001oh good evening i am calling the meeting of the williamson county school board to order september is a month that the board chair is elected here at williamson county schools and we have items on the agenda prior to the election of the board chair to start we will start with a record of attendance so board members if you would please enter your attendance mr king thank you we have 12 present zero absent next if you would please stand for the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and do the removal for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for god please be seated now is the time for us to elect our board chair nominations do not
002require of nominations when those nominations are made the first board member to receive if i may actually have a audio issue i apologize for that i'm going to start over our audio was not working now's the time for election of the board chair nominations do not require a second we will have the board vote on the nominations in the order that the board members are nominated the first board member to receive seven or more votes will be board chair for the year based on that once the nominations are made i will give you an opportunity and then close nominations and we will have that first vote so with that do we have any nominations mr wimberley thank you mr golden i'd like to recommend that we re-elect nancy garrett as chair of the board i
003think she's done a great job and would like to see her continue doing it for another year thank you mr wimberly we have a nomination for nancy garrett any other nominations if there are no other nominations i close the floor to nominations based on that are we ready to vote if you would mr king you have it structured for a yes no vote please vote yes in favor of miss garrett no again your vote is 11 yes 1 no with that the motion passes ms garrett is board chair for the for this coming year those of you in the audience if you would we are going to move seats so give us give us a few minutes for us to make those movements okay do you use yours first you just can't help board members
004i thank you so much it'll be an honor to serve again we've been through a very difficult year but no matter how difficult it is our students and our families and our school employees and our district employees it's it's an honor to serve and it's still worth it to serve everybody so with that i will open the nominations for school board vice chair again this does not require second just like the other vote and so i'll open the floor for nominations you can yes mr welch sorry just a second gotta get used to my duties here please go ahead i'd like to recommend that we re-elect casey hawe as i rushed here okay are there any other nominees okay all right and just as we did with the other vote the first nominee to receive
005the majority of the votes is the vice chair is that correct mr goldberg yes ma'am okay so we'll vote an order are there any other nominees thank you we will first vote for casey hall board members please cast your votes so you vote yes your vote is nine yes three no thank you board members mr hall congratulations on being re-elected as vice chair and official time keeper do you have anything you'd like to share with us thank you i appreciate that and it's it's an honor to serve on the board in general and i do appreciate the vote for serving in this capacity i don't know that it has to be the time keeper role necessarily i would if anybody wants to vote on that as another measure they could be a vice vice chair
006i don't know if that's an option but seriously thank you very much thank you mr hall now we'll move to items of particular public interest and let me check and see how many speakers we have signed up for tonight we have 29 speakers signed up to speak let me just take a quick glance here okay i'll read out the rules for public comment and everyone please pay close attention public comment is one of several ways that the board hears from constituents other avenues include emails phone calls and in-person meetings per board policy 30 minutes will be placed on the agenda for the chair to recognize individuals to make comments so since we have 29 speakers you'll all get one minute tonight at the discretion of the chair occasionally the time is extended if we have
007more than 30 people sign up williamson county residents and wcs employees shall have first priority in the event that time remains the chair may allow non-residents to speak all persons addressing the board will state his and her name they've all provided their addresses via the sign up sheet and provide the name of the organization or group he or she represents if you're representing a group when you're addressing the board so when you come up please say your name and please say what your group affiliation is if there is one the board reserves the right to limit the time of any speaker and the chair has authority to terminate the remarks of any individual who is disruptive or does not adhere to board rules business decorum is expected from all attending the meeting no speaking out
008or clapping is allowed as a person speaks including while board members are speaking disrupting individuals will be asked to leave on first instance and will be escorted out by a deputy no signs are allowed in the audience thank you i don't see any and i'll now call up those who have signed up for public comment in groups of three as i said you have one minute to speak and please be ready once your name is called and again our board vice chair mr haw is the time keeper and we'll let you know when your time is up if you would like to be escorted out by a deputy please approach one of the deputies and let he or she know and they will be happy to assist you and now i'll call up the first
009three speakers for tonight stephanie graham shelby rollins and brian russell so hello my name is stephanie graham i know that my daughter is divinely made that she is a human being worthy of love having a gay straight alliance for children in our schools is a blessing and a place of belonging that these children can find a safe haven and express who they are only to be annihilated by the adults that should be an example of shameful statistically those that are spewing hate have at least one person in their life that is not heteronormative if that is a closeted child of yours imagine the words coming from your mouth and landing squarely on their hearts having strong youth who are proud of who they are and not going to turn your child gate but it may
010give a gay closeted child a safe place to be who they are i issue a warning to the parents saying hateful things in your home your children are listening thank you our next speaker is shelby rollins last month mr golden you admonish this board to make a judgment call about masks and i actually agree with you except i think you were addressing the wrong crowd it is a judgment call for the individual families to make and not this board as a side note you recommended masks on my kids while hypocritically not wearing one yourself as did half of you who voted to mask our kids jen at that meeting you said parent choice is great until my choice to not mask my kid negatively impacts your family therefore excuse me we i did not read
011this but i just want to say we normally don't allow you to call out individual members of the board but please please go ahead thank you sorry i didn't mention that and now everybody else knows it i would imagine i still have the time that i should do it thank you this argument besides lacking scientific proof also lacks intellectual and moral standing because it doesn't work in reverse i cannot choose to not mask my child but you can choose to mask my child which guess what negatively impacts my family this is the full stop end to this conversation all mandates say that i don't get to choose but the ruling class does the first week of school by your own admission we the people voted by our actions over 70 of the student body freely
012chose not to mask ironically exactly 70 of you chose forced masking on our kids elected board members your civic duty is to listen represent your district not vote your conscience the vote should have been the opposite and when your terms are up we the people will vote again at the polls thank you our next speaker is brian russell hello thank you i'm here to talk about sexual grooming what happened last friday is very uncalled for let me make myself very very clear in no way shape or form am i homophobic i love people of of all different different walks of life i have friends that are homosexual so this is not about that i was outside i saw signs i say gay is okay we're not here that's not why i'm here that's not what
013the parents that i'm supported that i'm with are about we're here to talk about what happened last friday night this is inappropriate behavior this is what is called grooming grooming is a predatory process in which a perpetrator gradually gains a person's or organization's trust with the intent to be sexually abusive the class the the group that she talked about support groups are fantastic that's great but making out and french kissing on a float in front of our little children from kindergarten to to sixth grade eighth grade uncalled for passing out propaganda about bisexuality uncalled for this is not an indoctrination center schools are an education center we need to educate our kids and stop indoctrinating this needs a stop and the principals at those schools who allowed that need to be fired thank you our
014next speakers are patti cantor nope no our next speakers are patti cantor jenny halterman and melissa harris please patty cantor jenny halterman and melissa harris i live in franklin tennessee leading children in the wrong direction has a heavy penalty in account to god someday it's something we all need to keep in mind but who so shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea matthew 18 16. the gale database has in the school computers has pornography embedded in it school internet filters do not filter pornography in the database critical race theory is in the gales corporate structure they are marxist also i have given reports on the pornography in
015the school libraries and reports on the guild database to this school board and i've heard not back from a single person not a one thank you our next speaker is jenny halterman again mandating masks violates human rights as well as parents rights i ask you to uphold those rights and end your mandate that's unlawful this district has spent 7.5 million on coveted policies while it's been negligent about quality education i'll give you several examples one is a book called unwind that is assigned to ninth grade that talks about children ages 13 to 18 being sent to organ harvesting camps the ap lang book is full of leftist biased articles i will no longer recommend any student in this district to take ap lang because of the content in the textbook that is there now for
01610 years because it was just admitted this last year the hate you give was assigned to my ninth grader it says guys in their sagging pants grind so close to girls they about need condoms they shouldn't call this punch it's straight up liquor get back to education get away from health mandates our next speaker is 11 books in the library our next speaker is melissa harris hi i'm melissa harris jason i had the pleasure of communicating with you via email several times i appreciate the work that all of you do all you need to know about the way i was raised is that i was not allowed to watch ellen after she came out as gay on her sitcom in 1997. i spent over 20 years of my life presenting as a straight married woman
017much of that hobnobbing with the fine folks of brentwood go raptors i identified as bisexual for decades because i felt that was only half as offensive as being a lesbian and honestly because i saw how much people like groups that are here tonight compare homosexuals to pedophiles and i wasn't ready for that fight when i told my mom i'm gay she told me she didn't know if she could love me fully because i'm sinful now i'm almost 40 so i don't rely on her on her for anything so although it hurt it didn't limit my daily life i can only imagine the struggle of depending on your parents fully wanting desperately to tell them a basic fact about who you are but knowing you will experience rejection being told you're a sinner or they can't
018love you cutting you off or being kicked out of your home this is the world that many gay teens live in even in 2021 and it's not acceptable to me as a parent or as a human being being lgbt is not a culture war or a new phenomenon it's not an us versus then conversation everyone in this room wants to see happy healthy kids time our next speakers are ava martin jay ragsdale and heather bottoms may i start yes okay hi my name is ava martin i am a junior at independence high school i have been in williamson county all my life and i'm here to implore you to extend the mass mandate do not let go of it because we need to think of our most vulnerable our students who have immuno compromisations those
019who for whatever reason may not have been able to get the vaccine those who are most at risk for serious infections of covid there's many people that find massive violation of their rights but i say it's a greater violation to to ignore those who need us to help them so please extend extend the mass mandate thank you our next speaker is jay ragsdale hi thank you my name is jay i grew up in the williamson county school systems from elementary to high school then i went on and got my masters of social work and one of the great benefits i had of growing up in the wcs system is there a lot of great groups i got to be a part of for me it was like fca and meet at the pool pool and
020things like that and it was great to make friends and meet people and connect and feel support and i just really feel like groups like that are essential to the school process and i think groups like gsa are essential to the process for students or on the lgbtq plus community for them to feel safe and to feel connected i have seen firsthand as a social worker and as a student in these schools how we treat lgbtq plus students i have seen so much bullying and it is so important for them to have a group where they can feel safe and they can have friends and they can connect like all of our students should have that is a fundamental right that i believe as a student of these schools as a human and as a
