001Welcome to the board of education's May 5th, 2025 work session. Please stand as we observe a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance led by Miss Tippleton. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We just have a few announcements. The strategic plan committee will meet on Wednesday, May 14th at 1:30 in the Summerplace boardroom. And Miss Christie will be sharing more details about the committee's work a little later in our meeting. The next policy review meeting is scheduled for Friday, May 16th at 10:00 a.m. also in this boardroom. And May is an exciting month for our schools with the end of the school year. I call it Mayber and commencement ceremonies. And
002I'm sure that Superintendent Risewick will be sharing some celebratory information during his report. But on behalf of the board, I want to wish all of our amazing teachers a happy teacher appreciation month. And please know that the board values and appreciates you. Along the same lines, we have lots of KCS employees who are retiring at the end of this school year, and we want to thank you for your many years of service and wish you the very best in your retirement. Are there any requested changes to our meeting agenda? So moved. Hey, a motion by Mr. Triple, second Miss Christie. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Superintendent Risewick. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. It's hard to believe, as Miss Henderson
003just said, that we're we're approaching the final days of the school year. Um, as I want to I want to prepare to celebrate the class of 2025 and we begin to look forward to next fall, I want to share a few highlights and reflections that we have for this year. Um, the first um I want to thank you all as the board uh for our special call meeting that took place for um for voting to approve the budget for FY26. Uh this budget represents exactly what we've been working toward as a district for the past three years. It's priority aligned and student focused. Um, it's full of systems and structures that will outlive each of us and give us our staff predictability and consistency that they deserve. And it's a considerable investment in the men
004and women who make our mission possible. As you know, this budget represents the next of our multi-year effort to ensure every member of KCS team is compensated at market value. As well, I want to recognize our business and talent division led by Miss Himlgarn uh and each of our assistant superintendents for the countless hours they put into this budget. It really was a good process and appreciate you all as well. I also want to recognize our strategy division for producing a transparent, comprehensive budget book to ensure every member of Knox County community knows how we're spending our tax dollars. This month also marks an exciting development for our 865mmies, particularly for Carter High School. This Friday, our team will join the Knoxville Chamber to celebrate a new major employer breaking ground in the community. The
005Green Hackhead Group is a a leading uh HVAC manufacturer for commercial buildings around the world. The company is new to Knoxville and their expansion into our community is estimated to bring more than 400 jobs to Knox County. We were honored to be invited to participate in early conversations with the Green Heck Group. Uh they they knew they wanted to build their next facility in a community that valued education and they knew they wanted to be part of that preparing the next generation workforce. I will say this, it's the first time I've had a chance to be involved in that and the chamber asked us to be. when they came to visit, they were scouting us against some other cities and it was very clear they wanted to be involved and that was uh it was
006neat for us to be able to talk about what the A65mmies do. Um I'm proud to share that you'll see an item on Thursday's agenda for anou with green heck to build an on-site manufacturing enterprise at Carter High School to provide students with hands-on experiences in engineering and manufacturing. So they've quickly put their money where their mouth is and want to be in to help uh the school that's the closest. I know in one of their visits they actually came out and were super impressed with the welding program at Carter High School too and how that could help them. So this partnership is a powerful example of what happens when industry and education align to create opportunities for students and it highlights what's possible when we give young people access to meaningful hands-on learning uh
007and connect to connect their classroom to the future. I also want to echo what Miss Henderson said earlier. As many of you know, this week is also teacher appreciation week, and I want to invite each of you to join me in celebrating the incredible educators uh that have chosen to give their time and talents to the students of Knox County Schools. This year, I've had the privilege of visiting uh schools across the district, and every visit has reinforced just how fortunate we are to have such outstanding teachers in our classrooms. I've been impressed by the talent, the passion, and creativities our teachers bring to their work each and every day. sitting in on professional learning communities or PLC's, I've watched educators collabor collaborate thoughtfully and use the power of planning together to sharpen their practice
008and improve their outcomes for students. In classroom walkthroughs, I've seen teachers using real-time data to make instructional decisions that ensure every student is not only learning, but is challenged to excel. These moments continue to reinforce what we've already known, that student success begins with our teachers. And I want to thank every teacher uh who has chosen to share their talents here at Knox County Schools. Last but not least, graduation season is upon us. One of my favorite time of the year, too. Uh one of our one of my greatest privileges of being superintendent is to have the honor of shaking more than 4,000 graduating seniors hands. Uh each with a unique story uh and a proud family and a future of full possibilities. I know we were looking at the schedule for the first Saturday,
009which is the 17th, and we have five graduations that day, and then my daughter who's graduating from UT said, "Oh, dad, I'm graduating that day, too." So, the good news is it's in the three-hour window that between graduations. So, I have six graduations that Saturday, but it'll be great. Um, graduations are a powerful reminder of why we do this work. Every cap and gown represents a journey that began long before the senior year, starting in preschool and elementary and continuing through every grade, every classroom, and every lesson learned along the way. Board members, I look forward to seeing you come rain, heat, or shine. I'm sure we'll have all of them uh in those two weeks. And again, I apologize to Beard High School. This year will be better. It will be better. Uh finally,
010I had the privilege of attending the last Project Grad dinner celebration a couple weeks ago. Uh Dr. Butler was there as well. It was great to celebrate the work that has taken place in the center city for more than two decades. Uh over the years, Project Grad has been deeply committed to serving the students of Austin East and Fulton High School, helping connect them and their families to the resources, experiences, and support needed to access higher education. As a former Project Grad board member and a principal at a Project Grad school, I've seen firsthand uh the way Project Grad has inspired us to dream bigger and think innovatively about how we walk with our students from from preschool to graduation and how we prepare every student for life after they cross the stage. Their legacy
011will live on in our 865mmies and in and through organizations like Tennessee Achieves and every partner and business leader who chooses to be part of preparing the next generation for college or career. I hope all of you will join me in thanking uh the leaders who have supported Project Grad for their 24 tireless years serving and advocating for students. It's kind of neat to see something that was born from the community uh that we now see. It was I had a great conversation with Ronnie Chandler at the event to be able to say to thank her for the vision Jerry Hodes, Ronnie Chandler, that whole group had uh and now it's kind of see it come full circle that every one of our high school students now has those experiences uh and that kind of
012support um when they move on to the next. And while graduation marks the finish line for our seniors, the last day of school for all students is Thursday the 22nd. It's only a half day and a well-earned one. I want to thank every educator, staff member, and support team member who has helped us reach this moment. Your hard work through the year has made a lasting impact, and I hope everyone takes time this summer to rest, recharge, and reflect. Madam Chair, that concludes my report. I'm so excited. I love May and everything it has. One of my favorite memories, my favorite graduation memory will be Beardarden last year in torrential pouring down rain. That will be my forever favorite graduation. Well, and I love that the families once they knew they just embraced it. Like
013I remember I told I told Miss Hayers, you can blame it on me and and the clouds opened up for 20 minutes and then all a sudden this roar from the crowd and then it cleared out. It was nice. It was fun. Just got to roll with it. Um Mr. Triplet, legislative update. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh board members, you're probably aware that the 114th General Assembly adjourned on April 22nd. Uh 1 1500 pieces of legislation were filed and there are 70 new laws that affect K12 education. And um that's a lot and we're not going to cover all those in this moment, but just know that over the next few uh policy review meetings, I'm I know we'll be looking at some of that. The law department, KCS staff will dive into it and
014figure out exactly what we need to change to make sure we're following those laws. uh receiving guidance from the Tennessee Department of Education, the state board of education. So, we'll be seeing um the the fruit of that and the outcome of that and and and obviously following through with those changes over the next few months. Awesome. Miss Tippleton, I have a question regarding that. Um maybe TSBA will have the information, but a complete list of these 90 because I felt this year was um it was a lot a lot. Yeah. um and and just kept on coming. So, does TSBA have a complete list or do you have access to a complete list or do you have a complete list just so that we can be prepared on the front end? I mean, I do
015have some from a a legis legislative agenda meeting that TSBA provides that discusses some of the key ones. I don't know if Mr. Dupler has something more thorough. Thank you, uh Mr. triplet. But Miss Templeton, so TSBA puts things out peacemeal usually. I mean, what I always say is that we don't want to rush into it because as Mr. Triplet said, there's going to be guidance from TDOE, there's going to be guidance from state board, things like that. Uh, but uh, with all that said, TSBA will eventually put out a list of of of all the changes. uh and then usually by uh July they'll have you know a comprehensive seminar on all the ch if not all the changes at least all the pertinent changes uh but I mean again so so so expect
