motion motion by Mr Cash second by Dr Johnson any discussion all right I do have one question Jason is there any particular funding specific funding that's tied to this turning in of this report or is this just a formality there is no funding tied to it we do actually have to describe how we're using some of the Tisa funds for the goals but we do not receive any funding as result of us giving them the document all right thank you okay I see no further discussion let's proceed to a vote the vote is
07212 yes zero no all right the report is approved next item approval of two replacement science textbook committee members Mr golden thank you Mr chair last month you all approved the science textbook committee and it includ included a teacher from every school we actually have two requests for for Corrections one we missed a particular teacher listed in the in the meeting last last month and second one of our teachers actually requested to step down and we are recommending a replacement we are at the very earliest stages of this work and based on that we want to make sure that we have a teacher represented from every school so I am going to recommend approval for this change all right can I get a motion motion by Mr Beasley second by Miss Clemens any discussion all
073right let's proceed to a vote the vote is 12 yes zero no committee members are approved and our final agenda item for the evening is the approval to resend the previously adopted board resolution from March 2024 regarding the education Freedom scholarship Act this item was recommended by a board member brought forward by board member Dr Driggers I'm going to call on you sir to give any explanation you'd like and then we'll get the motion on the floor and have a discussion thank you chairman Brown last March the old board passed a resolution not unanimously but but badly split 75 it opposed the governor's proposal for the education Freedom scholarship act I was at that meeting when it happened and I thought about it for six months and then I thought we should raise the issue
074the old program was never approved we have a new board half of the board has been replaced that's a rather large number and we heard last week and just today that the governor will bring this out in January as number one or number two on his agenda for the general assembly which will hear it again but it will be a revised program they've been working on it so it occurred to me that I don't want my hands tied going forward by an old resolution it's no longer valid so I'm asking the board to vote for to resend the March resolution and wait and see what we get out in January or February then read it analyze it discuss it and come to a conclusion the other we have to deal with the legislature and we
075have to deal with the office of the governor so let's see what they come up with and we'll deal with it as do I think they're superintendent golden we have 147 school districts yes sir yeah we're only one of 147 so and it largely does not impact Williamson County doesn't impact it impact Davidson County Shelby County Hamilton County and some of the rural counties but it doesn't not Williamson County and if we oppose the this plan this program we are condemning those counties with poorly performing schools to stay that way they have no way to get out of a failing school into a better school no that's why I raised the issue I return it to you all right let's with that explanation let's get this in the form of a motion please and then
076we'll proceed to a discussion if you need move this board resend resolution EFA 03824 which express the old board's thank you Le Eagle okay I move to resend the resolution adopted on March 18th 2024 which opposed Governor Lee's education Freedom scholarship act by an affirmative vote of 74 five against it's one sentence all right that's proper motion do we have a second second by Miss HMA okay motions on the floor do we have any discussion Dr Johnson did we make a resolution against the third grade retention law did the school board at the time yes I don't know okay and what was that vote does anyone remember was it 7 to5 or was it as I recall it was unanimous but I it could be it was either unanimous or very close to unanimous cuz
077you know my concern is us getting into the business of doing resolutions if we're going to people who are against vouchers what I'm going to say is you've got to fight that at the state level so but just wanted to know if we did cuz the third grade retention law to me is doing more harm you know to Children than like a voucher system would do so was just curious about that thank you thank you any other comments Miss Wyatt I will vote against resending the anti voucher resolution because I in favor of our students teachers staff schools and local economy there is no information that leads me to believe that a voucher program will help Williamson County schools and our over 40,000 students and 7,000 staff hear me say though I am hopeful hopeful
078that our legislators will carefully consider the impact a voucher program may have on our Public Schools I am hopeful they will also consider ways to better fund and support our Public Schools I am hopeful for our students and teachers they deserve our very best efforts and I do not see how we sending this resolution supports them thank you thank you any other comments Mr Welch thank you so when I heard about this I was sort of a vote to resend a board resolution first thought was what does that even look like I've never had seen that before which you know maybe goes back 14 years for for me we've never seen a board do that but so I contacted our former board chair Mr Anders Gary Anderson who's 30 years with the board I asked