021social worker that we should cherish and offer to every one of our students and so i just wanted to come in supportive gsa and following that through thank you our next speaker is heather bottoms i'm heather bottoms i'm on the board of the franklin chapter of pflag a national organization of parents family and friends of the lgbt community whose mission is education support and advocacy i'm also the mom of three children who attended williamson county schools from kindergarten through high school graduation two of whom are also members of the lgbt community through my own work with pflag and through my kids and their friends i've heard two too many stories of children attempting suicide children being kicked out of their homes when they come out children being rejected by parents and friends and extended family
022and churches and when that happens they come to us at pulp at p flag to to get the support and encouragement and education that they need a part of what we know works for lgbt kids we know that they get bullied in greater numbers we know that they're discriminated against more often than their straight peers and we know isn't my time up yes sorry oh so sorry we need the gsa our next speaker is let's see heather were you the third person yes okay thank you our next speakers are brett craig dr maya nealy and angela deyoung hi my name is brett cragama i'm a dad for liberty we talk a lot about people's right to express who they are and i just want to ask the questions do we do we believe in a
023parent's right to determine when their child is exposed to certain ideas you know issues of politics issues of identity sexuality we don't all agree on all these things right so what i would say is like let's keep this stuff out of the classroom we don't have to fight we'll just leave the stuff in the house where parents make the decision and get back to teaching and doing school and i promise everybody's going to like each other again let's keep this stuff out that's why what happened last week wasn't right parents should know before something like that's going to happen right and that sort of display should not happen in front of kids kissing like that we i think we can agree on that even hetero too i'm talking about anybody okay so that's that would
024be my thought guys is respecting parents right to consent to these things and not bringing politics and sexual issues like that into the classroom thank you our next speaker is dr maya neely my name is maya neely and i'm a pediatrician and mother kova 19 transmission remains high in our community and kids are falling ill and some requiring hospitalization the opt-out policy currently in place is at direct odds with an effective mass mandate and i worry that we will continue to have surges of this virus within our community for all of our children particularly those belonging to groups at high risk for severe disease it is the responsibility of all of us to protect one another and i ask that the school board continue its mass mandate and request that universal masking truly means universal
025masking with only medical exemptions in addition both contact tracing and clear guidance on when to return to school need to be addressed in clear language so parents can know when to keep their children home from school and when they can return without risk to others i also wish to stand as an ally beside children and families of the lgbtq plus community in order to flourish as people all of our children need support and encouragement to grow into their unique selves we all need to love each other a little bit more if the past year has not taught us anything else let it teach us that thank you our next speaker is angela deyoung do i start now whenever you're ready okay hello i'm angela deyoung and i am representing my two children that are currently
026students at williamson county high schools they are some of the positive attributing students to the student body and the brand of williamson county education being honor students and in members of the marching band and varsity sports that represent and really bring people to our community when they go and perform at this high level of academia and they go to school and they see their peers not wearing masks even though they're taking their individual responsibility for their own personal health there is a mental impact that my children are facing as a result of other children not caring enough to care of where their responsibility ends and the other person's responsibility picks up when their opportunity presents themselves to be able to achieve and they are at face with their teammate whether it's a band member or
027their opponent that other person who breathes on them threatens their opportunity to be excellent as well thank you that in the math mandate okay our next three speakers are john attard james lucente and nick cabaconio i apologize if i mispronounce your names my name is john atard yesterday i lost my beautiful niece when she took her own life due to depression we have provided this board with scientific information on the fact that masks do not work and on the negative consequences of mask wearing both medically and psychologically all of which we have shamefully dismissed with admittedly no expertise to do so and declaring a lack of time and resources in this crucial matter i quote a member of your board district staff is in the business of educating students rather than pretending to be public
028health experts and giving opinions on some subjects they are not qualified to speak to like the efficacy of different models of masks your entire ws covid team does not have the necessary expertise for viral mitigation you will no longer ignore the negative consequences of masking our children for political gain your business is educating students we will be holding you all individually accountable and you're on notice as is anyone that supports mask mandates this is about protecting our children hey my name is james lucente from choice wilco and my wife and i have a son in kindergarten all of you swore an oath and i quote i will refrain from using my position on the school board for personal or partisan gain you guys are all worried about head count concerns and not and that's not
029acting in the best interest of families they are in the best interest of your budgets the absences that you are worried about happening will be no greater than they are during the normal flu season and if that's what you're basing your vote on you're wrong you're going against your oath you have so many mitigation strategies in place you have no idea which is working so let's remove the one that's easiest to track opt out is easily eighty percent it may not look like that on your books but if you visit any campus you'll see this almost no one is wearing a mask cases are down week after week by your own weekly reports get rid of the mandate make it a choice for the parents don't wear a mask wear a mask but it has
030to be the parent's choice or you've failed and you will never get reelected thank you nick cabianco one second my phone is being weird my name is nick i'm a member of centennial high school's gay straight alliance this group has done wonders for me not only for me but for the other people in there are dozens of students here and i began attending this group around january 2020 which was about midway through my freshman year i just moved to tennessee and i knew absolutely no one and as someone who came from up north down south i can say that moving down south and being a member of the lgbtq community feels like a death sentence and i think a lot of you here probably feel very similar many households are not accepting of children who
031identify as lgbtq according to youth.gov 20 to 40 percent of the homeless youth identifies lgbtq these students need a safe place to go not many of them feel safer supported at home so they come to this club to feel welcome and accepted we come to school not only to learn but feel supported by a community and this club has done nothing but build said community we should be allowed to post flyers around the school about our club or to express ourselves via a homecoming float and most of all we should be allowed to exist without the judgment of our peers and without harassment we are equal and we are asking to be treated as such thank you time our next speakers are doug doug doug like light shutter excuse me raydon bennett and spencer list
032feel free to correct my pronunciation when you come up my name is doug ecklater i'm from franklin as a father of three students in the school system as well as a parent of a gay family i am here to strongly encourage the board to withstand pressure to prohibit the formation or continuation of gay straight alliance groups within the wcs middle and high schools these gsa groups are needed to support our children as many of them navigate sensitive times in their development given that suicide attempts have been shown to be five times higher among lgbtq youth as compared to other teams gsa groups provide a great critical lifeline and needed support i have lived in six different states and i would like to point out that gsa's have existed across this country for over 30 years
033they are no different than the myriad dozens of clubs that already exist within each of our schools as a final comment i would also ask the board to extend the mass mandate as data shows it is keeping covet spread at manageable levels and keeping our kids at school thank you revdon bennett oh reverend don bennett okay i thought you were a southern double first name i might be good evening my name is reverend dawn bennett i serve as the pastor at the table in nashville from 1996 to 2012 i was a resident of williamson county i raised my family here and all three of my children were educated in elementary middle and high school here in williamson county back then there was no advocacy there was no gsa but there were however lgbtq students it's
034my belief that williamson county aims for nothing but the best for their students lgbtq students very much need the support of their parents their educators and their community at large as health and wellness solely rely on the support of the county nashville has a gsa in every single high school and because we it's because we have discovered that students need this opportunity to support one another because clubs provide support and also for not just for students but for faculty because a well-adjusted student is a supported student mental health and well-being is paramount to a child's ability to develop whole person wellness which contributes positively to their education and their ability to go on to second education time our next speaker is spencer list so whenever sure afternoon i'm spencer list i'm a sophomore at independence
035high school and i'm the president and founder of indy pride the gsa that many people are coming here to talk about i want to set the record straight on sund on saturday september 18th the group that goes by the name of moms for liberty williamson county tennessee made a post on instagram twitter and facebook denouncing the participation of my club in the independence high school homecoming parade the group claimed at the in their post that thompson station elementary and middle school student middle school children were also handed by week cards as recruitment these cards were only handed to ihs students and any pride is a club any pride is a club not a part of the curriculum indie pride is not inherently sexual i told you all that i wouldn't make it to the meeting
036today because i was afraid for my own safety but i've i realized it's important for me to be here to back up all the people who are too afraid to speak for themselves so many students are not able to come out because of their parents and the way that they live at home indie pride is needed at independence and i urge you all to remember that thank you our next speakers are mia elias kate graham and corey martin hello i mean my name is mia elias i am a part of indy pride and i was on the float that everybody knows about already and i'm here to denounce the rumors i'm here to speak in or for every student who has to go home to their parents and be afraid because they who they are
037who they are and i am lucky myself to have a parent who appreciates me and loves me no matter what but i cannot imagine what these students go through and to have a community at school for our people is very important and i hope that we can keep this here because i have many friends who fear for their safety and this is the one place where we are safe and hi thank you guys thank you tom our next speaker is kate graham hi my name is kate and i'm a senior at centennial and i frequently attend the gay straight alliance on my school i started going there because i wanted to feel supported and be part of a community with the backgrounds like my own however the group also includes straight students who support lgbtq
038plus community we need groups like this because people like me need a place where they can be themselves gsa is inherently a safe place i'm a member of the mormon church and they have not always been the most welcoming of people to me no people like me now at gsa every wednesday i'm given a place where i feel safe and can be authentically me i stand in solidarity with indy high school's pride club and all the other pride clubs in the county and nothing will change that thank you corey martin hello i'm corey martin i'm here to support the extension of the mask mandate and i'd like to echo the words of the doctor who encouraged a universal mask mandate with only medical exemptions also i'm deeply despaired by my neighbors who have decided that