016all that but even before that we're going to have some at least some of the more major things brought to you for policy review one of which being I think probably foremost on mo almost everybody's mind is the cell phone policy. So, yeah. Thank you. A timeline is just helpful. Yep. Mhm. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to add to that and and echo what Mr. Duper is saying. We work very closely with them. They go Gary goes to the law conference. Our chief of staff, Christy Woods, goes as well. Uh and toss the organization that we're part of to the uh super super Tennessee superintendents on May 19th. We have a session where they're going to go through Chuck Kaggel and his whole legal team will give us our first look at some of those
017too and we'll be getting from TSBA. So, we'll bring that back and share with Gary as well. I think Christiey's going to go to that, too. So, we we'll be getting information, but to his point, it kind of trickles in because a lot of it is just left as raw law. There's a lot of uh interpretation of what that means. Uh, and so anyway, but thanks. I appreciate you what Gary does with that, too. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks, Miss Christie. have a strategic plan committee update. It's always a mouthful. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, as Miss Henderson announced earlier in the meeting, the strategic plan committee will be meeting on Wednesday, May 14th. Representatives of Accenture LLP will be presenting the committee with the final draft of our next five-year strategic plan. Um, we provided
018input and feedback at our March meeting. So after having this time next uh week for the last review, the plan is to bring our recommendation on the new plan to the board at our June meeting. Thank you. Dr. Brown, you're up. Special education analysis report. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. As always, it's a pleasure to get to get stand up and and share with you the work we're doing. Um, I might have to step back from that microphone. Um, so, uh, want to start off tonight. Uh, this has been long awaited. If you all will recall, back in 2023, prior to me being in this job, um, Knox County Schools and and my predecessor launched the student success deep dive, looking into all of our departments, all of the areas, um, trying
019to take the approach that Dr. Risewick has encouraged us to of of continuous improvement across the board. Um I will say one of the things that we have we have noticed is that you know as the highest performing of the big three districts in the state um you know just being compared to others in the state is not good enough for us. So you know we're our own competition. So we're always trying to get better. Um so um you know this is something we want to do. The the data we've collected from stakeholders said that we need to take a deeper look. Uh and so if you'll recall last year you all approved the contract with PCG after going through the procurement process um to do a special ed analysis and then follow that up
020with strategic planning. Uh I will go ahead and say that tonight what they plan to share with you all and what you have a copy of at your desk is is the report that they have done from their analysis. Uh and then the next steps that I'll go over here toward the end will be the strategic plan that will drive us moving forward. Um so that's where we are today. Um, and apparently today wouldn't fit on one line, so we got Y on the bottom. Um, I don't if you should do like the YMCA or what? Um, but today we're actually going to share out that report. Um, so I'm going to introduce our our partners from PCG here in a minute. U, but again, this the goal of this was just to have a
021starting point. This is a jump off point to to do a pulse check. Where are we? To have a third party like we've done in so many areas come in and take a look at us. You know, as I've heard Dr. Rise would say many times, it's hard to be a judge of your own baking. Uh, you know, I'm never going to say that I'm a terrible cook, although I may be. So, to have someone else come in and judge my food would be uh give a and and I will say to these ladies credit, they have been an incredible partner. Um, they have stayed with their research protocols and very uh strict adherence. So, I've been very impressed with PCG and the work that they have done. Um, so I should move on to
022the next slide. Uh so again, I kind of I got ahead of myself and talked about a little bit of this, but uh just as so you recall, our goal here is to produce a three to fiveyear plan to to do some of those things that we talked about and Miss Henderson, you challenged us with in our resolution to improve achievement with students with disabilities across the board. Uh to move students into the general education setting as much as as we can, to improve special ed supports, and to keep students in zone school. So looking at that continuum of service and placements across the district. Um so just a recap and I've shared a little bit of this throughout the year. Um we had 190 participants from various stakeholder groups that includes parents, schoolbased staff,
023district leaders uh take part in the focus groups. Um we had as you can see more than 1700 parents, caregivers, more than 1976, that's a pretty specific number um that engaged in the online survey and focus group. So we got a really good response rate. I think this is something that people care about genuinely uh and wanted to have their voice heard. So I think they had the opportunity to have that voice heard. Uh so um before I turn it over to PCG, I just want to briefly introduce our presenters for this evening and give you a little background on each of them. Uh Dr. Jennifer Barabau is a senior lead education adviser at public consulting group with over 12 years of leadership experience in special education. She served as project director of qualitative research
024lead on more than 15 large-scale district and state reviews across the country, supporting systems level improvement through inclusive programming, strategic action planning, and high impact stakeholder engagement. Jennifer leads PCG's special education thought leadership work, developing resources and insights on emerging trends, effective practices, and innovative strategies that improve outcomes for students with disabilities. She also co-leads the firm's engagement with the Urban Collaborative, contributing to national conversation on inclusive education and meaningful systems change. Her project portfolio includes program evaluations and IEP audits in urban, suburban, and rural districts with a focus on inclusive practices, behavioral supports, staffing models, and sustainable frameworks for improvement. Her expertise spans compliance and quality reviews, leadership coaching, and collaborative planning processes that strengthen connections between policy and practice. Before joining PCG, Jennifer held district leadership roles in Massachusetts and Connecticut, where she
025led special education, program reform, and professional development initiatives. She has taught graduate courses at Harvard, UMass, Amherst, and Springfield College on inclusive instructional practices, universal design for learning and special education systems leadership. She holds a PhD in education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and has served on the board of mass of the Massachusetts Council for Exceptional Children. Our second presenter, Dr. Mario Ulik, joined PCG in June of 2021 as a senior adviser and has since transitioned into the role of senior consultant. She's led nationwide targeted and comprehensive special education reviews as a project director and subject matter. Dr. Ulick has expanded the special education services business line to include implementation support with gifted and talented program reviews. She's been a key player when strategizing PCG's expansion to into priority states, specifically serving as the
026lead writer for contracts one at the local and state levels. Dr. Ulick partners across teams within the educational practice area to synthesize PCG's integration of service and facilities, a comprehensive approach to engaging clients when designing scopes of work. Before her tenure at PCG, she served in various roles including director of early stages in DC public schools, adjunct professor at Talson and John's Hopkins University, and education specialist in the division of special ed and early intervention at the Maryland State Department of Education. In January of 2015, Dr. Ulick began her educational leadership and management doctorate with a special education leadership concentration at Drexel University School of Education. She was selected as one of 10 doctoral candidates to part participate in the urban special education leaders for tomorrow project, a five-year OEP funded special education leadership personnel
027training grant. And she successfully defended her dissertation in May of 2019. So, as you can see, these ladies are much smarter than I am. So, I'm going to get out of the way and let them share with you what they found about KCS and Knox or special ed and Knox County schools. So, you roll. And there's your clicker. Good evening. That every once in a while when we hear that, I sometimes get surprised. I'm Dr. Ulick and every once in a while I hear it. I go, "Oh, that's me. I got to Okay, that's me. I know. Okay. Once I'm usually hearing mom, mom, wherever I am." So, excellent. Here we go. Um, so our team is here this evening, uh, as Dr. Dr. Brown mentioned to share with you both the findings and recommendations
028of the report that we have written and as uh Dr. Barabau and I will expand upon as we've spent several months um here working with partnering with our teams in KCS to learn all about the um nuts and bolts of special education as it relates to this district, but most importantly what's working and what's not working and how can we provide that feedback in a contextualized way as well as clear recommendations moving forward. And so we do want to acknowledge that in August of 24, KCS uh Knox County Schools engaged with our firm public consulting group to independently review its special education program. This review was an evolution of one of the special education task force recommendations from August of 2023. The original language from the task force recommendation prioritized inclusive practices is noted in
029the recommendation and it and said in quote bring in an expert in inclusion and structural reforms to reimagine KCS special education and make success for every student accessible to those with special needs. This review conducted by our team at PCG expanded upon that scope beyond inclusive practices to reflect the entirety of the special education effectiveness domains that we'll walk through with you this evening. And this presentation most importantly is designed to provide you a highle overview of the current state of special education in KCS and most importantly will guide the district in moving forward in through the lens of continuous improvement. We'll provide you a brief project overview as well as the objectives of the research. Dr. Barabau will walk us through the methodology and data collection procedures that we engaged in. We'll also share
030together the key findings and recommendations and next steps and then open the floor for question and answer. Thank you. Can everyone hear me? Okay. Okay. Just making sure. I feel like I sound low and I'm sure. So maybe I can stand on my tiptoes. Um I can speak up a little bit too. Yeah, as long as everyone can hear I'm good. No, I think I'm good. I can I'll speak up. Um, so as Moria mentioned, we have a proprietary framework that we use whenever we come and do district reviews. And so what you're seeing here is PCG's special education effectiveness domains, which is divided into six key areas. It may look familiar from the kickoff that we did back in the fall because we talked about these effectiveness domains. And so what you'll see here
