001You >> ready? >> Study session has come to order. Item number one on the agenda, surplus property, child nutrition. First read >> board, you have a list of properties from child nutrition with items that are broken and unrepairable. In accordance with TCA 49620007, we are recommending these items be declared surplus or salvage and sold by public auction through an online governmental site. All monies will be issued back to child nutrition. Item number two. Number two, surplus property safety and health. Versary board, you have a list of property from safety and health with items that are broken and unrepaiable with no warranties. We are recommending these items should be disposed of or declared surplus or obsolete. Item number three, resolution transfer of surplus bus. First read, >> board, we have a unique opportunity to serve as
002good community partners. On September 23rd, the board of education, you all declared bus 0786 as surplus property, having met the years of mileage to no longer be in compliance for public school purposes in the state of Tennessee. The Montgomery County Public Library has requested this bus to become a mobile library to serve our community. We are recommending approval for this bus to be transferred to Montgomery County. Item number four, 2026 2027 special course application first read Dr. Sandre Dowy. Yes. And I believe Anthony Johnson is going to take care of that tonight. >> Yes. Not as great as her, but I'm going to try my best. Um, this one is a pretty routine. If you might remember last year, uh, we had a special transfer or I'm sorry, a special course application, uh, for military
003history. So, this comes up usually courses are approved either on a one, three, or sixyear cycle with the state. Um, and this one, I do believe, is on a three-year cycle, and you'll have that in your packet. And this is for our course, AVID. You're probably familiar with AVID or have heard about it. It's a course that we've had around for many years. Uh, there were a few years that we didn't have uh schools using the course, but after uh post pandemic, it's come back. We've got three schools that are using it. Um so we would ask that you approve this again uh to be a special course that we can offer uh for the next three years. >> Item number five, teacher tenure consideration. First read. >> Yes. >> For a director of schools
004to recommend a teacher be granted tenure by the local board of education, the teacher must first be eligible for tenure under the law. A list of eligible individuals is then presented to the board for consideration and approval. This year, the board was provided with a list of 115 15 candidates recommended for tenure based on meeting qualifications set forth by the state of Tennessee. Item number six, I'd like to ask Dr. Kimmy Saharski to come up. She is going to talk to us about the accountability data for the state report card. evening everybody. Um, it is time everything has been unimared so I can now share what we're navigating. Um, I want to remind everybody that in Tennessee, we navigate two different systems of accountability. We navigate the federal, which comes from underneath the ESSA law
005that was signed in in 2015. Each state had to submit their plan and those were approved and that was after No Child Left Behind expired. And then we have the state which is um Tennessee code annotated about the report card grades and it was updated in 2016 and added additional pieces in 2023. So the first piece of the law the part that carries [clears throat] a lot of weight across all of it is the TCAP assessments. And so what I've provided for you is a chart that says which pieces of the TCAP assessments are used for which accountability model. So if you look across the top, you'll see those that are used for federal accountability and you'll see those that are used for state letter grades and the state accountability. And then on the end
006it's the um we've included the piece that talks about educators and their um evaluation. So under federal it is ELA and math. Under state it is all contents and so as you see when I move to science and social studies the state continues. So when I talk about things about federal, I am referring to the math and ELA. When I talk about achievement for accountability, when I talk about the state and I talk about achievement, I'm talking about all four content areas that are administered. [snorts] The next piece that a lot of people don't realize, it's not a simple accountability system that looks at one overall score. It has that, but it also looks at the performance for 10 subgroups. And so I've listed those subgroups there. So you can see, so we're navigating a
007piece that says all students. And then we're navigating a piece that says here is our each of our subgroups um that are within the system. So under federal, I'm focusing I'm focusing only on the federal at this moment. You'll see on the left, here's a list of each of the indicators we're held accountable to. So under achievement when it's talking there, remember we're we're discussing ELA and math. So you have achievement. Growth is the value added. So achievement is what I know and I'm demonstrating it on the test. Growth is how do I improve each academic year? If I'm making expected growth each year, I'm gaining that academic year. You often see things that are threes across systems. Okay. Chronically out of school absent. It means that the formula includes 10% of a student's enrollment.