039it's politically expedient to risk my daughter's health to further their brand and ambitions by bullying my neighbors have made it clear that they care more about going viral pun intended than they do about having civil discourse has the doubt of a kindergartner i understand that i have agreed to participate in a society that requires cooperation with other parents but it would be nice if we were all pulling in the same direction and i understand that some of this is out of your control but the message that you put forth carries a lot of weight so i support you in what you what you can do to protect my daughter's health and that of her classmates i'm praying peace wisdom and rest for each one of you thank you for serving our community our next three
040speakers are robin steenman matt hall and justin canoe good evening robin steenman district 12. it's not about lgbtq rights it's not about gsa clubs it never was it's about what is appropriate in the school environment it's about the sexualization of our children it's mostly about what is appropriate to present to elementary age children it's about the enforcement across the board of the student code of conduct had that had there been an adult in the room to enforce the code no one would be talking about the parade floats at tonight's school board meeting it's a failure of leadership leadership begins at the top when parents alerted mr golden his response cited federal code and not a single concern over what actually happened that's not leadership the same leadership vacuum apparently exists at independence high school to
041the detriment of wcs and to the trust that parents have in it the majority of parents that want you they just want you to teach their children reading writing and math in a safe environment in partnership with them our next speaker is matt hall worker hill where am i here matthew parker hill thank you i am a product of williamson county schools was the last class at northside junior high go vikings graduated from franklin high in 85 go admirals why do i say that because things change i was born and raised here i get to speak here i had a lady look at my kilt she said i don't get to live here why because i have a kilt and i have painted nails parents are asking when is it appropriate to wait and tell
042their kids how the world works we're talking about decided case law we're not talking about whims sooner or later someone's going to have to go to work and obey these rules being gay is not like covet you cannot catch it people oh dear lord you all are worried about this stuff when how many of you know that 90 of your 12 year old boys are going home and watching porn for hours especially the church kids god's making gays straight kids cats trans kids right now the horses are out of the barn and y'all can't do anything about it only hurts when you argue against reality thank you our next speaker is justin canoe amen we've had one of the first sorry we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the country nearly 20 public school
043employees have died of the disease just this year so i hope you're planning to extend the mass mandate even if it is mostly symbolic thanks to lee's overreaching opt-out order but the main point i want to make is that words have meaning the word liberty means the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life behavior political views and i'd ask the people with that word on their shirts behind me if you truly are supporters of liberty does that not extend to the freedom to love who we want to love and if so does calling for your people to come here and persecute lgbtq kids for the crime of letting the world know they exist and showing love for one another not fly in the face of
044what you claim to stand for that video was not a french kiss it was a quick peck that i had to watch three times to catch and if it was a boy and a girl there's zero chance anyone would have cared thank you our next three speakers are jeff price jen jeff price jen baker and gina camillo jeff price spring hill representing my family here two kids that go to school heard from my daughter the other day about the parade you know young children like that shouldn't have to be forced to whatever was going on there be forced upon them let the parents make that decision i respect everybody and i teach my kids to respect everybody i have lots of gay friends i love them i have no problems with that at all but
045that does not belong in our schools especially a parade there should have been some notification at that point in time to let parents know that was going on and also i think the masked mandate is ridiculous and it puts more mental issues with these kids that are coming home mental and emotional issues that are far worse than cobra will ever be thank you jen baker all right sorry i was thought i was third up hi so this weekend san francisco mayor london breed spent her saturday night violating her own indoor mask mandate while partying at a club she defended her actions by saying i was feeling the spirit and i wasn't thinking about a mask and then there were the emmys also held in los angeles also maskless they have the choice so parents and
046students need that choice isn't it time to just let parents make the decisions that they feel are right for themselves and their children not letting children see each other's faces will have a negative effect that you cannot even begin to fathom so many of those in power feel the need to go without a mask why don't we let our kids do that please just let kids be kids and let them breathe and smile and see each other smiles those that choose to wear a mask can do so but they do not need you to make their health care decisions for them that's their parents job thanks here's our last three gina camillo lars griffin i think and amy stevens good evening i'm gina carrillo a local author i'm here to support franklin pride p flag
047in the lgbt community for my friends and family that couldn't be here tonight for my brothers who were bullied all throughout school for my best friend who was beaten all the time who would call me crying with stitches on his forehead i'm here for the kids to support show love and fight for them to be able to be themselves i'm here to be encouraging and will be their voice i wrote a poem called rainbow connection rainbow in the sky colorful flags raised high take a chance with a glance it's your reflection it's the rainbow connection i am who i am approval isn't needed i used to think what i wanted was just a pipe dream every time i'm cut open i bleed in different colors my friendships have gotten me through many rainy days we
048take care of each other yet i still struggle with darkness versus light it's not easy as what is false or true i was lost and now i'm found here's what i do i no longer live for the weekends you just can't go through life treating yourself like a zero trying to be someone else's hero i can go anywhere i can be anything why not go out on a limb isn't that where the fruit is you know education is the one thing no one can take away from me thank you for your time and attention much love lars griffin good evening everyone my name is mars griffin i am a student at ravenwood high school and a member of the ravenwood high school gsa or gender and sexuality alliance at my time at the school i
049have seen the way that our club is treated by students and it is with the same argument of these students that are calling other students slurs in the hallways and things of that sort that adults here are making it is the same argument that students are making that we have decided that these students are bullies and are detrimental to the educational and the social and mental health of lgbtq plus community members in our schools that i am seeing and hearing adults here making these are the arguments that are against the independence high school float and these are the arguments that are widely accepted by many homophobic and transphobic groups and i ask you as board members and you as audience members as parents as students as people who may be watching to i'm sorry for
050going over time time thank you may i finish no mars thank you we give everybody a minute but thank you so much the next person is amy stevens and this is our final speaker hi good evening thank you for your time yes my name is amy stevens i wasn't planning on speaking but there was a spot so i decided to go and take a moment just to reiterate what one of the other speakers said i do believe it's time that we get back to the basics within the educational system let's get back to math science language reading all the things our kids need to be productive successful people in our society i also think it's time that our parents get back to the place of parenting so if it's parent education classes that need to
051be offered because what i'm hearing quite a bit of is that it's not safe at home well i think we need to start there we need to make sure that our families are getting what they need to be able to support their kids and whatever that might look like but parents are being taken out of the mix and it's just not appropriate any longer so let the parents who want to stand up for the kids stand up for the kids but i don't think all the extra stuff is needed within our school system if it's after school fine our kids need to be safe absolutely but again parents who aren't wanting their kids to be subject to these things need to have that ability time everyone that concludes our public comment for the evening i
052want to thank and commend the audience members on the way that you all treated each other respectfully that is greatly appreciated we're now going to take a 10 minute break so that those who want to leave can leave and will resume at let's see 33 7 33 wow please be seated if you're in the audience we'll continue with our business items the first item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve motion to approve from mr welch board members please please also use your buttons as if as you can please is there a second mr mitchell seconds is there any discussion if no discussion please vote your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you board members the next item on the agenda is the approval of the
053consent agenda do we have a motion to approve mr mitchell approves mr fiskus seconds is there any discussion i see no discussion board members please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes 0 no thank you board members with the approval of the consent agenda you've approved the following items approval of the august 16 2021 school board meeting meeting minutes approval of the august 26 2021 school board special called meeting minutes recommendation for field trip fee requests approval of collaborative conferencing team approval of the calendar committee membership for the board the budget timeline approval 142 federal budget summaries for arp idea part b an idea preschool for grants approved in august and our next community our next agenda item is communications to the board and we'll start with the superintendent's report mr golden thank you
054madam chair i want to first thank the speakers for speaking especially the students who came in today and i'm going to jump a little bit from our traditional structure of me presenting the superintendent's report and then doing some student spotlights because we have additional students who are here some of our act perfect score students and i would like to ask carol birdsong to announce that first just out of respect for the students in their time because this is a school day a school night so miss birdsong if you would and then after that we'll get into the to the additional portions of my superintendent's report miss birdsall thank you mr golden and board members it's been a minute since i've been up here so i'm excited to be here we are celebrating tonight some students
055who earned a perfect act composite yay and we are also going to celebrate tonight our 24 rewards schools so a wonderful night to be in williamson county schools we are going to start with perfect acts and audrey mr coydell and audrey if i could get you guys to come up first this is audrey lino so i got to do my clicker i'm out of practice here this is audrey and audrey is at brentwood high school and audrey earned her perfect act composite score on the june test so it's been a minute again since we've been there all right congrats audrey now we're going to move over to independence high school and this is ella wyckoff so dr patton and ella come on please for me i remember that we give our perfect act students a
056medal and then we're going to ask you ella to turn around and take your picture get your picture made ella made her perfect act score in the july test so crack congratulations villa and porter if you'll come on up porter dosh and dr katie hill principal at page high school and doctor if you'll get the medal please and give to porter scored his perfect acts composite score during the june test so everybody get your picture a porter try to get out of it did y'all get it okay great congratulations families we want to make sure you get your picture because this is quite a celebration so take all the time you need all right we have three other students who could not be here tonight but we do want to celebrate them as well this
057is joshua liu from ravenwood high school he made his score in june then we have sisters cynthia shu and linda shu ravenwood high school is they both earned a perfect act composite in july so congratulations to all of our acp students mr golden if i could ask you to please come forward and if i may miss birdsong i want to first mention that we are about to celebrate 24 williamson county schools reward schools and carol i have to say this before i step up we have 188 statewide schools who actually receive this designation more than 1700 schools in the state 24 of those schools are ours by far the largest number of any district i am so proud of those who are about to be recognized that's the top designation for schools and it really
058focuses on both achievement and growth based on last year's scores last year what this means for students is that our students grew and performed well even in that tough year there was a you if you all remember there was a lot going on last year and i am so proud of our schools i'm so proud of our students and what these celebrations mean for us carol i had to say that before i got up to say thank you to our principals as you walk through these yes sir and i'm glad i did not have all that written down so i am glad you're able to cover that for us so i will try to fill just a moment of time as you are coming down we are going to ask you principles when we call