031is we have we use a term human capital, but we know it's called talent here in KCS. And so that part of our domain really assesses staffing, training and recruitment and retention practices. Another piece of that framework is high expectations. And so this is where we look if students are and staff are presuming competence around students with disabilities and setting rigorous standards for children's education. We look at systems and structures as part of this. So how are services coordinated? How is resource allocated throughout the district? And how is data managed? And so by data we mean how is progress monitored for students? How are IEPs monitored? How is compliance monitored within the district. We also look at family and community engagement which essentially asks the question how are families feeling about their child's education and
032their IEP services. We also look at learning environment and specialized services. And so this really focuses on how is highquality instruction delivered and how is it producing better outcomes for students including meaningful educational benefit for your students with disabilities. And then lastly, we look at leadership. And so we try to understand how is your strategic guidance provided and how is that support informing decision-making for all students. And so when you look at our report, you'll see that we largely couch everything within these domains in that report that you're going to see tonight. Dr. Brown already went over this, so I will go over this at a very high level, but I think it's important to understand that our research design for this is a mixed methods research design. And so what we do is we
033look at both qualitative and quantitative data as part of this review. And so that includes a variety of data sources that we use to inform our findings and recommendations. And so when we look at these data sources, we really focus on key themes or findings that come out that we see over and over again. And so we have a document review process that we go through as part of this. We analyzed over a hundred documents that the district provided to us as part of this review. And so that includes things like policies and procedures that the district has for special education, student achievement metrics, staffing and resource allocation are just a few of the types of documents that we would look at. We had stakeholder input which we talked about earlier and that included focus
034groups and interviews and also surveys to both staff and parents. And then we had observations. So we spent some time in classrooms because we feel that's a very important part of this work. We want to better understand that what we hear in those focus groups and interviews and see and survey data. what are we seeing in classrooms and how does that look compared to what we hear. Um, and then the last thing we looked at is a quantitative data analysis. And so that's where we look at both public information that's available on state performance metrics and also snapshot data that was provided to us by the district for the 2425 school year. We look at demographic trends and we also look at resource utilization patterns and staffing as part of our quantitative data analysis. And
035so where does that bring us now with all of this data that we have and that we spent months analyzing? Um and so we're going to talk Mory and I about the key findings that we found in the report. But before I go into the key findings, I always like to highlight that this report is not a one-time evaluation to us, but really a step in ongoing continuous improvement as Dr. Brown mentioned. So, the recommendations and findings that we're going to outline here are really designed to enhance KCS's ability to meet the needs of all learners. We want to encourage this be done by strengthening inclusive practices, by reinforcing shared responsibility, that this is not just a special education initiative, but really a district-wide initiative. And really wanting to provide every student with access to
036a rigorous and supportive educational experience. And so we hope that by implementing these shifts that this district-wide commitment will be a collaborative effort in what you hear tonight. So the following key takeaways that I'm going to start with are highle priorities for KCS to consider as it begins action planning and developing a roadmap to really drive meaningful improvement. So these priorities that I'm going to talk about and there are four of them reflect critical areas of focus that address current challenges and leverage opportunities to strengthen your systems, your structures and your practices. So these four key findings and they these really encompass kind of all areas of the domain which is why we pull them out because we think they're some of your key levers that you should start to prioritize when you think about
037this report. The first one of those being competing perspectives and student centered decision-m and so when we started this review we understood clearly that there were ongoing tensions surrounding special education placements disciplinary actions and access to appropriate services. And so while we understand that families have the right to seek legal recourse when they are unhappy with their child's education program, we've also noted that it's caused some considerable strain on relationships within the district. This includes both for families and for staff. And so what we've heard throughout our research is that families often feel that legal recourse is their only way to get what they need for their child or that's the way their voice is heard. Conversely, we heard from staff that they feel their decisions often have to be made with that in the
038back of their mind. And so what happens there is that they then feel like they are not able to make student informed decisions that are driven by data but are more making decisions based on avoiding litigation. And so we see this as two equally important but competing perspectives and wanting to really understand and bring forward to the district that really creating some collaborative structures here to help parents understand how do I advocate for my child in the best way but also understanding that decisions need to be made based on data for students when it comes to determining services and eligibility. That there's a rich opportunity here to really bring these two things together. Um, we did take a a review of all of the legal cases from 2023 and 24 and 2024 and 25. And
039we noticed there's a balance. We noticed that there are times where the district prevailed and there were no findings against the district. And then there were other times where there were two due process cases that we looked at that the district did have findings um and did not prevail in those situations around disciplinary infractions and the placement of students in alternative placements. And so what we see is that more often than not the district is compliant. Um and that is made through administrative complaints. We looked at those as well where the state has found no fault of the district. But at other times we've seen files of complaints that were filed over and over again showing us that parents really are not satisfied with the outcomes that were from those um proceedings. And so again,
040we just want to highlight with this first key priority that there really does need to be an emphasis on proactive family engagement. Leveraging your special education onbudsman would be one way to think about that and also thinking about your preschool parent liaison because you already have people in the places to really bridge some of those collaborative structures and we feel it's going to be really important to continue to focus on that as you help families and staff bridge those two perspectives. The next key area that we highlight here is around compliance and staffing impacts in special education. And so another area that we found there were pretty competing perspectives was around the perception that there are not enough staff to provide special education services to students in the district. And so many felt that this
041was leading to compliance challenges um which we found to be could be the case in some cases when you think about evaluations. Um, the district did not meet indicator 11 on the SP APR report, which indicates that evaluations were not always done within the timeline set forth by the state. But in other cases, you couldn't say that it was due to staffing needs, that the district was not meeting certain areas on the SP APR indicators. Things like dropout rate, graduation rate wouldn't necessarily be attributed fully to staffing shortages. And so what we noted here is that we feel it's really important when we did our case load analysis to understand that numbers alone don't tell the story. And so what you really want to focus on is not only case load numbers but workload as
042well. So really having a better understanding of not only how many students are on a staff member's case load and this could be a special ed teacher, a special ed educational assistant, a speech and language path pathologist, a psychologist. Um, what we want to highlight here is that understanding what their workload is and what they do on a day-to-day is equally important because when you're struggling with resources, as was the case here, it was noted throughout our research from staff, you really want to understand where are their opportunities to use your current staffing to really resource better and more efficiently where you need to. So, we felt that that was going to be an area that the district should really focus on and having a very clear staffing structure in place that focuses on workload
043as well as case load. The third area here that we want to highlight is around expanding the inclusive opportunities around the continuum of services. And we purposely call it the continuum of services. I want to highlight that because we really want special education to be seen as a service and not a place. When special education is seen as a place, it's often a place where these students go to get their education as opposed to a service we provide them in their community school. So understanding that it's in continuum of services that we feel the district should provide is the language that we use throughout the report. But what we want to highlight here and what we noted is that the blended preschool program came through with glowing recommendations and commendations from parents and staff. They
044felt it was an excellent program. They appreciated the effort put in by the district to really make it an inclusive environment for both students with disabilities and their peer models. where we found some additional challenges in the continuum of services was around co-eing and the K through2 model. And so what we noted there was that there was not a consistent understanding of what co-eing looks like at each building. And so while some may use the traditional co-eing model of a general educator and a special educator, other buildings were using various models of maybe a general education teacher and an educational assistant supporting or maybe a special education teacher going in sometimes but not able to have the time to collaborate with a general educator which really makes it challenging to have a true co-taught model.