079him if he had ever seen it as well said no not in his 30 years representing this District or as as a administrator for another District where he was a assistant superintendent contacted our former superintendent who's now in Georgia and asked you have you ever heard of this and he was rather shocked and you know is that even possible I contacted our former assistant superintendent who like for was a Tennessee superintendent of the Year from neighboring County and hers was the same response I asked Dr Snowden Franklin Special if he had ever heard of that and he hadn't either reached out to tsba to see if they had ever heard it in the state of Tennessee and not that we can't do anything but pretty unprecedented that we're doing what let's sort of set the
080table with that what we're doing is unprecedent by the board has never done done before and doing it within 30 days of a new board being seated so I think that's a message to the community that this is the priority that this board wants to focus on this this is our top issue item right here not funding where we had to cut our budget three times last year and we've got high school seniors that are using 5-year-old Chrome books that have a designed threeyear lifespan not school safety not construction or anything else but we're going to talk about wanting to be neutral on vouchers which this is anything but neutral just the politics around it is anything but and that you say this is the clear priority and I guess I wondering where it's coming
081from too because it was not anyone's campaign issue that they were going to lead on and made a big thing you know put me in and I'll bring this up immediately it certainly hasn't come from our teachers and it certainly hasn't come from our parents we heard all the public comments tonight we saw saw all the emails as well they were very clear that they're opposed to this so where is this coming from who is it who is it representing to miss Wyatt's question how is this Pro WCS how are you doing this on behalf of the district and I haven't heard a reason for that I went back and watched a lot of the Arguments for it from the work session and then tonight one it was not unanimous so it wasn't I wish
082it was but it wasn't we voted we had our disagreements we moved on ironically the vote to bring vouchers in Tennessee wasn't unanimous either the vote was split and then it was held open by a legislator who's now in prison who promised promotions in order to flip people Mr Welch can you speak to the actual resolution I'm speaking to the resolution please don't inter interrupt me again Mr chair excuse me the no I am I am the chair I know you're the chair inter I'm asking you to speak to the I am speaking to resolution on the floor I'm talking about the history of the voucher and how it came in and one of the arguments was that it was not unanimous call for question that's inappropriate inappropriate you can have a point of order
083if you'd like to raise a question about something but we can't we can't entertain a motion when someone else has the floor Mr I have and I have suggest that we get back on the actual item thank you the second argument was that our hands would not be tied your hands aren't tied nobody's hands are tied it's a false argument the resolution specifically spoke to a bill from the last session that failed and it talked about specifically in Williamson County nobody's hands are tied here based upon going forward for it largely doesn't impact Williamson County Schools the governor has indicated he would like a universal Voucher Program let's do the math on that there's 100,000 students currently in a private school in the state of Tennessee that's about 10% the previous voucher was $7,000 that
084700 million in additional spending to maintain the status quo before one student is moved that's not going to impact Williamson County Schools the sponsor of the previous Bill the sponsor described the bill as throw the entire school system in the trash Mr Welch including Mr Mr Welch I'm going to insist that in your comments you don't refer to anyone else in public office in a derogatory way this motion Mr Brown this motion is about whether or not to resend a previous action Mr Brown Can Tell me can you identify the derogatory statement I said about an official bringing up comments made by public officials for the purpose of criticizing them out of quoting the official is out of order am I not quoting the official are for the purpose of criticizing them am I am
085I am I ask again thir Mr Welch I'm going to turn the microphone off if you don't proceed to specific that'll be your choice point about this motion that's on the table were the this is not a and I'm addressing each of them spe this is not about the merits of vouchers for or against this is about whether or not a resolution should have been passed by this board and these were the arguments for it and I'm addressing those Arguments for it I'm going to give you two more minutes to wrap it up please please that's fine I also don't think we should be condemning counties by name I don't think we should be referring to our colleagues Hamilton Davidson and Shelby as as Rotten School Districts for whatever that is it's probably not what