059your name if you guys will proceed forward and get your plaque from mr golden so bethesda elementary school please come forward jill justice is here principal oops got carried away there clovercroft elementary school elizabeth vest college grove elementary school kathy lillard crockett elementary school bronwyn rector grassland elementary school and gordon hunter's bend elementary school yolanda blackburn jordan elementary school chad walker ken rose elementary school becca loffy lipscomb elementary school michelle contig longview elementary school kathy ball nolansville elementary school amanda fuller oakview elementary school amy stevenson perry creek elementary school janet alexandro thompson station elementary rubberbour walnut grove elementary school kate donnelly westwood elementary school joe hunt and finally in our elementary schools winstead elementary school and catholics now moving on to middle schools brentwood middle school teresa thomas is here heritage middle school dana finch
060sunset middle school clarissa heyman brentwood high school we're moving to high schools next kevin cuddell franklin high school shane pinto ravenwood high school pam baden and last but not least in our high schools renaissance high school and christine gupton is here congratulations to our 24 reward schools and to our perfect a.c.t students gonna tell me madam chair to continue my superintendent's report i just want to emphasize we are all about instruction we are about instruction and i am so proud of all our schools and all our students and our parents in what they did last year we know that this year continues to be a challenging year in ways that just two years ago we could have never imagined but but the business of school is happening here in williamson county i want to give
061you one more celebration this year we were notified that 72 of our high school seniors were named national merit semifinalists this is the most ever this is about 20 or so more than the most ever and the national merit structure is that they have a limited number of students that they award the national merit semifinalist designation nationwide and you're competing on the psat against peers across the nation this year we had 72 national merit semifinalists in williamson county schools i want to also let you know that there are a total 346 statewide we have 147 districts you all 1427 districts in tennessee 346 students received this award this year 72 of them were williamson county students that's over 20 percent of the state total in our in our one district again congratulations to those students
062who are named national merit semifinalist in a few months they will name national merit semifinalist scholarships will become available that's what that means for students that this is a scholarship opportunity for our current seniors based on their unbelievable performance on the psat there's just a couple of examples of celebrations and i got to tell you the celebrations are going to continue as we as we progress through the course of this school year because that's what we're about the effort is there and we get results from our efforts i'm so proud of our students and faculty do want to give you a quick update on growth at the end of the first month we always we always look to to our growth numbers this year we grew 1869 students over the same time last year in
063the first month to end the first month we are currently the largest we have ever been here in williamson county 980 pre-k through 12th grade students here in williamson county schools as of the end of the first month and y'all we've already had more students come in since we hit that benchmark we continue to grow people are coming here for the schools and i am so proud of the work that our faculty and staff does and did especially last year and especially as we're getting this year started to make sure that we serve our students and serve our students well i also want to mention to you that the our communications department has added a new feature on our website it's called wcs by the numbers it has some of those statistical informational items such
064as growth and some and some other issues if you go to our about us section of our website and scroll down wcs by the numbers can be found there with some information and that is a living document electronically that we will continue to work on so that members of our community can see our progress and see where we go next i did want to let you know that in addition to academic achievement we continue to work on improving students sense of safety at school you all heard that discussion at public comment and i want to make sure everyone knows that it is a priority for williamson county schools to make every student feel safe as you hear public comment it's it's hard when when someone shares their perception of what they've heard on social media
065but i want to let you know that our principals and our professionals are dedicated to making sure all our students feel safe in the particular example that arose over the weekend we give all students the same access to our excellent educational system for many decades wcs has allowed student-led clubs and that is part of what you heard today student-led clubs and you may have noticed some of the students talked about that those clubs being student-led clubs we don't make content decisions on student life clubs but we allow students to develop what they need and what they value through those student-led clubs and we make sure to respect that regardless of content again you all it's about making sure that all our students feel safe and we have work to do i think this discussion tonight
066made it clear that we still have work to do one of my goals one of my draft goals that's on this board's agenda tonight is to continue to grow to help students feel that that sense of security and safety in williamson county schools and i want to make sure you know that we continue to be committed to that do you want to mention briefly covid we can't help these days but mention it is the next item on the agenda madam chair and rather than go into any detail i think it's appropriate for me to close my superintendent's report at least for this month and allow us to go on to the agenda thank you mr golden our next item is the board chair report and i'll just give a quick report several tsba related items
067the first is our tsba regional meeting is this thursday it's a virtual meeting at 5 00 pm september 23rd i believe we've all received the link to that if you haven't please let me know and i can send it to you secondly our tennessee school board association statewide meeting is the weekend of november 19th and as we discussed at work session that's the weekend before thanksgiving so plan accordingly third big announcement from tsva today this is breaking news you haven't heard this yet but i'm very excited to tell you that our entrepreneur and innovation center won the statewide excellence in education award mr mr welch kudos to mr welch for suggesting it to nominate it jeremy qualls our director of career and tech education filled out the application and we were just notified today and
068that will be presented at the statewide convention so congratulations to all those minds that put together the eic and look forward look forward to that happy happy event in november i also want to let you know that i will go ahead and start planning our board fall retreat because we have a large board and there are lots of schedules to get ahead of so i'm going to send you an email tomorrow and ask you to kind of think through some tentative dates we will have another board member by that time so it's important for us to consider that board members availability as well and then finally i just want to read the results from our board survey again we did a survey looking at our code of ethics and discussed the things that we did
069well as a board and discuss the areas where we could improve so what we thought we did well was to think at all times in terms of students first to maintain open lines of communication and to refer all complaints and concerns to the superintendent the areas where we thought we needed to work together as a board are to represent at all times the entire school community and refuse to represent special interests in partisan politics making final decisions only after a full discussion at the board meeting and not putting ourselves as individuals in situations where we might give the appearance of speaking for the board so these will be inputs for our retreat as well as our board goals that we will talk about a little bit later or we will vote to approve so that's
070it that's it for the board chair report moving forward we'll move on to new business the first item is covid 19 response strategies mr golden thank you madam chair item a1 mask requirement from august 10 2021 the special called meeting and amended motion from august 26 2021 special called meeting as i mentioned to you at the work session i intended to recommend that we continue the mask requirement i want to mention to you also that this includes the overlay of the of the governor's opt-out a few weeks ago based on those two dates i mentioned some elementary families elected to exercise that opt out after the first date after the second date when the when the board voted to extend the mask requirement a number of families elected to opt out under the governor's opt-out
071order as well currently about 32 percent of our families have opted out we've had a lot of discussions about about coven and where we are we do see some encouragement from the numbers i will tell you that i do recommend that you vote to continue the mass requirement with the governors overlay and i'm asking that you that you extend it through january 19th which is the 2022 which is the day after the board meeting in essence to give a three-month window for that so that's my recommendation and certainly willing to discuss it if emotion gets on the floor so we've heard the staff recommendation is there a motion to approve mr welch makes the motion to approve is there a second he needs to state the motion oh mr welch mr what's new mr wesley
072mr welch could you state the motion and if you need miss glenn to read the previous motion into the record she can motion to approve the recommendation made by as made by superintendent golden will that work dana i need a specific motion gotcha motion to extend the mask mandate through january 19th as recommended by superintendent golden with the existing opt-outs in place will that work and mr welch if you can clarify who would be subject to that mandate if it would be students staff and visitors yes the which would include students staff and visitors all grade levels thank you there is a motion on the floor do we have a second mr haw seconds is there any discussion miss cleveland i just like to say and this is about the superintendents correct that's where i'm
073sorry the superintendent what you just recommended yes ma'am okay thank you i just got lost there for a second right now we have a very low number of cases in williams county and it's sad to see how bad tennessee as a whole is getting but again i look i get overwhelmed when i look at the numbers but right now what i do is i look at the individual schools i always have and it's not about mask or no mask it's about how the positive cases or lack of positive cases at each school right now we have 224 positive cases as of september 17th based on what we report in the health department reports about what is seven days behind and 76 staff members in my district i have only one school that has six positive
074cases the rest are below five with teachers and students and therefore i still need to stand on what i've always believed in is elementary i like the idea of elementary schools being mass because they don't have a choice but again middle and high school they have the choices of being vaccinated or going online and so i still stand by that and so therefore i'll be a vote no any other discussion mr galbraith thank you madam chair i just feel obligated to say something and it sounds like we're not going to discuss this a whole lot because everybody knows how the vote is going to go but it's just it's just frustrating that every time we institute a temporary restriction that temporary restriction continues to last and lasts and it never it never goes away so
075i am definitely not in favor of of extending it past past 30 days i won't be expecting i wouldn't vote for it to extend it another 30 days but another 90 days it just goes to show that we don't have we there's no there's no rhyme or reason behind the recommendation to to have the mandate it feels good it feels like we're doing something even though we have even though we have a large number of opt-outs and even a larger number of people who who are not wearing the mask in school because it's just hard to enforce and i think the teachers and principals are largely looking at the looking at this and saying it's not something that they want to spend any more time on so while i appreciate the continuity argument it's it's
076just continuity of more of the same over the last 18 months and and i think mr golden told us i mean we know the total number of of cases but even our total absences were not abnormal for for the time and our certainly our number of cases are nowhere near what what a really bad flu season looks like and so i it's just i'm i'm just speaking for all the people out there who are who are so frustrated that we continue to to put these restrictions that never go away so i appreciate it mr mitchell thank you madam chair i'd like to make an amendment to to the motion my amendment would be that we remove the religious exemption and only allow the governor lee's opt-out and medical exemptions do we have a second to