045And so what we wanted to highlight there is that we feel expanding that and really developing some clear structures around what co-eing is for the district and making sure that it's staffed appropriately so that teachers working in those models really understand that they need to collaborate and work together in order to produce outcomes for students with disabilities so that they're not just placed in an inclusive environment, but that they're actually learning when they're in there and it's meaningful for that child to be in that setting. We did also note that we found some other great commendations around fairly strong specialized programs. So looking at your CDC programs, looking at some of the schools that you have that support students with more extensive behavioral needs. We found that when we visited those programs that they were
046strong, that we had staff that were really engaged with students and students engaged in their learning. So we want to make sure that we highlight that as a strength for the district. As well as Project Search. This came up over and over again from our staff that came to visit and noting that it was a really strong transition program and one that could be a model for not only just the state of Tennessee but also for other districts across the country. So a big commenation there around your transition programming as well as behavioral interventions at the elementary level. And so we saw a lot of good policies and practices in place for your MTSS or your RTI framework and really trying to support students from both a behavioral lens and a mental health lens. So
047we wanted to make sure we highlighted those as strengths of the district as part of this. And then the last key finding that we have here that we wanted to highlight was around disproportionality in special education and student achievement. And so there's a few areas here in the report that we highlight. One being around disproportionate identification of certain students by race and also looking at how students based on their disability are placed. And so what we saw oftent times is that with your two non-federallymandated categories, intellectually gifted and functional delay is where we saw the most disproportionality because the state doesn't monitor that as closely as they do federally mandated categories. We did learn from the district that there are processes in place moving forward to really start to better understand the disproportionate representation of
048certain subgroups of students under those two disability classifications. but we still highlighted it in the report because it came up in our data. The other area that we noticed is that certain students based on their disability did not have as many inclusive opportunities. For example, a child with an intellectual impairment or a child on the autism spectrum was more likely to not be in the general education classroom as much as some other students with other disabilities like a specific learning disability or speech and language impairment. So again, just being mindful of how students are being placed and found eligible is a key area that we wanted to highlight. The other area, and I think that this is already known as Dr. Brown alluded to some of this earlier, is around the achievement gap for students
049with disabilities in comparison to their non-disabled peers here in the district. So, while we agree and we note in the report and it is another commendation of the district that students with disabilities are outperforming other students across the state when it comes to your statewide assessments, when you look at the achievement gap in the district of students with disabilities compared to their non-disabled peers, there's quite an achievement gap that still exists. And this is both in ELA and math. And so you could see over the course of five years, which we analyzed, that there was approximately anywhere from 20 to 28 percentage points difference on any given year in ELA and math for students with disabilities when compared to their students um without disabilities and how they performed on those statewide assessments. And so as
050part of that, we recommend that the district examine those instructional supports for students with disabilities, look at interventions, and really make sure that students with disabilities have access to rigorous coursework in both general and special education, knowing that special education is only as good as general education. And so we really like to highlight that fact that special education cannot live in a silo. And that if you are moving towards more inclusive practices, which we know is a focus for the district, that general education has to be a part of that as well. and really having a high quality core instruction so that students with disabilities can also access that with the supports and services that they need. I'm going to turn it back over to Moria now to go in more detail around some of
051the elements of the report and then I will come back and go over recommendations. And so you'll see over these next few slides that we've highlighted each of the different areas of the effectiveness domains and then provided you a little snapshot. And then I also have some narrative that I'll share with you to provide some context and color to this information. And so when we reviewed the state performance plan, also the SP APR annual performance review data as well as uh KCS's results driven accountability data, we found several key achievements that we wanted to acknowledge. Um, the KCS H highlights, we want to highlight the strengths as it relates to students with disabilities, again, as we noted, who've outperformed their peers with disabilities on statewide assessments in grades three through eight, scoring four percentage points
052higher in ELA and three percentage points higher in math. Additionally, the district has demonstrated strong inclusive practices, surpassing the state target for placing students with disabilities in general education for at least 80% of the day. When we were looking back at the historical data and having an opportunity to participate in focus groups, we learned that it has been a major initiative within the district to have more students with disabilities being educated in what we consider LRE A, which is 80% or more of their day in general education. And slowly but surely, we've been seeing incremental growth um with the 2425 snapshot data um indicating that 77.3% of students with disabilities are in inclusive settings compared to the state average of 73.56%. And of the historical uh years that we reviewed um I was believe 1920
053to present uh the 2425 this is the first time that KCS has exceeded the state target or met the state target in recent years. And so that in and of itself is a real opportunity and achievement to acknowledge because we have to get students disabilities in the classroom first, right? And then they're having more access to grade level content that's appropriately differentiated to meet their needs. but just the social opportunities and all of the opportunities it affords students with disabilities to be in the appropriate LRE. Um, and most importantly meeting the state target that means that everyone is starting to really align their thinking at the IEP decision making uh at that table to really think through those decisions um in a way that's focused on inclusion. So kudos to to the teams who are
054doing that and congratulations to you. We also wanted to um acknowledge that we want uh while this data does reflect that the district's commitment to providing students disabilities greater access to gened um it's important to monitor which students have access to inclus inclusive educational services and where opportunities exist for students with low incidence disabilities to be included in the general education setting. So to expand upon that as Dr. Barabau mentioned students with um spec students found eligible for special education related services under specific disability classifications through our data analysis appear to be less likely to be offered inclusive opportunities. And so as an extension of this work through the lens of continuous improvement, leveraging your data sources, leveraging your school team meetings and your ongoing partnerships through coaching to better understand how do we promote
055inclusive practices for students with low incidence disabilities. When we reflect on the areas to expand, as Dr. Barabbo mentioned, there is there are several key important data points that we want to highlight for you around disproportionate special education identification and placement. And so what we um what we discovered is that Asian students are significantly over represented in specific disability categories being 25.26 times more likely to be identified as intellectually gifted. It's important to note that that is not one of the federallymandated IDA disability classifications that would be monitored at the federal level when KCS and the state of Tennessee or TDOE are reporting out on um eligibility rates of per disability classification by subgroup. Um, and again, uh, sticking with that trend, uh, three three point, um, sorry, black African-American students are 5.13 times more
056likely to be identified with a functional delay and two times more likely with specific learning disabilities. And additionally, Pacific Islander students are 2.83 times more likely to be identified with autism. In contrast, Native American students show a higher likelihood of being identified with autism and intellectual disabilities at 2.53 and 2.35 times the rate of their peers respectively. And so while that seems like a lot of quantitative data to you know sort of conceptualize and and process what we do want I think the biggest takeaway being is for the two areas the two disability classifications of functional delay and gifted and talented having a laser focus on how those eligibility decisions are made and how you're ensuring that they're you're addressing some of these disproportionality issues because they're not going to come up in your historical
057practices of data analysis and reporting because they're not included within the 13 disability classifications recognized at the federal level. So that is that's probably our biggest takeaway that we want to acknowledge here. And then lastly, the persistent achievement gap between students with disabilities and students without disabilities here in KCS. Um Dr. Barabau uh did a great job in terms of sharing sort of the breadth and depth of some of those achievement gaps. Some of them that really stand out for us um are that over the past five years, the this gap has averaged 26 percentage points in grades three through eight for ELA and 36 percentage points at the high school level. In mathematics, achievement gap has ranged from 20.1% to 27.4 4 percentage points in grades 3 through 8 and from 11.5 to 22.9
058percentage points at the high school level during the 23 24 school year. And placement data further highlights disparities in access to general education as we acknowledged. But those are only going to continue to maximize the achievement gap um without appropriate inh access to rigorous instruction particularly in an inclusive setting. So we'll move on to the next domain which is learning environment and specialized services. We have several key achievements we'd want to acknowledge here for you as well as several areas to expand upon. One of the first pieces as we we want to acknowledge um again is the inclusive approach to early childhood education as Dr. Barbo acknowledged that was one of the shining highlights for us as researchers as part of this research pro project was that parents and staff really expressed such a wonderful
059opportunity for students with disabilities and their families to have an opportunity to be in a fully inclusive early childhood setting. Again, all of as we want to acknowledge that all specially designed instruction for preschoolers with disabilities is provided in an inclusive setting via the blended classroom model or in a co-t talk classroom. Staff staff participants um including parents acknowledge these benefits. But one of the interesting findings that we did learn through this process was that non-disabled peers who are admitted to the blended preschool program, they do serve as peer models for preschoolers without disabilities, sorry, for preschoolers with disabilities. And some staff participants in the study shared a critical perspective regarding the admission of non-disabled peers into the preschool program with several noting that the peer models or these are the our non-disabled preschool students
060were entering school without the necessary developmental and pre-academic gains that you would want in order for them to serve as the appropriate peer models. um and ultimate and had staff reported having to provide similar levels of support to both non-disabled peers and students with disabilities which could potentially imp uh negatively impact the effectiveness of peer modeling as an approach as it was originally intended. And so it was suggested by study participants that a more rigorous application process for non-disabled peer models be implemented to support the success of the uh inclusive preschool opportunities through this model of using peers. And we learned through this process that several years ago a similar request was suggested and that the district district leaders and board members assessed the viability of this approach and it was determined that a more