008uh ELEL proficiency assessment that is the ELPA assessment assessment that is measuring EEL students acquisition of the English language. This is not about conversational aspects. It's how well they grow in being able to navigate our academics in English. the graduation rate and ready grad are those things that have been identified that says I'm ready for postsecary whether it be career or college on the right you will see how those percentages are included for K8 schools and for high schools and essentially the difference between the two would be your grad rate for the high school and the ready grad those would not be included for the elementary education 8. So under accountability is where we get our designations that you hear about. So a reward school means that the overall accountability score when you take the
009data from all students it has a rating in the calculation of 3.1 to four but you also have no subgroup within that that has scored in the bottom 5% of the state. Currently Montgomery County has nine reward schools. The next layer that you see is the targeted support and improvement. You'll hear it referenced as TSI. These are the schools that have an overall accountability score that has landed in the bottom 5% of performance. The additional targeted support improvement means that I am a TSI school and I have a subgroup by itself that is also in the bottom 5%. We have nine TSI schools. We only have one ATSI. Your last designation is what is referenced as a CSI school. Montgomery County has never had one. Um, we currently don't have one, but that means the
010success rate, our performance in ELA and math is in the lowest performing for the 5% in Tennessee. So, we are not in that area um by any stretch. And the second piece is a graduation rate for any subgroup or for the overall that is below the 67%. Our graduation rate is 95%. Now this was federal and I lay that aside and that's where your designations are. Now we're going to move to state report card. That's where you see the letter grades A B C D. And so again they have their measurements. it's achievement, the value added. And so in the federal, the value added was based on the growth in math and ELA. But when you move into the state, remember we're doing all four content areas. So you get the value added for that.
011There's a section called the highest need growth 25%. That is simply students in the prior year who scored in the bottom 25% in this state. those students. They want you to make sure you focus and grow those. So, you get you get um points for growing that group of students. And the last is college and career readiness, similar to ready grad, but has a more intense list of things. Both of them uh navigate around the ACT at 21, um the ASFAB at 31, those kinds of things. So it's a simple formula. They just take your your achievement that you got, your gross score and the growth score of the bottom. And for the uh K8 schools, they simply add those to the high schools, we add the college and career readiness indicator. And based on
012the score you get at the end, you get a letter grade. And I have defined each of those letter grades for us. So, Montgomery County has 30 schools that earned AB. We have eight schools that have earned a C, which is expected if you're doing all things. That's a C. And then we have four schools that earned a D. We have no schools that have earned an F and we haven't had one yet. Questions? >> [snorts] >> Thank you everybody. Number seven on the agenda, goal number three, continue implementing innovative academic programming across the district policy. Go ahead. I'd like to have um Dr. Dana Payne and Dr. Becky Padet present goal three tonight. Good evening. I'm Dana Payne. Uh, and I'll start us off with our strategic work goal three. Goal three is to
013continue implementing innovative academic programming across the district. We'll start with our elementary schools in Spanish immersion. We launched this program in the 2018 2019 school year and our first cohort of students are now in seventh grade in that program. We're currently serving 349 students across grades K7. Um, and this takes place at two different schools, Barksdale Elementary, uh, students in kindergarten through 2 grade take 100% of their coursework in Spanish. And then in grades three through five, um, students start doing, uh, some English Spanish uh, instruction in a 50/50 module. so that they will be uh doing uh some of the English uh by fifth grade. And then middle school looking at uh grades six and seven currently students are taking their instruction in social studies and science in Spanish and all other content is
014in English. Moving on to our middle schools, uh we have our middle school career explorations labs. We're in our second year of these uh and these take place as related arts courses in grades 6 through 8. Uh students are exposed to real tools in real world scenarios. And every building um has at least 15 different modules where students work on a rotational basis to learn uh about some of the different careers that are aligned to the high school programs of study offered. And so we've got a really quick video that'll show you some of these in action. >> Welcome to the CMCSS career labs. Innovative hands-on learning spaces designed to spark curiosity and inspire future pathways for our middle school students. These labs, known as Paxton Labs, are located in each of our eight middle