077remove the religious exemptions need a second to get it on the floor mr fiskus seconds we're in discussion about the amendment i've noted the speakers to them to the main motion and we'll get back to you mr welch and miss emerson so now we're discussing the amendment to remove the religious exemption is there any discussion so madam chair i think i still have the floor following my motion ahead thank you miss us brooks can you tell me whether we are required to offer a religious exemption to the mask requirements so mr mitchell if you're asking for a recommendation i will be happy to do that we have obviously last year as well as this year honored religious exemptions it would be my recommendation that we continue to do that there is federal law as well
078as tennessee state law that deals with religious exemptions the probably the biggest issue that we have is how do i determine whether your religious exemption or or your religious tendent or belief whether or not i find that to be valid that is that is what we struggle with with this how do i determine whether you have a sincerely held religious belief so from a legal standpoint i would recommend that we keep both the religious exemptions and the medical exemptions that have already been granted so we are still covered by the governor's executive order so at this point the religious exemption really has no no teeth or or value i guess at it since the governor's executive order is really what overlays it all and the and so i stand by my amendment and so mr
079mitchell you are correct the governor's executive order number 84 through october 5th i believe is still an overlay and it would it would be an overlay on this motion thank you mr mitchell we're continuing to discuss the amendment mr cash thank you madam chair you know i believe over half the folks out here are against a mass mandate i believe we've stepped on their liberties in in certain ways there already and now we have the audacity to come out and start talking about religious freedoms in the religious exemption and as ms osbrook did say who's going to judge this how much more freedom are we going to step on as a board how much more control of our lives are we going to give up that's that's all i have to say about the religious
080exemption but i could go on with the others but there's other people in line thank you madam chair mr hall thank you ben i'm chair with regard to the religious exemptions one of the things that i was hearing a lot when that started was that people were just filling out a form and they weren't really citing a religious exemption and i have not been made aware of one that was for a particular religious region reason we heard from a county commissioner who had the impression that it was just an opt-out basically so i feel like let's clean the slate have the opt-out and address it that way to to have something in place that i think people are admittedly not being that they admitted to being disingenuous about in many cases is frustrating and i'd
081rather have it people be have that opportunity to to honestly opt out rather than citing a case or a clause that they did not feel was actually correct so that's where i would be coming from on this mr galbraith oh i'm sorry mr fiskus i believe you were next yes mr albert you're next that's right yes thank you madam chairman we're going to speak on on the amendment i too agree that there we need to clean this up we have given the opportunity for medical exemptions and those are to be created by are approved by medical doctors or doctors of octopasty but what we were seeing on social media at the beginning of the year and also last year was that there wasn't any kind of specific requirement for someone to claim a religious exemption
082and so with this executive order those folks have have that opportunity to exempt out of that space but there are other school districts across the state who would be under those same federal and state laws and they've chosen not to to allow religious exemptions thank you mr galbraith thank you madam chair i guess we haven't the reason people were using the religious exemptions and the medical exemptions was that another opt-out form was not given and so if you if you would wish to to offer an actual opt out and rather relying rather than relying upon the governor's executive order then there would be no reason for their religious exemption and then there therefore they could do that their i don't wish to to question somebody's motives i'm sure some of them are probably looking at
083it and taking a taking a stand based on their religious and moral beliefs which is which is i believe how the how the statute is worded and so based on that there's a lot of people who who could rightfully sign that religious exemption truthfully and honestly and so i think to say that people are being disingenuous as is not our place to say and but but they're they were they felt strongly that they did not did not want their kid wearing a wearing a mask and they were justified in doing so with the religious exemption thank you mr wimberly i guess to me it seems kind of like a moot point we have an opt-out per the governor's order so whether they're religious or health or whatever the opt-out exists and at least until the
084court tells us otherwise we are subject to that opt-out so to me it's just kind of superfluous effort and i just don't see the whole point in eliminating it i see no mr welch miss emerson do you want to speak to the amendment or to the main motion candy i just how much control are we gonna try to take i mean that's my concern we just we put ourselves in a position of lording and making these judgment calls on all of our people that live in the county that also think and have a right to what they want to do i don't want to control your decision i'll control mine and if you don't like it so be it but i just think that we are taking way too much upon ourselves and i just
085it goes against everything i believe in in terms of mandating things for you or for you or for you or you or anybody other than myself i'll take responsibility i'll join you in your cause and i believe in but i believe in freedom and rights and my own ability to to state my case and then if you all don't like it or we vote against it i've had an opportunity to state what i want to do i just think that we are asking and taking way too much from the individual that has their own life and their own way of doing things and i don't want to mandate some of these things that we're mandating for our community for our people for my family for my friends i don't want to do that and i
086don't think it's right i don't think we have the right to do that i have my right but i don't have the right to take anybody else's away and it makes me very angry that we sit here and we talk about all of these decisions that are not going to affect just me or this board but my county my school system the people that i love and that i've worked hard for as a teacher and as as a as a as someone on the school board it's just not right folks mr welch thank you so elliot i get the frustration with it you know when i was a small child and go to sunday school and you know you'd learn the ten commandments and you'd learn thou shalt not take the lord's name in vain
087i you know back then i always thought it was you know don't use it and as profanity and it is and it still is and but as you get older at least for me what i think i've come to realize is you know using the lord's name in vain what it really is the worst portion of that is adults using it to advance their own cause and masking it as religious belief i think that's the that's the real violation of that commandment at least as i see it so i understand that frustration and of course i've seen the same things that you have that we all have messages being passed around of well here's just what you say here's how you fill out the form and here's how you get out of it which is
088obviously false that said i can't vote for it and support it based upon what we've heard from our attorneys were we're a body of laws and we need to follow established laws it doesn't necessarily mean that we have to agree with them in every way as applied but that is our charge and so in lieu of guidance that there is no repercussion of that i won't be able to support it for that point but i do want to say i appreciate your rationale and integrity for bringing this forth miss durham enough people are not supporting it that i don't need to talk thank you mr cash just one simple statement i just feel with what's coming down the pipeline in vaccinations they're talking about five years to 12 years now if we remove this religious
089exemption it'll come up again whenever people opt out of that and that's going to be big time there's going to be a lot of people opting out for religious reasons reasons and i don't want to remove it from this in lieu of that coming down the line to us next thank you i see no further discussion so the amendment is on the floor the amendment is to eliminate the religious exemption and mr golden our staff recommendation is i think thank you madam chair if i may just quickly address a couple of points we've required we've allowed religious exemptions from the very beginning of this over a year ago you may recall that we required mask all of last year i too am concerned about the numbers because we had a few hundred last year and
090it grew a lot as this school year started however what we see from the cdc is a recommendation of a swiss cheese model with multiple with with multiple mitigation strategies what we've seen in these last few weeks is for whatever reason that we may not be able to pinpoint we are improving upon that combination and the nature of what a religious exemption means which includes a compelling government interest i do not recommend approval at this time of this amendment board members please cast your votes your vote is 3 yes 9 no thank you board members the next item on the agenda oh sorry i'm sorry well that wouldn't have worked out very well pardon me okay that's so we're back to the original motion and miss glenn would you please read that one moment please
091to extend the mass mandate through january 19 2022 to include students of all grade levels staff and visitors with the governor's overlay i'm sorry opt-outs and current opt-outs thank you mr welch thank you so in our own self-evaluation one of the things that we said that we don't do very well as as a board is a statement is i will not put myself in a situation where i give the appearance of speaking for the entire board and so there's kind of a two statements that were made that i want to address the first is speaking on behalf of all the teachers and administrators you know they're all tired of it and i'm sorry i don't know how we any of us can do that just as there are different opinions within the community within the
092board within students themselves we heard students have different opinions tonight teachers and staff certainly have that as well so that's that's not a factually correct statement to be able to sort of say here's what they all think that way they have varied opinions on it the other thing that i want to sort of go to is you know the statement that there's no rhyme or reason for that date and jungle i want to invite you to sort of explain the ryan marie's rhyme and reason for that and then i have a kind of a question about that as well but if you wouldn't mind i'm going to pause to let you speak sure thank you there are a number of reasons for that number one the cdc guidelines include include mask as one of the
093mitigation strategies based on that swiss cheese model that i mentioned earlier we can't we don't have the expertise to pinpoint what particular behavior or or strategy is working whether it's at the community level or at the school level but what we have seen is in the last few weeks our numbers are slowly improving that's that's one item our community in the schools went through a pretty significant process of upheaval when the when the requirement was put in place a few weeks ago you all remember that you got emails about it about the opt-out forms etc i spoke to our school's success last year one of the big reasons i'm convinced of our student success is because we did a good job of keeping students on campus as much as we could and minimize the distractions
094it's my opinion that it's not wise for us to so quickly change back and potentially float back and forth january represents the next meeting after the end of the semester given that the board put the mask requirement in place a few weeks ago given that our numbers are slowly improving given our experience granted as educators not as medical professionals for the purpose of our mission of serving students it strikes me as wise to leave it in place and i think with the balance of the opt out we've got a structure that's stable and has been working these these last few weeks i think it's wise to continue it there's there are other elements mr cash actually mentioned one of them there's a lot of media discussion about when the vaccines are going to become available
095i think there will continue to be some other variables that influence this over the course of of the next few weeks those are things that ultimately we can't predict thank you so we should talk about stepping on freedoms about this as well you know if we're going to to go this absolute route then are we also going to take our school uniforms policy away how we handle over-the-counter medication there's literally dozens and dozens of other examples of where we say here are our guidelines and here our policies we as an elected board elected by the community who has this legal authority that has been established by the courts again and again are setting these guidelines and policies in place and we've all voted for those and we've all supported them in the past and it's
096never come up of you know we're stomping on individual rights so i understand that you know while you don't want it in place i'm just not buying this argument of it's a violation of personal liberty for us to say here's a mitigation strategy that we want to put in there and along with that i've never really heard what is the mitigation strategy you want to replace it with they're really this is the really the only big thing that we're doing and having place for our schools we're not doing the heavy quarantining that we were before we don't have we're back to full in person the events everything else this is kind of the one thing that we do and on a very personal note i'm going to say this if you want masks off you