061rigorous application process for non-disabled peers was decided not to move forward um due to feasibility and around potential admission bias. The other thing we'd like to acknowledge um as it relates to early childhood is the transition classes that are offered in the preschool continuum. These classes utilize the blended classroom model for 5-year-olds with disabilities who require an addition additional year of preschool programming. There are limited number of transition classes throughout the district. However, these classrooms do fulfill a very critical need um when transitioning from early childhood to K to2 instruction. And what we've learned um as children with disabilities are transitioning from preschool to kindergarten is that the expectations of a classroom in preschool are fundamentally different than the expectations of a classroom in kindergarten. In kindergarten, we have a more academic approach. In kindergarten,
062we have a higher student toteer ratio. In kindergarten, there are expectations that one should be able to conduct themselves in the best way a 5-year-old can, but there are more encouraging around independence and appropriate modeling appropriate behavior. In the early childhood setting, it is primarily play-based. There are higher student teacher ratios and a lot more direct coaching opportunities. staff uh who participated in the study acknowledged that when uh children are transitioning from early childhood uh preschool type classrooms to a general education kindergarten setting, it is it's oftentimes really difficult for students um particularly students with disabilities to meet that massive change in terms of expectations from both an academic lens to the ability to be independent and the and the higher studenttoteer ratios than what they were used to in the preschool. school classrooms. Another
063opportunity here to address that though would really be a collaborative effort between preschool and kindergarten educators to share their experiences with one another and begin to calibrate appropriately on the front end. So at preschool, how are we introducing some of those more independent concepts that we would want a child to demonstrate when they're going to kindergarten? And then at the kindergarten level, how are we appropriately scaffolding for those first few weeks, first month or two around ensuring that all students who are now entering kindergarten have that opportunity to be scaffolded before you sort of jump right into the deep end of kindergarten and having to sit um or participate in a 30 minute lesson when that's not what you've been expected to do previously. We also would like to acknowledge the um strong central office
064support as it relates to MTSS and PBI PBIS framework. So, positive behavioral intervention supports and a commitment to special education. One of the things that we learned is that KCS has dedicated a great deal of effort in terms of building out an MTSS and an RTI2 framework. Um and that was a an interdep departmental collaborative effort and that study participants uh noted and discussed with us as researchers. I can turn here for resources. I know that I have this document. Here's all the list of things that I can utilize where they suggested needing more support was being able how to differentiate which resources are appropriate for which scenario. So if I have a student who's exhibiting a more intensive behavior, how do I know to pick X intervention over Y intervention? and often in more
065tier two and tier three and that's the more rigorous type of intervention for a more elevated concern. Um the structured and tiered academic interventions while noted appear to be a bit underdeveloped or underutilized with variability from school to school as we have an opportunity to talk with different folks. Um, inherently some teams were more fluent in what resources were available, how to access those, where to use them, how does that transition into making an appropriate referral for special education concern while other teams seemed less fluent to it. And so again, it's about this interdep departmental collaborative approach to pushing out that information and then also engaging staff across the district perhaps through the regionalized approach in order to make sure that they are fluent and know how to access those resources appropriately. We also want
066to acknowledge that KCS has done a wonderful job in the expansion of co-taught instruction across K to2 settings as part of its broader commitment to inclusive practices. And as Dr. Barabbo mentioned, I won't go too deep into this. There really is appears to be a lot of variability and what co-eing looks like um at different class at different grade bands, so elementary, middle, and high, but then also in practice. So whether you're utilizing two uh certified teachers, general educator and a special educator, collaboratively planning, looking, you know, utilizing a different models of the co-eing framework, not just one teach, one assist, but really learning to sort of create that relationship, that proverbial marriage in instruction. We saw pockets of greatness and folks who are really able to speak to that level of fluency and then
067others who are other classrooms who are sort of building the plane as they're flying it as it relates to co-eing um and not for lack of effort but really perhaps maybe not a general educator is available at that time to be in the classroom full-time. And so they're making do with what they have. And we do want to acknowledge that that of the participants who share this feedback with us, there is a real intention around trying to create and execute with the resources that are available. And so we also wanted to just also share with you that an a key finding as it relates to the um shared inclusive beliefs and then really what that manifests in terms of the uh general education setting is that there appears to be a value as a community
068that inclusive beliefs are articulated. Maybe if it's not within a context of a district vision, someone was able to say, "KCS believes this around inclusive practices and this is how it shows up in my classroom." Time and again, we heard from KCS staff as well as parents that inclusive opportunities are a priority. We want students with disabilities to have regular access with their non-disabled peers, whether it's in an academic setting or a social setting. Um so we do believe that there is a shared value around that where we were learning that it becomes challenging to implement for example is in the in general education setting um where participants discuss that the breadth and depth of student needs so not just students with iab IEPs but student needs the breadth and depth of student needs in
069the general education setting um are becoming increasingly challenged to address. the breadth is growing wider and the depth of the need is growing deeper and how do I as one person with a partner whether that's a general educator or special educator or an educational assistant meet the breadth and depth of the need of the students in my classroom as that continues to evolve um over time and and that's not new to anyone else. I think it's something we're seeing regularly as we're doing these reviews. Um but to acknowledge that on behalf of the folks who did share that with us, there isn't um an opposition at all to having an inclusive classroom, but more of like how do I do that if my students are here and my students are here for ELA and here
070and here for math and here and here for social studies. And so, um that's really the approach that we're trying to articulate here is really getting into the weeds around the how to support teachers and ultimately students. And then lastly, as it relates to areas to expand um particular things we'd want to acknowledge is that enhance when as it relates to the enhancement of MTSS and PBIS um the fidelity uh and initial evaluation timelines. Um what we did learn is that uh as we mentioned people are using what they know to believe is true as it relates to MTSS and PBIS. But the implementation components are highly v variable whether I know which intervention to select or how I'm implementing that intervention. um consistency in practice is an area of growth. And then also to
071expand uh behavioral supports to reduce disproportionate suspensions among subgroups of students. That's something to continue to be mindful of as you're evaluating your and revising your disciplinary data to ensure that consequences for behavior are equitably addressed um and appropriately addressed within the context of um expectations in KCS. And of course, as we mentioned, sort of the expansion of the co-eing model to influence inclusive uh practices across buildings. There's a huge opportunity at the elementary level to really expand co-eing through a more formalized set of expectations, whether that be including, you know, professional development, thinking about utilization of staff, um to ensure, you know, can we build these two classrooms together? If we know this is a small building and we have only 12 kids in this classroom and 10 kids in this room, that might
072be an opportunity where we have an organic approach to creating and piloting co-eing. Um, and we'll talk about this a little bit more. But before we launch in a district-wide initiative, we are big fans of a pilot like really really clear expectations, well thought out in like expectations, documentation, buy in and piloting that. Um, and given this is a region, you know, five regions, doing that throughout the regions is possible. Um, so you really have a better set of data to work from to in order to calibrate whether or not this would be an appropriate opportunity for the district moving forward. I'm realizing my time and I'm going to speed it up over here. Okay. Um, as it relates to high expectations, we again want to acknowledge that uh KCS has demonstrated commitment to high
073expectations and inclusive practices as evidenced by strong specialized programs and a focus on structured literacy particularly with project search at the secondary level and structured behavioral interventions. Um however as we mentioned there are there is variability in the bless you in the uh instructional practices as well as inconsistent approaches to curriculum modifications and limited collaboration between general education and special education teachers present areas for growth. Um survey and focus group data suggest that while educators believe in maintaining high expectations challenges in in training co-eing structures and impro instructional practices imple affect the implementation. And so once again that really highlights that there is a desire there and that's wonderful. Intrinsic desire is something you can capitalize on but then it's a reflection of the structures that are put in place that allow that inherent desire
074collaboration to move forward. Our team did observe that Wilson reading is being implemented with fidelity as it relates to being a specialized reading intervention. Um however it is not smoothly integrated with um ALA curriculum and it does appear to be somewhat limited. And then while Wilson does provide explicit structured literacy instruction with significant decoding and encoding needs, um the lack of alignment with ELA curriculum uh could really disproportionately impact a special educator and a general educator's ability to fluently understand where a student is. Um as it relates to the implementation exclusively in a you know distinct setting, the Wilson program and then having exposure to grade level content and there's not an overlap or a conversation about what's happening. And so we're not really able to appropriately calibrate skill acquisition and how the two overlap
075with one another. Our analysis of uh survey data, focus groups, and interviews on IEP development as well as service delivery reveals some misalignment between district policies, implementation practices, and student outcomes. Um while survey and focus group data do suggest general confidence among staff in developing compliant datadriven IEPs, focus groups and interview data suggest that there are challenges including uh self-reported workloads um inconsistent collaborations and external pressures that influence decision making. And so as we're considering how to support the district in strengthening datadriven um and tech supports, really moving past the lens of compliance for IEP and IEP development and then thinking about it as student growth. Um we design an IEP in order to see a student make progress. Um and then not just from the lens of being compliance. Uh the other thing we'd