015schools. While every school has its own unique set of labs, each one offers students a blend of foundational knowledge and realworld hands-on experiences. The purpose of the career labs is simple. To introduce students to a wide range of career and technical education professions through exploration and problem based learning, students begin to discover what they enjoy, what they're good at, and which careers might be right for them. Career labs also create a bridge to high school. The experiences students have here connect directly to high school CTE pathways, allowing them to continue building skills, confidence, and career awareness as they move forward. Whether it's engineering, health sciences, digital design, construction, or dozens of other fields, CMCSS students are gaining early exposure to the opportunities waiting for them beyond middle school. CMCSS Career Labs, where exploration begins, passions
016emerge, and futures take shape. >> Our district also offers dual enrollment to our high school students. You can see over the past four years an increase in the number of sections offered of dual enrollment courses across each of our high schools. You will also see over the last four years an increase of student enrollment in those dual enrollment courses as well. Our dual enrollment partners are listed at the bottom of the screen. These post-secondary partners are many of our local partners, Austin P, Tennessee College of Applied Technology, Nashville State Community College here in Clarksville, and UT Martin. Advanced placement courses are also offered to our uh to our high school students. Again, over the last four years, you will see the student enrollment increase in advanced placement courses. You will also see the number of
017exams taken in advanced placement courses increase. And then for this year, you will see that number has not been identified yet as AP exams are taken in May of 2026. So, we will not know that number until the end of the school year. One thing I would like to note about our advanced placement courses is the increase in the national pass rate. And you can see over the last three years, the past three school years, an increase in 16% pass rate. That is outstanding for our high school students to say that they have taken and passed the AP exam. Also, I'll get this figured out, I promise. Also offered is our uh offered to our students, excuse me, is our Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. Each year, um each of our eight traditional high schools
018offers this. As you can see imaged on the screen, is one of our state and national award-winning teams here at Kinwood High School. Our JOTC program um includes over 1,400 students and on average each school year we're averaging in the 1300. So you can see 1440 is an increase in the in the average. We also offer industry certifications to our students. CMCSS offers over 35 industry certifications. Um, our students have earned over 1,800 and then you can see that that certification pass rate for our students is sitting at 83%. Non-traditional innovative academic programs for our students. Um, two are on the screen. These are not new to CMCSS. One is the early technical college at Tennessee College of Applied Technology and the second one is the middle college at Austin P State University. A new
019non-traditional program offered to our high school students starting next school year is the accelerated associate program at Nashville State Community College here in Clarksville. This program of study is unique in that students get to remain at their home school for the majority of the day and they will take up to two dual enrollment courses at the College of Nashville State Clarksville campus. That means students get to stay connected to their home school. They get to engage in clubs, sports, and activities as a normal traditional high school student at their home school. And then they also can be um exposed to dual enrollment courses uh getting them that early start to college. Super excited about this program. Uh we just started this two weeks ago on Tuesday. Our first cohort of students uh joined the CDLA
020commercial driver's license uh program. 14 14 of our kiddos uh are are started uh and rolling really uh in the program currently. So, this is a partnership with Armored Trucking Academy and the Clerksville Industrial Development Board. Um students will spend nine weeks working uh towards earning their class A driver's license and then they will spend nine weeks uh in an internship in some field of logistics. Uh we're really excited about this because it is an entry point into multiple local business and industry placements to include lineman school. Um we will be continuing this program. It was open to uh seniors who turn who turned 18 on or before January 6th. That is because you have to be 18 in order to earn your permit and you have to have your permit in order to uh
021earn the license. And so we'll continue this program in January of every school year in hopes of having um students turn 18, enough students turn 18 that are interested to be able to do that moving forward. This is a nocost opportunity to the students as it was grant funded through the TVA. Um and that grant will allow us 25 total students to go through the program. And then the IDB uh did work a a deal with the Armored Trucking Academy for the land uh that will allow us to have a another hundred students go through the program over the course of the next 10 years. Another really exciting program that will launch in the fall uh of 2026 is Founders Inc. where innovate uh INC stands for innovate, network, and create. um that is going