097really want them and i really want them as well for all the adults out there go get vaccinated that's that's not even how is that controversial you don't want masks go get a vaccine if you're an adult because that's what works denmark just got rid of all their mask and everything requirements go look at their vaccination levels san francisco the school system there had no covet loss no covet cases vaccination rates were in the 90 percent everyone talks about how we're doing so much better than the state our vaccination levels for our students are twice what the state level is and i'm not advocating for a mandate here but i am saying that if you don't want it go get vaccinated and that we individually i think we should advocate for a lot stronger we've
098been tiptoeing around it for a year and a half now we couldn't even put a resolution saying you know we support getting a flu shot in the middle of the covet epidemic so if you don't want to do something about it go get vaccinated let's get this down because this is about keeping kids safe thank you miss emerson do you want to speak to the main motion no okay thank you mr wimberley thank you madam chair on thursday night we had a nice discussion about kn 95 mask i now have one on and where are we on that mr golden because you know there seemed to be enthusiasm about making those available to students and staff thank you mr wimberly as i mentioned on thursday night we've been told that there are that there is
099a process in place to donate a specific number thirty thousand to us i'm gonna ask mr anderson to speak to that and i will tell you also we're in the process of looking at the availability of those we do have some mass such as such as i'm wearing that are available to students right now but the k in 95 when you combine the the offer of the of the donation plus the plus the pricing of it's something that we're looking into based on that discussion mr anderson we have looked into the k ninety five the cost is one one dollar to a dollar and a quarter each depending on the volume you buy and if it's if we are providing them that's basically just say a dollar per student it could be quite extensive costs
100they are supposedly the best ones for everyone so if we're going to actually not get them donated it's it's going to be pretty restrictive to the district since there's no budgeted funds for that we have been led to believe that there's going to be a donation as superintendent golden said we do not have any further information on that as yet but we'll keep looking forward to hearing from them and it was supposed to be around thirty thousand masks so is there a possible outcome that staff will come back and say we've looked at this we think it's a good idea and it's going to cost us x amount of dollars and either we have found the money or we need the board to move some money around or something like that is that a yes
101that is a possibility okay thank you miss durham what are we going to do when the governor's executive order expires on 10-5 so that's 15 days from now so that order expires and we have a lot of opt-outs that are not religious or medical well thank you for that question number one i don't know what the governor is going to do i will tell you our experience in the past with some of the governor's orders in previous years is that they analyzed the current situation and he made a decision near the termination time for for some of his orders so a possibility is that he extends the order if if he does not then we do default back to the exemption structure that we had and so you know and i suspect that's part of
102the reason that we had that discussion about religious exemptions because that does have the potential to default back if the governor does not continue that opt-out i mean is that something that's a nightmare to have to go back and look at it assuming that does go away we have all those exemptions on record yeah so that part of it would be simple and straightforward yeah but just governance of that like how are you how would you possibly as a school go back and monitor which kids had religious and medical versus the regular opt out well we've we've we've had that issue for over a year because we allowed those opt-outs from the very beginning so like i mentioned earlier those numbers have increased this year prior to the governor issuing that order but we do
103have experience with that okay could we extend a non-specific opt-out regardless of the executive order i'd defer to mrs osbrooks on that on that question here let me clear you there we go so to answer your question i would need to look into that off the top of my head i'm not aware of a mechanism that would be a opt-out there would not be a need for a mass mandate if everyone could opt out what we have obviously traditionally done have been for medical reasons as well as religious exemptions if i may add to that you all may recall that i recommended the requirement for elementary students and then when we hit the question about secondary students i did not make a specific recommendation other than for you all to do that part of the
104reason for that was that practical question of if if there's an existing opt out is there value in requiring it you know when you think about that swiss cheese model including the recommendation from the cdc that must be part of this for us once that decision was made we went through that process of the opt-outs and so we've already gone through that process and that's part of what i've been talking about mr galbraith mentioned the term continuity that's part of what i've been talking about related to my recommendations here from a continuity perspective we have those in place from earlier this year so i do see the continuity in that in the event in the event that occurs i have another question so have we looked at or have you guys or gary looked at
105having mask mandates only at certain percentages of positive cases or by school where certain percentages get to a certain you know to a level a certain level so we've had many discussions those those over the over the last year and a half have been have been discussed ultimately when the especially at the secondary level well let me step back at the elementary level the big reason for our recommendation a month or so ago was the increased numbers and the fact that students at those at those grades could not get a vaccine so they were you know they had no access to the vaccine at the secondary level a few weeks ago the governor's order was in place already when the vote occurred so in these particular votes these last two months that has not been
106a driving factor for us for those reasons i just mentioned elementary level no student had access to a vaccine secondary level the governor obviated that as a discussion point for the particular vote just a few weeks ago because everyone could opt out okay and then my last question is around the actual exemptions that have been filed versus the actual students not wearing masks because the numbers in the schools are so much higher than 30 percent or whatever the number is right now who of people who are not wearing masks so really how well are the meh is the mask mandate actually being upheld you know given the fact and the reason i'm asking this is because it just there's not a lot of capability truly to control this when you're in the building the numbers
107do not represent what looks like it's happening actually in the building 33 is or 37 or whatever that is very low i would venture to say it's probably more like 70 80 not wearing them well so number one we hear some of those stories from folks who aren't in you know in individual classrooms on a regular basis we do not include a mask requirement for outdoor activities based on the cdc guidelines and the research that indicates that outdoor activities fine large are fine so those of you who've been to football games you're probably not going to see it when you're in when you're in the classroom same issues that we faced last year there you know the quest you know the question of teachers reminding people to pull up their mass etc when when we
108when we had those exemptions and then others didn't have the exemptions those continue to be daily issues but we went through that in an entire year it has not been our experience that 30 percent of our students are wearing a mask that has not been our experience what we find is the numbers are more consistent with what we are seeing practically and i know dr webb is here and can speak to secondary schools it's an individual thing you know with students can i say that exactly that number is exactly on point every single day that a student doesn't you know lose their mask or their nose drops below all those kinds of things that so many of us are familiar with now after last year those things happen but what i do know is that
109swiss cheese model of the cdc guidelines are part of the model and the board voted to require the mask up to this point and there is some there is some value in that i can't define and pinpoint and isolate because we're not researchers but we do know what the cdc has recommended dr webb if you would speak to your experience at the secondary schools thank you for the question mr golden and miss durham i will be honest and share with you it is a challenge at the secondary level to manage the mask mandate i'm proud of the way that our administrators and teachers are moving forward and working to ensure that it's enforced to the best of their ability i agree with you there are definitely students who once that check is done to ensure
110that everyone who doesn't have a mask exemption on file is wearing their mask as soon as that check is done there's nothing that would keep that student from going into the hallway and dropping their mask because we can't monitor it every second that the students are in the building but i will say that our schools are doing to the best of their ability to check to ensure we certainly have more students who are adhering to the mask requirement now than when we didn't have the requirement or or wearing that more or wearing masks now than when we didn't have the mandate in place but certainly it is a challenge to continue to to monitor the mass participation thanks mr wimberley i think ms durum asked the questions i had on my mind mr fiskus thank
111you madam chair and so i want to speak to i comment that when there's an opt-out where really isn't a mandate i think one of the things that i've heard from parents of kids who became part of the mandate and secondary level was this permission to see others with with mask on as well and so these parents that would send their kids to school and say hey we want you to wear a mask and then they get there and they may feel like they're the only one and they weren't wearing them at school during the optional time those parents have said that their children feel like there's they have others now that they can be masked with and so and so they feel there's a benefit there in in voting for a mandate that's going
112to mask more students or teachers and so on as the cdc said there's that switch swiss cheese effect that's going to help mitigate and we can't say that it hasn't this mass mandate hasn't helped and we don't we're like as mr golden said we're not researchers so can we say that it has helped but our numbers are going down and so that would that's what i wanted to share with you from the parents that i've heard from mr galbraith yeah thank you madam chair miss osbrooks what's the if we if this goes through and it happens to to through the january 19th date what's the process for reconsideration would it would it be would it be just a motion to cancel this or or is there some a particular kind of robert's rules to to
113to strike this down before it ends so i want to make sure i understand your question obviously under policy a board member can ask that something be brought back up so if you that is an option in addition i'm taking your question as if the vote passes what you're asking is reconsideration from the losing side is that what i'm understanding or the or the prevailing side just what can you tell me what the yeah what what would be is it am i understanding if if you that a reconsideration has to be someone from the prevailing side from the prevailing side no sir i said from the losing side i know but i guess that's what i was trying to figure out i thought that i thought that reconsideration has to be somebody from the from
114the prevailing side mr galbraith that's my understanding of robert's rules as well so if you that only someone from the prevailing side could bring the motion back up could bring the motion back up that's what i was wanting so absent absent that reconsideration move then how would how else would it get put on the put on the agenda or brought up for discussion it would go through policy through policy like well we have a policy that allows people to put things on the agenda just like we do okay so it would so literally so forget about the reconsideration it would just have to be put on the agenda and then get a motion in a second yes okay and if i made madam chair on one other one other item and i'm going to use
115a parallel with the end of this past school year in the summertime the coven numbers just almost literally dropped to the floor i guess that's actual actually figurative language right drop to the floor and we did not come to you with a with a request to require mass during the summer school program because the numbers were very low there's that possibility here because we don't know the future if if if if this drops to to almost you know to those levels we may very well come back to you quicker than that again it's it's it's just unknown thank you mr ha thank you terry i was gonna call the question but i think it's a moot point okay all right so again since we've we've had significant debate miss glenn if you'll reread and then