076like to acknowledge here is the opportunity for curriculum and collaborative enhancement as it relates to specialized reading interventions as well as curriculum modifications. Um we also want to acknowledge that techbased interventions are used throughout the district. But yet there needs to be a better balance in direct instruction and digital learning uh requires further examination to ensure students are actually receiving highquality instruction. And so if we do use technology to deliver interventions, how do we assess the fidelity of that intervention, if it is delivered exclusively through technology and we're not engaging with students to see how are they consuming that material, but most importantly, how can they demonstrate acquisition of a skill as a result from an intervention that is focused uh focusly delivered through technology. So if you think of like ABC Mouse for example
077at the elementary level, I may be able to like click through here and pick all the A's and pick all the B's and and makes the sounds. But then if I were to sit in front of you and I be like tell me what the A sound make. What sound does the letter A make? But I pull it up here and again that's you know not a great example but theoretically it's that like transition of the skill or what we call generalization of the skill outside of that one environment. And so if we are heavily leaning into interventions that are focused um through technology delivery, that's great. I mean, it might be a wonderful resource to supplement, but if it is existing solely as an opportunity, we really want to make sure that we're harnessing
078a student's ability to generalize that information to be presented in a variety of ways and really truly demonstrate um acquisition of that skill. So human human capital and leadership and I understand um you know that we are we consider this language talent and so human talent and or just talent and leadership. Um there are several key achievements here in KCS. Um particularly the fully licensed special education team with strong retention incentives. Um, we do want to acknowledge that KCS has fully licensed special educators, teachers assigned to serve students with IEPs across the district's campus with 64% of KCS special education teachers holding professional licenses and 34% holding practitioner licenses. And in addition to that, the district employs a variety of related service providers to provide services for students with IEPs and implements a variety of
079professional development supports as ongoing opportunities for training for staff. We also want to acknowledge the efforts that the district has taken to increase the budget to provide pay increases for uh staff as well as an incentive of a $7,000 bonus for special educators, a sign on bonus for special educators. Um comparatively, that is not a $7,000 bonus is not offered to individuals serving as special education educational assistants, but it is offered for individuals who are serving as special educators. And so that was something that um was acknowledged as a great win for special educators. And uh wouldn't it be nice if we had something comparable to provide individuals who are serving as a special education educational assistant? Um and we recognize that the budget can't be all of the things. But if that's a maybe
080thing to consider moving forward, um it is certainly something that we would advocate for as we de dive deeper into the systems and structures components of this work. Uh average staffing ratios for special education teachers were consistent across the district when comparing to na district-wide averages and campus averages. But as Dr. Barabau acknowledged, a quantitative analysis does not tell the story. You could have 13 students on every special educator's case load. That is presuming that those 13 students across every special educator's case load have the exact type of exact same uh services listed, exact same type of accommodations and modifications listed. And of course not. that absolutely isn't the case. And so when we're considering case load, there's a really importance to look at the nuance of workload beyond just case load and appropriately calibrating
081workload, which we discuss in here as a next step to ensure that beyond the quantitative number, we understand the nuances of who special educators are serving and that will give you a greater lens into staffing needs. It's not just the one to one. It's that we're the 13 spe 13 students with IEPs to one special educator. If you have one special educator with 13 students and an exorbitant number of hours hypothetically, it's not going to translate in the same way um across the board when it comes to progress monitoring, when it comes to collaboration with others, when it comes to, you know, conducting additional assessments. And so again, prioritizing the opportunity um to engage in workload analysis. We also wanted to just acknowledge the targeted staffing and PD development um as which plus the regional
082support the decision to move into a regionalized model um was regarded as an opportunity to provide more dedicated supports for families and schools um who are have that who are included in that particular region and really being able to create a sense of community within leadership and structures across those buildings. the dedicated onbudsman to support families is a great addition here in the in the district and an opportunity to really be leveraged more for sure. Um as prior to um pursuing uh litigation for example that the individual serving in the unbudsman capacity I think is a great opportunity to really again think about that utilizing that resource as often as possible for families. And then lastly um extra educational assistance um at campuses with high student with disabilities enrollment. There are some campuses here in
083KCS where the enrollment of students with disabilities is upwards of 20%. Um, and so that is pretty significant and that the district has made efforts to staff that more appropriately in order to meet those needs. When we think about areas to expand moving forward, um, really focusing on tailored professional development and leadership collaboration for real-time needs. Um, is there a way for staff to be able to currently access the needed the PD they need right now or the resources they need right now in order to solve a problem that's happening right now? Um, it's great to have resources to look back on to to be more fluent in standard operating procedures but similar to MTSS targeted targeted supports that can be available in real time and a bank of those resources that's managed appropriately. And
084then lastly, when we think about areas to expand, enhancing communication and problem solving in order to address some of the recurring due process issues through collaboration and proactive communication with leadership and families. Um, one of the things that we did note um, when reviewing the data for and writing this report is that there have been times where um, complaints for example have been filed multiple times um, or different iterations of the complaint filed multiple times and that really at there's a balance between um, valuing parent advocacy while also recognizing some of the professional expertise of e educators in determining the appropriate supports and placements for students. Um, some staff felt that parent concerns, particularly when voiced through the legal lens, are given more weight than the input of school-based teams, and that has subsequently led
085to tensions around placement decisions, disciplinary actions, and access to specialized services. And so while we acknowledge the work that the district has done around building a stronger parent community or working towards a stronger parent community in terms of engagement, but recognizing that a collaborative approach is still going to be needed in order to really address some of the tensions around um inconsist what's perceived to be inconsistency or influence [Applause] decisionm. Okay, we're almost we're almost at the end, I promise. Okay, systems and structures. Um, as it relates to systems and structures, there are some really key achievements that we wanted to acknowledge. Um, when we analyzed the data provided to us by your talent division, we were able to determine there was a 90% reduction in special education vacancies for special educators and special education
086educational assistance. um from the 90 plus vacancies in FY23 to 10 vacancies in FY24. We do want to uh caution that data to interpretation particularly because it does not reflect attrition. It does not also reflect the rolling nature of adding new positions to the budget. So this is a snapshot in time where at this snapshot in time there was a 90% decrease. We looked comparatively from one year to the next. However, if 10 more FTEES were requested for our special education educational assistance the day after this was taken, this data could potentially look different. So, that's how we want to sort of frame this data for you. But at a high level, it is absolutely representative of the recruitment efforts that are happening in order to bring in staff and reduce some of the concern
087around vacancies and the implication of vacancies as it relates to service provision. Again, the salary boost boosts of 4 to 8% respectively and the signing bonus for certified staff are regarded as real opportunities to build stronger systems and prioritize retention. Um, if we are focusing on building a welloiled sustainable system, we want to keep the people who are great and in order to do so, paying a competitive rate uh or competitive pay that's relevant to cost of living, you're moving in that direction. that's going to certainly behoove you in order to retain the great staff. Um, and again, budget priorities are aligned for recruitment and retention. And so, we do want to acknowledge that particularly because of the cost that this has had on the budget development overall and budget execution. That's not far from
088our minds. We know that that was a significant effort that KCS undertook. Um and most importantly when we were able to reflect upon and it's in the executive summary but uh in the report is that the um there was data con there was uh survey data conducted um prior to our involvement that looked at overall priorities for families um and staff here in the district and one of the things that was really consistent was pay. um when we reviewed for the priorities that have publicly been addressed, pay was something that was there. We found and then we you know you move moved in that direction and now when we met with people they said yes this was a win. So that's a huge hats off to you. You were you heard the data you made
089the decision people appreciate it. That's a that's a check in the W box. Um when we think about areas to expand, as we mentioned, ongoing workload challenges despite reduced vacancies. Um there is team members who participated in the study did acknowledge that their workload often feels stretched beyond their current capacity um for a variety of different reasons. And so there, you know, when we look at that in comparison to vacancies for special educators and special education, educational assistance, there doesn't appear to be a massive sort of hemorrhage of individuals from that role that would result into really significant compounding workload um for those who are remaining in those positions. So when we were analyzing some of the narrative data that we've gathered, the interpretation around workload challenges is sort of maybe the breadth and depth
090of what their workload may look like. the breadth and depth of the students that they're serving. Um the breadth and depth of their case load, hypothetically, um if I'm doing three consultant teacher models and pushing in for three kids, but they're in four three different classrooms and then collaborating here and running these small groups, etc., where's my time for writing my IEPs? Where's my time for communicating with parents within my existing structures that I have? Um again, we want to acknowledge the rising cost of special education versus available funding. when we were able to um just look at the budget overall and the evolution of the budget. We did not do a deep analysis into the budget. That was not part of our scope. But we do acknowledge that the cost for special education appeared
091to be rising year after year. Um and then when we compound that with the uh implications of the personnel decision to increase salaries, we want to always be mindful of um costs when we're thinking about programmatic expansion. And that's really the biggest thing that we were looking at and why we would encourage pilot opportunities because it doesn't cost as significantly when you're considering a small-cale pilot and gathering that data to determine if this is a worthwhile programmatic expansion approach. And then lastly, uh the need for a comparative sorry comprehensive workload analysis and structures for educational assistant staffing protocols. One of the things we've learned is that while there is an assignment uh pro protocol that staff at the schoolhouse level will go through to say you know we need an educational assistant and this is