022to be housed at the BERT Innovation Center. We are using um innovative school model grant dollars to do some renovations to the BERT uh building that will house all of the components of this program. The space redesign will include uh four really unique spaces uh where students will be able to uh work with uh partners and mentors around um around learning about uh entrepreneurship and the businesses that they would like to create. There will be maker spaces that will include everything from 3D printers to laser engravers to sewing machines. all the things that students would need to be able to build prototypes of products. There'll be a marketing department where students will learn about podcasting and broadcasting. They'll learn about media art, poster making, design, all of the things that they would need once they've
023got this business idea up and running to be able to market it. And then there'll be a presentation space, uh, think Shark Tank. So this will be the place where students will um be able to learn to present and to be able to um to see themselves in in this space and practice and repractice before they do the big pitch at the end. Um and so really this entrepreneurship hub uh will allow students to develop all the skills that they need to build a real bis a business. We'll be working with mentors uh in business and industry partners to help oversee the the uh development and iteration of this. Um and then it will uh be open to students in both grades 11 and 12. Uh and students will spend one class period a day
024at Founders, Inc. and five class periods a day at their tra traditional high schools. So, that really sums up a lot of the innovative things we're doing across the district, uh, elementary school all the way through high school. Do you all have questions for us? >> The, u So, in the CDL program, why the January 6th cut off? Where where did the number come from? >> Yeah. So, the semester starts, that was the first day of classes for the second semester. Um, and so classes were going to start with students. Um, and we wanted students to be able to do the nine weeks. It's 164 hours of class time. And we wanted them to be able to get through the program before uh spring break so that they could do their internships after spring break.
025And students have um two weeks from January the 6th until January the 30th to get their permit. if they don't have their permit by uh January the 30th, then they can't continue on in the program. And so if we had students who who came to us and and January 6, but they were January the 15th, as long as they could could get that permit before January the 30th, we did take that into consideration. >> Well, like I my [clears throat] birthday is October 28th, so there's no way I would have done that. I just don't know what we How many students do you think that we're losing that would want to do the program that would be like me? >> Yeah. So, um, state law says that students can't get their permit until they're 18
026years of age, which is part of why the cuto off date is where it is. Um, and so we can't work around the that state law piece of it. We did have 948 students who turned 18 um before January the 6th and so those were the students that we marketed to. >> What's your capacity >> um in the program? >> We actually don't have a capacity uh at this point as many as as they'll take. Uh we are really looking we could do a second class in the second nine weeks if we had enough students who were interested. So the school itself, Armored Trucking Academy, um can do 14 in the morning and 14 in the afternoon. This year we have a total of 14. Uh that was just the total number of students who
027actually qualified. We didn't turn any students away who applied >> that qualified. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Absolutely. Mr. Mayberry. >> Hey, thank you so much for this presentation. It always excites me to hear all the different things that we're venturing out to do. Um, so I have a question. A lot of this that we're starting off, um, and I see like nursing and and we talk about CDLs and all that. Um, when we're looking at innovating into new areas and stuff, how how are we picking those different places that go into is it or industry coming to us, you looking at trends like how does that get figured out? >> Both. So CDL was uh somebody coming to us that was um that was actually Jeff Birkhart who came to us um with that
028idea and and said that was something that was uh needed in this community. Um and so we worked with him around that and and with both the IDB um and Workforce Essentials on that. Uh we do try to meet with them regularly yearly. We have an advisory committee uh for our career and technical education programs that we we meet with at least twice yearly uh to discuss what the needs are of the community and then we pull in programs based on that. >> Thank you and God bless [clears throat] Jeff for still making an impact on our community. >> Yes. >> Um how are how would if someone was watching this today and they're looking at this like man I want to get involved like how could they reach out to the school system to
029to partner with us? >> That's a great question. We do have um on our website cmcss.netct on there there is a place where any business or industry partner or even individuals um can reach out. There's a form that comes directly to me and then I will reach back out to them following that. >> That's amazing. I I'd encourage the community to do that. Uh I may miss this if you said this. I apologize. Um of course Spanish immersion. Love this uh program. Seen it firsthand. It's incredible. It's in the elementary school. Love this going to middle school. I assume corporal high is where it's going in the high school. >> Correct. That's the plan. >> And this and the same concepts, social studies and science. >> I think we're still to be determined on that.