116mr golden if you'll give the staff recommendation to extend the mass mandate through january 19 to include students of all grade levels staff and visitors with the governor's overlay and current opt-outs staff recommendation mr goldman i do recommend approval board members please cast your votes your vote is 8 yes four no thank you board members our next item on the agenda is the kovid 19 sick leave policy proposed amendment which was deferred at the august 26 2021 special called meeting thank you madam chair this is a this was a motion to amend the proposed policy for for staff sick leave by miss apria if i'm not mistaken mr mitchell had seconded it so this was deferred to today so it's on the floor miss apria yeah after the discussion at the work session i'm going
117to ask to withdraw this amendment as staff will consider other options for sick leave for staff if if that's okay with my second i'll draw my i'll withdraw my second as well okay so the motion and the second were withdrawn ms osbrooks is that all we need to do here that's all we need to do okay thank you next item are items related to the 2021-22 school board budget the first is general purpose school funds amendment for safe schools in the amount of sorry i'm blanking here miss farmer let you go ahead if i if i may madam chair 542 thousand dollars thank you thank you madam chair this is this is a the move moving state funds received from the safe school grants to the appropriate line items do recommend approval do we have
118a motion to approve mr wimberley do we have a second miss aprilia makes a second is there any discussion i see no discussion board members please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you the next item is a general purpose school fund amendment united way in the amount of 36 thousand dollars thank you madam chair this is moving received united way grant funds in the amount of 36 thousand dollars to other contracted services for tutoring expenses and i want to specifically thank the united way and all those who donate to the united way through their annual campaigns for this recommend approval four members is there a motion to approve mr mitchell makes the motion is there a second mr priya makes a second is there any discussion board members please cast
119your votes i see no discussion your vote is 12 yes 0 no thank you the next item is education capital projects fund amendment for westwood drainage mr golden thank you madam chair as we discussed at the work session mr samuels and his staff had put in last year's annual capital funding request some work for westwood for drainage after doing some additional engineering work they determined that some additional work was needed and recommend approval for this additional funding to address that expense do we have a motion to approve ms durham makes the motion do we have a second mr fiskus makes the second board members any discussion i see none please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes 0 no thank you the next item is education capital projects fund amendment the ravenwood edition mr
120golden thank you madam chair as we discussed we know that there have been some increases in construction expenses related to the market and the impact of covet and growth etc here when the ravenwood building extension came out to bid it looked to be about 3.5 percent above the budgeted funds as a result we are asking that you vote to move 280 000 from contingency into the building improvement so that we can address that increase in projected expenses recommend approval thank you do we have a motion to approve mr mitchell and the second by mr welch is there any other discussion i see no discussion board members please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero no one abstain thank you the next item is education capital projects fund amendment split log design mr golden
121thank you madam chair this is the first of the finance items that ultimately would need to go to the county commission if you all approved it this is a request for 2.1 million dollars to start the design work on the split log property which is behind jordan elementary school to prepare for a new middle school we do recommend approval of this startup money board members do we have a motion to approve mr priya makes the motion do we have a second mr galbraith seconds is there any discussion board members if not please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes zero no think of the next item as federal projects fund gps transfer to federal projects mr golden thank you madam chair this is a request to to move funds based on generally accepted accounting
122principles based on the fundamental standard that the federal funding is reimbursements this year we are receiving more federal funding than we typically do and while many districts might do this on an annual basis it's extremely unusual for us but based on the accounting needs we do ask that you approve this transfer within wcs's budget so that we meet the generally accepted county accounting principles prior to receipt of the federal funding recommend approval is there a motion to approve mr wembley makes the motion is there a second mr hall makes the second board members any discussion i see no discussion please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you the next item on the agenda are board policies for first and final reading thank you madam chair the first item the 4.206
123homebound instruction is a proposed change to reflect a change in the state board of education rules specifically allowing homebound instruction for those students who are temporarily quarantined to be actual direct instruction at the school level through our quarantine process ms osberg says explained through the policy committee and the work session that the new state board rule requires a policy for this to for this to be in place recommend approval motion to approve mr cash makes the motion to approve mr makes the second board members any discussion then please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you the next item is the virtual education program mr goldman thank you madam chair this is a parallel to the previous policy in that the state board rules allow for quarantine students to receive regular
124direct instruction and still count as present likewise that requires a policy so we recommend approval of that as well mr hall makes the motion to approve ms supriya makes the second board members any discussion if not please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you our next item is policy 4.604 credit for pr courses mr golden thank you madam chair this is an editorial change eliminating u.s history as an exception to the credit for prior courses based on a change in the state rules recommend approval thank you board members is there a motion to approve mr hall makes the motion mr welch makes the second board members any discussion if not please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes zero no and board members all of these fall into the
125category of first and final reading mr gold will you please explain that to the board thank you madam chair our board policy calls for policies generally to to go through two policy meetings and two votes there are some exceptions to that one is if there's an editorial change in two if it's a compliance issue so based on that these three policies will become policy immediately upon the board vote which is now so board members do we have a motion to approve these on first and final reading mr hall makes the motion mr welch makes the second any further discussion board members if not please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you the next item on the agenda is an annual agenda item the adoption and approval of board goals board
126members you have seen these and we discussed these at our work session on thursday night and i have not received any modifications to these goals and i'll read them out one is to renew the focus on progress toward toward our strategic plan goals at each monthly meeting the second is to develop and agree on best practices for constituent communications the third is to review and agree on board and superintendent best practices and the fourth is to continuously improve our efforts to work according to our guiding principles our code of ethics our policies and robert's rules of order do we have a motion to approve mr wimberley makes the motion to approve and miss cleveland makes the second board members is there any discussion i see no discussion please cast your votes your vote is 12
127yes zero no thank you the next item is approval of board parameter school calendar and this is also an annual agenda item mr golden thank you madam chair for the past few years we you've had that opportunity to vote on parameters for the calendar and have elected not to set any parameters but instead review the proposed calendar when it comes to you we mentioned this at the work session and we invited any discussion and there wasn't so based upon that i do recommend that you approve no parameters for the calendar committee to do their work is there a motion to approve ms supriya makes the motion mr welch makes the second board members is there any discussion mr galbraith thank you madam chair i just want to i just want to thank dr webb and
128the and the committee it's been been out here a long time advocating for a for a full week of a fall break so if if advocating no parameters means that you continue with the with the trend that you've started then i will i'll happily oblige so thank you and thank you mr gabith i do want to mention that the way the calendar committee was able to structure that to give a full week for students that week was that we have a parent-teacher conference day the monday and a professional development day the day after that so that we could squeeze that in for students to have a full week off yes i see no further discussion board members please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes 0-0 thank you board members our next item a
129long-awaited item that we've been discussing for for a good while the approval of the special education teachers assistant pay mr golden thank you madam chair you see the memo there where we are recommending that we raise the floor of the teachers special education teacher's assistance to no less than 15 dollars an hour up from the low of 1326 plus a three percent increase to the salary chart for those with six or a year six years or more experience i want to emphasize that based on our staffing right now these numbers project that we will be able to to limit our spending to the existing line item for special education teachers assistance there's actually two lines one's from federal and one's from ones from from general budget our hope is that this really helps in retention
130right now we're between 85 and 88 percent total staffing based on a combination of the federal funded positions and state y'all the with the unemployment rate and with with those those jobs that our special education teachers are seeing competition for we need this especially for this position i do want to finally mention that there was a question at the work session about about total numbers for additional funding in miss hall i know you did some research with with miss farmer to answer that question so if you would identify the question and answer it for our board okay thank you superintendent golden yes the request was that miss farmer and i look at a 13 increase for all of the pay lanes for the special education teacher assistant we did that ms farmer did that and
131the total cost of that was close to 1.4 million dollars so part of what we're doing with this proposal to you is committing this pay increase to next year's budget and so we will have an additional funding need for this with this year's budget based on our review right now we feel like this is this is what we can do and it's a it's a good step towards acknowledging that real effort from our special education teacher's assistance we're not in a position to recommend that additional expense at this time thank you do we have a motion to approve ms supriya makes the motion to approve and mr mitchell makes the second is there any discussion board members mr galbraith thank you miss hall or miss farmer so 1.4 million would be for everybody what what
132is the what's the cost of the of the amen or the policy as of the state of the increase now you turned it off the proposal as it is 411 000. we roughly have 450 000 within that category 450 000 is what we have based on the unfilled positions at the moment and so 411 is what the proposal currently will cost so we can stay within gotcha can you do you know what the what the unfilled teacher on the on the teacher line item as far as unfilled teacher pay as far as teachers pay that the positions are not filled we know what that is i don't have an exact number on that but i can tell you with the teachers it's a little different from the standpoint we are constantly filling those positions we
133may lose but then we feel so it's not a bank of just unfilled positions sitting out there to be able to pull funding from right i guess if i would have it would have been nice to know that because my request would be that we figure out an additional amount that we could that we could pay the teacher the these the tas that have one to you know over over one year so that they could get something more than the than the three percent and that was that would be that would have been my request would be that okay if they're because obviously we still we do have we do have some money that we can't spend because teachers haven't been here for for this first quarter and so i'd love to know what that
134what that amount is so that we could use that convert it to an amount and then translate it to a to a pay rate or just give you an amount instead of 400 000 make it 700 000 and we could and you could create the pay rates based on whatever that whatever formula you could come up with thank you for that i will tell you that it there is a there is a bit of a of an overlay or mitigation of of that we've experienced more growth than we originally projected we projected 1016 growth we have about 1800 so we do have some open positions because we can't find teachers in particular spots but we've also hired some so there is a there is a set off there we can get that for you if