092how we want to use them in the building. Um is there there does not appear to be an ongoing utilization metric associated with that. So if someone is assigned to that building and maybe not assigned to that student, that position could theoretically stay there for a really long time and that person's workload or you know scope of work evolves um and then that may not be the best utilization of that person's time as it relates to what the actual needs are in the district particularly when we're comparing that to budget. And so, not that we're advocating that people shuffle around all the time, but it is important to be mindful that if if we have 35 educational assistants in one building, we want to make sure that everyone's being utilized within the capacity that those
093roles were designed to be. And then lastly, focusing on family and community engagement. One of the great achievements that we do want to acknowledge is that the staff that we had an opportunity to speak with consistently demonstrated care and dedication for the students that they were serving. Um, their peers acknowledge their willingness to go above and beyond and their thoughtful approach to supporting students with disabilities and their families. Our survey data suggested that students feel safe and valued and integrated in school, which again is a huge win for you. and that um parents reported in the survey data feeling both heard and understood in the immediate in the context of IEP meetings. Now contextualizing this information to say this is a snapshot. This is a portion. It is not 100%. It is a theme and
094these were the consistent themes um at a high level that emerged when we think about areas to expand. Uh there is certainly an opportunity to build consistent trust through transparent communication um as it relates to partnering with parents with disabilities here in the district. Um in order to do so, we wanted to really acknowledge that there um while most parents who attended district approved um trainings, for example, found them helpful, not everyone was aware of those trainings. And so that's an an opport and training participation remains relatively low. So an opportunity to expand upon outreach and access to these trainings could help engage more families and subsequently increase the perception around consistent trust and reliability and connection with the department leadership. So we also last wanted to acknow lastly last two points acknowledge uh using
095a clear datadriven approach for placements and services decisions as well as enhancing family engagement for in support for resources. Um, we do want to encourage the district, as we said, to commit to transparency and communication and a shared understanding of students needs that are grounded in data and best practice. Um, and ensuring that all stakeholders feel heard and valued in that disability in that decision-making. Um, access does remain a concern for some families with language and mobility needs. Some parents reported that interpreters were not always available or provided at IEP meetings when needed and that translated documents were not consistently available. In order to enhance that trust and communication around transparency, parents who are speaking English as a second language should be provided the opportunity to have access to the documents in their native language
096in order to be able to participate with authenticity and transparency. And creating a clear and systematic process to meet these needs would ensure all families as we mentioned can fully participate. and that um there were concerns raised around the accessibility of some school buildings and playgrounds for students with mobility needs. And it was advocated for by a small but very encouraged um group of study participants to identify and address accessibility changes um as it relates challenges as it relates to ensuring access for all students particularly at playgrounds. Okay. So I am going to do a very high level overview of this because that's been a lot of information for everyone to absorb and the question now goes to what now? Um after you hear all of this information and what do you actually do with
097this report and so what we just want to highlight here at a high level is that we like to see these recommendations as a roadmap um they are not meant to be done in one year. They are not meant to be done tomorrow. They are meant to be very thoughtfully considered and then a plan developed and implemented over the course of three to five years. um recognizing that there has to be flexibility in this. You do not know in the education landscape and the uncertainty of education what can change next year, two years, three years from now. So when we think about these recommendations, we really want to think about them with a flexible nature and that continuous improvement uh element behind them. We came up with 14 recommendations. Um everybody has a copy of
098the report. So I am not going to go deep into the action steps but what I will highlight is that each of these recommendations does come with very clear action steps that we feel the district can take. Um so the first recommendation here is really around multi-tered systems of support or RTI response to intervention and again just really understanding that that system needs to be very fine-tuned in order to be implemented with fidelity across all of your campuses. Um, so that's one element there that we really wanted to highlight. Again, knowing that special education is only as good as the general education foundation on which it's built. The next recommendation we have is on um RDA or resultsdriven accountability and SP APR indicator monitoring. And so that's what we talked about earlier. Really understanding that
099again these are what you report to the state level and eventually go to the federal level. and they are one component of how students make progress, but they're also a good indicator of how the district is doing overall. So, really making sure that you look at these um indicators in a way that helps you inform instructional practice. And so, we have some action steps under that as well to help the district think about how to do that. The third one is around fair identification and placement practices. And so, we talked about disproportionality. And so again, we just highlight here that there should be some action steps taken to really make sure that referral processes are sound, that inclusive services are available to all students regardless of disability and determined on individual need, not by disability
100classification. And then just really having some systems in place to monitor um any type of disproportionality in your subgroups, whether it be placement, whether it be classification, whether it be access to inclusive services. The fourth one that we outlined was around strengthening the alignment of specialized reading interventions. And so not we're not saying that the reading interventions currently in place are not appropriate, but what we are saying is that they should be inventoried and they should be looked at from a lens to ensure that students with disabilities are achieving the outcomes that you expect them to when you're implementing these programs. And so again, just really progress monitoring how students are doing with literacy. um when you're looking at Wilson as your reading system or one of your reading systems and also how you're using
101those um interventions that are done on a computer-based level. And so are you really getting the outcomes that you need from them when you're looking at student achievement. The next one we have is around increasing access to grade level curriculum for students with disabilities. And so again, this is taking a deep dive into your current practices to really understand how students are being included. It's going beyond just the model, but really thinking about when students are in an inclusive environment, is it meaningful for them? Are they getting what they need from that environment? Is universal design for learning, for example, being implemented across the district? How are accommodations or modifications being delivered? And really having a strong understanding of what those inclusive environments mean and the outcomes for students with disabilities when they are placed
102there. The sixth one is around enhancing training and curriculum modifications. And so we heard quite a bit about modified curriculum. Um we stand by that curriculum modification should be used sparingly because when you modify curriculum you are now taking a grade level standard and and changing it so that a student accesses it. And while there is a place for modifications, there was a lot of confusion around modifications when we talked to both staff and families. And so really understanding when do I modify for a student, who is responsible for the modifications, and how do you really modify for students so that they get what they need while still maintaining rigor um in your instruction. We think are some key areas there to think about with those those recommendations. For leadership and human capital, um we
103noted here or talent rather I will say um to strengthen collaborative structures within your leadership teams was number seven. And so really thinking about how are you developing consistent communication channels not only at the district level among departments but down to the building level. And so how do you empower your building principles to become the leaders of special education in their buildings? And so really understanding in order to do that you have to have strong collaboration from your district leadership teams and really have clarity around what the roles and decision-making authority is for special education in those various environments. And so really understanding that and thinking about that as a next step for the district. We wanted to highlight in the recommendations. You've probably heard this well enough where I don't need to say it
104again. Number eight around workloads. Really doing a workload analysis to understand how to better use your special education staff. So often the perception when you have an overburden workload is we need more. And what we would propose is that you don't necessarily look at hiring more staff, but you look at how they're utilized. You don't always need to hire more staff. Sometimes it's just a matter of understanding how to better leverage your staff so that they can provide the services that they need to. Number nine is around expanding professional learning opportunities for staff. And so really understanding what do your staff need? Um so often PD from staff, you'll hear it, it's a oneanddone. I don't know what I do with it. How do I take PD and then really make sure that we're providing
105that coaching after so that staff are implementing and they feel comfortable implementing. And not every staff member needs the same PD. you have veteran staff here who are going to say, I really need something different. This is where I'm at in my career and I need to better understand this element of instruction or you have some newer staff that would need something entirely different. So really just understanding what do your staff need? How do you differentiate PD? And then how do you make sure that it's implemented on once it's delivered? For number 10 is around cross- departmental collaboration and staffing allocations. And so this is where we talk about not only is a workload analysis important but really understanding what is our structure for staffing. Um how do we create flexibility in staffing and on
106an annual basis really look at the workloads of staff to better understand maybe we do need to move these two educational assistants to another building next year to support because they're not being leveraged as much as they could be in this building or maybe it's time that we look at the way our educators are being used and we leverage things differently. Um, special education is a moving target because it's individualized. So, every time an IEP meeting happens, things can change within that IEP that require different staffing supports. And so, giving you guys the leverage to have that flexibility as a as a board and as a leadership team to really understand that and have that fluidity will, I think, help in the long term. And that's why we included that here as part of that
107staffing allocations piece. Number 11, which we will get into and Dr. Brown will end us with, is developing an action plan. So really thinking about whoever is in the leadership seat for special education should really be a integral part of developing an action plan for these recommendations so that this report comes to life. Um we never want to see these reports kind of sit somewhere and and don't get any traction. And so having that action plan really keeps your leadership team accountable for what's put in here um in making some some true changes to the way the special education system functions. Number 12 is around um family and community. So these next few here are focused or our last few all around family and community engagement. And so we have here around increasing communication consistency.