086we want to go down the road with as a board we started this meeting off talking about our Blue Ribbon School one of 17 and perfect ACT scores and state champs and coaches of the year and now we're trying to wrap it up by making a again an unprecedented motion that correct me if I'm wrong but can anyone tell me what the focus and the benefit on this actual school system this actual children is I'm still waiting for that argument so for those Reasons I'm I'm a solid no on this because I think it sends a clear message to our parents and our faculty and it's not a good one thank you Mr galberth thank you Mr chair I am I was hoping to hear some some more I did listen to all the all
087the comments on on Thursday night so I appreciate those I mean I think the the reason the reason we're having this discussion and I you know if I had my way I I wouldn't be I wouldn't be bringing bringing this up for to resend but the reason we're here is specifically because we took unprecedented action in in March by throwing aside our historical manner in which we dealt with these non-binding resolutions that we sent to the legislature and we I see honestly I see both of these actions as as largely political it was political in in March when we when we threw that aside to to go about to go about this original resolution to make a point even though there was no consensus among the board and it was a 75 vote which is
088about as close as it gets and so now it's it's not it's not surprising to me at all that we have a large change over on board and the the now board looks looks and says hey that decision doesn't reflect and it and it's because you know we never really we never I don't I don't begrudge us having a vote but we never should have sent that split decision if you will to to the legislature to represent to represent the board and obviously it operates by a seven 7 to five majority the what I've what I recommended this afternoon was that we in dealing with board Norms is that we do put a put a number on this and actually put it in policy it wasn't in policy it was a longstanding tradition but I
089hope that we will be able over the next couple of months to to put this in policy so that we have a number by which below which we would not we would not send the recommendation or or whatever resolution to our legislators and so if we can I'd love to be able to hold ourselves accountable going forward and so if I had my way we would put off this decision until we made that policy but even then it seems like it's a I don't know we're we're kind of resending one bad policy with a with a with a wrong action here it seems like two wrongs don't make a right and I don't know so I don't know which one to decide on quite honestly so I don't have a I'm I don't know where
090I'm where I stand on this Miss Johnson since this resolution was made toward the previous legislation is it even still in effect okay so it is okay M Reeves the resolution be put up on the screen because I think it says in any future school choice legislation yeah I was trying to do we have that Tim I don't think I have it unless Jason has it I can actually I can actually read it to you we had we had a hard copy you know at the work session so I apologize for us not having electronic copy in the on the agenda packet I'll read the last two paragraphs the actual resolve resolved the Williamson County Board of Education opposes Governor Lee's education Freedom scholarship act as currently proposed or any legislation to create educational savings
091accounts or voucher programs in Williamson County Tennessee be it further resolved that the Williamson County Board of Education urges the Tennessee General Assembly to consider the effects that education savings accounts or voucher programs will have on local school districts and to seek out additional ways to support and strengthen Public Schools does that answer Dr ders before I come to you I'm I'm going to just make one point one observation Mr Welch in his comments made a point about doing this considering this resolution or this proposal in instead of a Litany of other things and I want to just take a take exception to that this board always takes up multiple things the proverbial we can walk into you g at the same time just because this is on the table for discussion brought by a
092board member doesn't mean we're not going to take up any number of other things that this board has responsibility for so I don't think we should make it about spending time on this to the exclusion of other important things because that's clearly not what this board is doing Dr Driggers I didn't write down all the comments but a couple a recision is a very common action taken by a board to revoke or cancel anull earlier action it's largely used in real estate deals but we are Guided by Robert's Rules it's in there six different places I discuss this with our three legal councils it is legal it is appropriate the way we are doing it four of the candidates four of the six candidates who won their election ran publicly for more than six months
093on this issue so it was out there in the media reports it was all there and we are concerned concerned with Williamson County so I am not going to deny the parents in Williamson County the chance to help their kids that's all I have all right Miss edma yes for me it is not about the merits of school choice whether this board individually agrees with school choice or doesn't I would like to see we take a neutral stance simply because when I went campaigning there were parents who really want to have school choice for their children and they have specific needs and others who opposed it and as their representative I that's a one of a major reason why I think that's a good idea I also believe that Williamson County Schools currently we get