135i may make a suggestion i think there's some wisdom in reviewing where we are in the in the next few months and there may be some room to make some adjustments we may need to you know we try to set a budget especially with respect to pay and stick to that budget over the course of the year but sometimes the market in emergency situations make that a practical impossibility and that's where we are here we were that with bus drivers a few a few years ago and so i think this deserves some more discussion in the coming months and we'll work on getting you that information well i guess my preference when you when you look at this and somebody who's been here for 16 plus years they're going from 1790 to 1844. it's 54
136cents per hour and it's ninety dollars a ninety dollars a month is what their is what they're getting the new teachers are getting three times that and granted that's i mean that's 2700 over over a 10-month period which is something significant and i just think we owe it to the i mean i don't want us to kind of cut off our nose despite our face and we were successful in hiring new teachers new tas and yet we we know this from from when we hired the bus drivers a lot of them resented the fact that we were that they could get some benefits and an additional pay and we lost some tenured bus drivers and so it's going to happen here people are going to be sick and tired and there it's like well great
137you want to you want to reward the people who are who are coming but you don't you won't reward the people who who've been here for for years and years and years and so i mean so i guess my ask i mean i know i know we have i mean tell how many vicky how many how many teachers do we how many unfilled positions do we have right now we i'm trying to remember off the top of my head we probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of like 20 20 to 25 but i will tell you we had because of the higher student growth we have had to add more teachers than we had allotted in the pcr so we're kind of breaking even at this point as far as the budget goes we've got
138kind of a plan you know to to work that out but we did have to go over and i will of course i understand exactly what you're saying because i've thought about that too we certainly don't want to ignore those who have been here a long time i think from my perspective the point of making the recommendation for the 15 is that just gets us up to what what is competitive in the market for an entry level position and we do have those 85 openings that's putting a strain on our current tas and our teachers by not having that coverage i've also i think it's important to mention that one of the discussions we had was the recognition that everyone who works for a school system could use some additional money and that's a that's
139a real challenge and we agonized over that question because when you when you offer some you know a group of staff members extra because the market demands it you do have to answer that question what about blank position and the reality we have that need we everyone has that need and so it's a it's it's really difficult for us to to single those out the reason we have is because the special ed teachers assistant numbers are you know are so low to where we've dropped below 90 percent we are offering in this proposal a pay increase for everyone over and above the four percent everyone got there's no end all be all there's no perfect solution but when we did our math in in trying to find an immediate way to address this is what
140we believe is the wisest thing to do but the market may continue to change and i don't know as i mentioned at the work session i'm not convinced this is going to help in recruiting because of our really low unemployment rate in the community there's a reason why so many places have banners out for staff my hope is that those working special ed special education work recognizes that we're taking a step towards the market i don't i don't know where the end can be mr mitchell thank you madam chair mr golden what is our metric or goal for this do we do we have something specific that is a target we set we yes our target is minimum 15 now we set that as a baseline based on what we've seen for some of the
141hourly jobs i'm sorry let me let me rephrase my question let's send you in the wrong direction what is your goal what do you what is this pay raise trying to accomplish what is the goal with our staffing that we're trying to it's trying to accomplish employee retention so they don't leave us for commercial jobs that pay an hourly rate more than us so do we have so i where i'm trying to get to is a point of analysis of whether this has been successful or not and so if we in a month if we've discovered that we've only had x number of teaching assistants resign how how what it what are we what are we going to use to determine whether this has been successful or not thank you we do have a turnover
142rate that human resources has has has analyzed so ms hall if you would speak to that question a turnover rate of about 28 percent so it's been very high and we've been continuing to lose we're at we've actually hired some but as we hire them we're losing them as well so this effort you know over 40 percent of our ta staff is in that in that first year zero years to five years so this does address a significant percentage of of our staff that's in the sped ta role so to answer a question about a metric i would like for us to fill at least half of the vacancies and by and part of that would be not losing people because we are making some hires but we are losing people if that makes any
143sense so you're talking about net net advance we'd like to see a net increase of about of about 35 over what period of time right well guess well i will tell you my understanding my understanding based on the the question was by the end of the semester okay so you feel like three months then yes you'll you'll know yes okay so because because my thought was if it's look if the intent is retention then maybe maybe and to jay's point maybe a end of semester or an end of year bonus payment for people who are still on staff for the full year or for so many months is the isn't it is the carrot to keep to address something like that but anyway what i'm wanting i guess and asking you and miss hall to
144do is to come back in a month or two months and let us know whether this is trending in the direction that you're wanting it to trend after we've allocated this or not so where we know whether it's we need to pull a different lever the other question i guess i have is last year or a couple of years ago it was bus drivers now it's ta we're i know we've got challenges with with food service staff we also had a couple years ago the we tried to address some of our classified salary schedules i don't know that we finished that so i'll leave it at that well thank you for that we had a three-year plan to address classified pay that finished two years ago the market is telling us it's time for to
145to do that again mr cash is next but before mr cash before i turn your microphone on i just want to remind everybody that our last item on the agenda tonight is a discussion of the superintendent goals one of which is that pay pen play plan for for all employees mr cash thank you madam chair superintendent golden did we did we say we lost 28 of our tas for turnover we have had 28 turnover in teacher's assistance and just over the over the summer we did have specific losses to commercial jobs often in the restaurant industry that we have not typically experienced so 28 percent turnover rate in in over the course of one year if i'm not mistaken this hall are there exit interviews done for these folks i mean is that what they're
146saying it's they're leaving for pay reasons it well it generally speak of course everyone's just a little bit different but the two major reasons we hear are leaving for for better pay and it's hard work those are two there's some other smaller ones that we hear to answer your question yes we do we do do exit interviews some of them include out you know the nature of the hours the flexibility school structure but by and large the two are pay and it's hard work and one other question are we getting money for growth this year yes the structure and that's a racial question to the specifics but yes we do expect we will be getting funding for growth that growth pot if you all recall has slowly shrunk at the at the state level over
147the years and they tend to fund growth based on a relative growth compared to the rest of the state so we don't have any specific numbers yet on that but we do expect that ms farmer you may know that how much is in the pot i don't know we do not know we don't know the exact number at this point well is it possible we use some of that money for what it's intended for it's just a really good question yeah ultimately ultimately it goes into to our total and does address growth there are some exceptions you know with with high high cost students for special ed some of the federal funding is restricted but growth money does go into the general fund so that we can't address that right so yeah i agree with
148elliot maybe some kind of performance bonus for these folks that was a real good idea really good thought thank you sir any further discussion board members if not then let's move to vote please your vote is 12 yes 0 no thank you board members the next item on the agenda is the approval of superintendent's goals and just as a reminder board we've we've been looking at these for the last several months we've incorporated your feedback and we discussed the final goals on thursday night mr golden and thank you madam chair the two changes for thursday from thursday night is add the word effectively in goal number one present a fiscally sound pay plan to effectively address recent marketing changes including classified and certified positions and then in goal five there's a change that we've included
149from thursday to eliminate updates to and replace it with improvements include improvements on operation support processes and monthly operations report presented at the board's work session based on that i do recommend that you approve this with based on the tsba recommendation that this count as 80 percent of my evaluation thank you board members is there is there a motion to approve mr mitchell a second mr cash board members is there any discussion mr mitchell thank you madam chair so have we typically done an 80 percent waiting on your goals as an evaluation in the past short answer is no and but i'm going to add a little bit because i can't ever resist we haven't really been following all the all the rules even in years prior to me becoming superintendent so that was a
150product of miss garrett having conversations with tsba so miss garrett it's odd for me to refer to you to speak but if you would sure so when we started checking in about about the superintendent's goals we realized that we were supposed to be doing board goals as well and so that's why we did board goals and we also realized that there there were supposed to be two parts of the evaluation number one is i forget what they call it you know the things that we fill out is observable characteristics and the weighting of those we have filled those out in past years the weighting of those is recommended to be 20 percent and then the superintendent's specific goals the weighting is recommended to be 80 percent so thank you for that so here here's my
151position on that point it's not included in the memorandum so i don't believe that should be an assumption that our approval of the goals is therefore an acknowledgement of what it's going to wait and i'm and that needs to be a separate conversation and a separate vote practically personally i believe and so i don't know that from a robert's standpoint that's an appropriate that we're at a point to where approving of the goals just automatically means it's a certain waiting with that when it's not annotated in the motion itself so don't disagree with that at all what was discussed at the work session was that the goals would be approved and the recommendation was that they would have equal weight there was not not disgusting amongst them correctly would all have equal weight correct not
152discussion on the 80 versus 20 that was that was the recommendation thursday evening that you vote to approve five goals and that each goal would have the same thank you for that correction and i appreciate that and i get that so if i may modify my recommendation to approve these goals with each goal having equal weight and go ahead thank you mr mitchell i just want to say that is what attorney us brooks had recommended that we do the waiting next month but you know we just got a little bit of ahead of ourselves yeah and that's fine with me but but i my point was that it's it needs to be it needs to be clear annotation then thank you any other discussion no has someone made the where are we here have we
153made the motion okay mr mitchell made the motion mr cash seconded is there any further discussion if not please cast your votes your vote is 12 yes zero no thank you board members one final acknowledgement before we leave is that this is mr fiskus last meeting brad we thank you so much for your service and for representing district four during the past three years and just want to see if you have anything to say hold on let me turn your mic on there you are thank you thank you madam chair yes so i was thinking about this a little while ago 32 years ago i began teaching i know i looked very young so how is that possible 24 years ago we moved to tennessee in 23 to we moved here to williamson county and
154we began investing in our community and i would say of all the ways that we've involved our two children have graduated from every level of elementary to middle to high school and are now successfully in college and then these last three years an honor to serve the this board and on this board with the district four people i'm so proud of the work that we've done and the work that you guys will continue to do and i'm confident that the county commission will appoint someone to carry out that term thank you thank you and with that our meeting is adjourned thank you