030Um as we we've got another year next year they'll be in eighth grade. We'll stick with the with the science and social studies and we'll explore those options um as we move into high school. >> Gotcha. I just want to say to everybody I love the expansion to middle school um programs that we're doing. love the focus on nursing as well as our community is definitely going to need some more nurses and that's incredible and um encouraged partnership uh with all the incoming hospitals and I'm sure they're already reaching out to to to do that. So, but yeah, thank you guys so much for for this and and I appreciate it. >> I have a question that you had mentioned that there's industry certifications. Can you tell me a little bit about what those certifications
031are for? Absolutely. So, uh the industry certifications, we've got 35 different industry certifications. So, it really depends on the program of study. So, some examples, um in aviation, we have a FAA drone pilot's license certification. So, students would earn that um specific to that program of study. Healthc care. Um so, in our health science programs, we have a CNA, which is a certified nursing assistant. We have a CPCT, which is a patient care technician. We have a C uh CCMA, so medical assistant. Um we've got EMT. Uh so the the different certifications are really specific to each program of study. The state of Tennessee Department of Education actually puts out um a list of of different certifications that are aligned to every program and they tier them um based on whether uh how valuable they
032are to to be um put into the workforce. And so we try to choose as many tier 2 and tier three the highest level certifications as we can for each of our programs. >> And those certifications don't cost the students money. >> Correct. Yep. So, we use uh kind of a braid of general purpose funding and Perkins grant dollars to cover all of the certifications for our students. >> One more question. >> The the Founders, Inc. building looks amazing, you guys. I'm an entrepreneur and so that just warms my heart. >> We have interns that are currently interning that are seniors. Is the Are those programs going to work together at all or are they independent? They'll work together. Yes, absolutely. So, we're hoping to have have kind of a a marriage of those two
033things so that students will be able to participate in both, be able to reap the benefits of both. Awesome. Thank you. No more questions. >> All right. On to number eight. Resolution budget amendments. First read, Jeff Taylor. Good evening board members. This shouldn't take very long. This is just basically realigning budget moving of funds under um special education. We are reallocating salary and benefits about $59,000 $460 to supplies and materials. And as well, we're moving um $735 over from 722 special education support, moving that to the supplies and materials account. Um under other student support, as you can see under the for the EQCIS amendment, we're just moving funds out of salaries over into benefits. Um the $500,1 and the $283 are being moved into equipment for the open gate security system that we will
034be implementing in the schools, high schools. And um lastly, you'll see the $6,000 in prek development, professional development. That's moved over to early childhood education under professional development as well. Then as you can see, the sped prek entitlement grant of $735. And then lastly under business affairs just moving $112 out of contracted services basically from travel to professional development. Moving on to federal projects. You can see we are just additional revenues and expenditures, additional funding for title one, title one, title one neglected, um title two, title three and the APEN grant. Uh the rest of these amendments are just reallocation of funds for title four and the idea IDA grants. Any questions? >> Thank you. On to item number nine. I'm going to hand it over to Mr. Chris Laneir. Schoolboard committee's discussion. Um, we
035met earlier this week. We're going to we're still exploring some options of what we can do. So, I think we're going to kind of push this off to later as we kind of gather some more information on how we can how it can be. We're good. >> County Commissioner comments. >> Welcome. We have a new team. School board member comments. All right, Dr. Luna, better. Good evening, board members. This week was the second week back from holiday break for students, faculty, and staff, and we've hit the ground running. Hopefully, you're following along on social media as we continue to highlight their teachers of the year for every school in the district. It's great to read more about our amazing teachers and students and families who appreciate them. It's hard to believe, but we're already looking
036ahead to next school year. 8th through 11th grade students have already begun the process to choose classes for next fall. Also, pay special attention over the coming weeks as there's several opportunities at schools to learn more about our programs of choice. Like you heard tonight, schools are hosting events highlighting the numerous options to fit the needs of every student. Applications will open later this week and close midFebruary. Finally, I'd like to welcome our county commissioners who are serving on the education committee for this term. We have returning Jeremiah Walker and welcome to commissioners Beiel, Ganon, Pritchard, and Shelton. We appreciate you attending and look forward to working with you. Vice Chair Bryant, this concludes my report for the evening. Thank you very much everybody for being here. This ends our study session. Have a good
037one.