094about 30% % of our taxpayer taxes return to us from the state and I believe this is an opportunity for our government to to work with that and get some more of our hard-earned money back into our school system I also know that in the last decade the general assembly has spent what was the amount three .5 billion do in the last decade towards school funding for teacher pay and other things and I know that they are dedicated to continue to funding our schools and Williamson County has great schools and I think this is a great opportunity for us to work with the a legislation to improve funding for Williamson County Schools so that we can continue our history of Excellence thank you thank you Mr Cash thank you Mr chair you know back when
095we were discussing this resolution we did we talked we had all the pros and cons we've heard all this and but the main point was is please let's not send something that we're not United on and traditionally that's what we do if you send something that split like this resolution was to the to anyone the legislature or anyone else they're going to say they're split so now what do we do if we're going to send resolutions let's be United on it and know what we're doing we were United on the third grade retention we sent reasons why we didn't like this and some of those reasons we put down they fixed they came back so that's that's what the point of this whole thing is Let's Be United when we send a resolution take the
096politics right out of it let's look and do what's best for the kids thank you thank you I don't see any other comments I just want to say just for clarity what what we're doing here and what we're not doing here what we what we are doing is deciding whether or not to resend a previous action by this board what we're not doing is previewing or taking a position about what we might or might not do in the future so I want to be clear about that this is not about any other action this is not about what might happen this is not previewing anything this is about one particular action by this board that was previously taken and would be essentially rescinded by this vote so I don't want I want to be clear-minded
097about what we're doing and what we're not doing so there's no confusion about that Mr Welch thank you Mr Golden to the best of your knowledge is there any law or rule or regulation in the state of Tennessee or in Williamson County that restricts a parent from sending their child to private school or home school or or whatever else that they would choose to right now no okay so parents do have parental Choice currently thank you all right I see no other comments Mr Golden do you have a any input or recommendation here thank you Mr chair I do and you all may recall some of you may recall that I spoke to this at length the last time this was discussed and so I want to reiterate part part of that in short based
098on the work session discussion that you have that you had and tonight's meeting I anticipate another split vote and I and I spoke to that back in March with with that concern of a of a split vote ultimately I'm going to recommend that you vote tonight on what you think is best but I want to give you a little bit of detail what I talked about back in March was a concern that a split resolution might not have a lot of value at the at the legislative level more specifically if I recall correctly I talked to you about the value in the discussion actually being more valuable than the resolution itself and I encourage you all to continue to have discussions with your legislative delegation about these issues because of the conversations we've all had
099with them over the years knowing that a resolution itself is much less valuable than those conversations and I can't help but conclude based on that discussion in March that particular resolution was less valuable than the conversations that you all had with with our state legislators I also mentioned to you and it's it's it's ironic that Dr Johnson mentioned this that we should make sure that in that discussion back in March we did not lose sight of some of those things that were very important to us including specifically those third grade laws that were still being discussed at the legislative session by the way Miss Glenn double checked on on that on the resolution on that vote and it was nine to nothing in favor with three absent for when when when the board discussed that
100resolution with all that said I want to encourage you to continue to to to discuss this and to continue to have those conversations with our legislators the concern that I had of a split vote is going to be realized again tonight with another split vote the conversations the relationships we build with our legis lators when new legislation comes and the specifics can be addressed it's going to be a whole lot more valuable than the discussion we have tonight so with that I'm G to I'm going to leave it to you given the discussion to to to vote on what you think is best because of that struggle I've had similar to what Mr galbert discussed thank you so we'll proceed to a vote but just to be clear a yes vote is to resend the
101previously adopted resolution a no vote is to for the resolution to remain intact let's proceed to a vote the vote is 10 yes two no okay the resolution is rescinded that completes our agenda we are adjourned thank you everyone