108And we say that because we think it's important to really better understand what your parents challenges are. And in doing that, we think having some type of system where you track parent concerns will allow you to then better understand what the needs are. So if you have several parents that are coming to you saying we have a challenge with speech and language delivery of services, you now can better allocate resources at the district level to understand, okay, this is becoming a challenge for us. How do we look at this a little bit deeper? Um but you don't know that if you just take parent complaints kind of on a day-to-day basis and don't really look at them critically to better understand how you can inform changes to the structures and systems. 13 is around rebuilding
109Oh, thank you. rebuilding trust. And so again, um it's a small cohort of parents. I want to highlight that we heard a lot of positive feedback from parents and you see it in the survey data. So you may look at this report and say, "Well, wait a minute. It's a little bit conflicting because in one spot you said we have effective IEP meetings, but in another you're talking about litigation." Um and so what we're saying with that is that it's really important that for the group of families that you have here who are feeling disconnected from the district, and this is we hear this all the time in districts, right? It's it's a challenge for everybody to really come together when you feel like somehow the system has wronged you, right? Or somehow your child's
110not getting what they need. There's a human element to special education. And so what we highlight here is really taking the time to cultivate trust with families, particularly families that have had experiences with the special education system that have not been the most positive. Um, and really making sure that they have a voice, but also that there's some collaboration with them as well, so they feel like they're a part of the team. And we think that a big part of this would be celebrate success. Um, we heard a lot from staff that we hear a lot about what we don't do well, but we don't stop to celebrate our wins. And so, just as important as looking at what you need to improve, it's equally important for your staff to hear where they're doing well
111and celebrate the wins when they happen. And that includes from parents, that includes from the board. You heard it tonight. You heard the thank you to our teachers. We know how hard they work. So just really making sure that from all stakeholders that the that the celebrations of success are are counted for. And then lastly, we talked about it just at the end here around improving accessibility. And so again, just making sure that improved outreach is considered for parents whose first language is not English and also strengthening translation systems for those families as well so that they feel like they can access um and that they are part of their child's education program. Um, and then lastly, we did have something around the action steps around just making sure that all playgrounds are accessible, all
112campuses are accessible. This did come up. It was a small piece as Dr. Ulick mentioned. Um, but you just want to make sure that when you're thinking about that, there are some families that felt like their children couldn't access certain parts um of their school, which is another component we just wanted to highlight. So, this last slide here, and I'll I'll let Dr. Brown probably steal the show on the end here. Um, but we just wanted to highlight this is how we approach action planning. We will customize this to the district and the district's needs um, after we talk to Dr. Brown and the leadership team about how they want to approach this. But I think one of the biggest takeaways here is that we really like to take the time to unpack the recommendations
113in the report and structure milestones for the district from that and for the special education team. Um, we do that through KPIs. And so we really like to make sure that we have measurable outcomes or measures of success as we like to call them. so that when your district leadership team comes back to these types of meetings, they can report out to you where they are and have really measurable outcomes to show you on on how they're progressing towards the recommendations. Um, we also encourage that there's a variety of stakeholders involved in this process. Um, we know that just the leadership team alone won't be able to understand all the nuances of staff and parents as well and so we invite them to be a part of this as much as possible um so that
114their voice is heard in developing out an action plan for the special education department. Um, and then we just talk about reviewing these recommendations, reviewing the progress on these recommendations and adjusting as needed. But I will turn it over to you to the looking ahead part. Um, and just want to thank you all for your attention tonight. It's a lot of information to take in. We know that. But we do appreciate the time and attention um, to this report. And I'll be quick because I know you guys may have some questions. So, excuse me. So, just looking ahead, what are the next steps? Um, I want to start by saying huge thanks to PCG and not just them, but also our staff, our teachers, our schools, um, Dr. Ly and her team. Uh, the hours
115of work that has gone in, as you can see, they they really looked at our entire district top to bottom of the microscope. Um, and it wouldn't have happened if it if it hadn't been for the willingness of our special ed leadership to just open it up and say, "Here's here's everything we have." um and and to really buy into the process of continuous improvement. So, want to recognize those people um our our regular ed teachers, our special ed teachers, our assistants, our families, everybody who participated in this uh analysis. We couldn't have done this without them. And as you can see, I think we've got a great product here to move forward with. Um so, as you'll see on the slide here, uh one one big uh news of of note, if you weren't
116aware, uh Dr. Ly, our um special ed director, is retiring. Uh she and her husband made this decision years ago. She was actually contemplating staying around another year. She was so excited about uh the work and and the potential for improvement. Uh also, you know, I think from the report today, you can see um there are lots of of things to to celebrate. Uh and I'd like to thank Dr. Ly and her team for the work they've done. We've seen great improvements over the past three years. Uh as as I said, as Dr. Risewig has challenged us all to look through the lens of continuous improvement. Uh we've seen some improvements. Obviously, just like with anything, we'll never arrive. We always have more work to do and that's what we're talking about now. Uh but
117just want to thank them for the work that they've done. As for finding a replacement for Dr. Ly, I want you to know that um we have had a nationwide search. uh our HR and talent acquisition department uh have used multi multiple platforms social media job recruitment organizations uh national organizations they've posted to uh special ed organizations that we we are looking from that uh we have got a great pool of candidates the interview process is underway uh round one has been a written task that has been sent out to them they have responded now we have a team that are reviewing those answers and scoring those out the next step will be for them to be interviewed uh in person with and I say in person also virtually because multiple uh candidates are from
118out of state. Um so we we have a good balance of both internal people who are interested and external people. Um so I think it'll be exciting to see how that plays out. Uh we will also um we are also gathering feedback from our parent council. So, a a survey was sent out very similar to the one we sent out when we hire a new principal, uh, giving them the opportunity to give us some qualities and some things they're looking for in the next leader. Um, and our plan is to be able to make that announcement the next couple weeks. So, that's exciting as on the heels of of this report to also recognize that with Dr. Ly leaving, we'll have someone to to take this report and implement it and and uh see some
119great change and improvement continue to happen in our district. Um, so the next steps after that will be obviously the action planning for some immediate and long-term impact. I think we've kind of discussed that throughout the year. Some short-term things that we've been working on. Um, and then also balance that with what are these bigger things that are going to take more time and maybe need to be a year two, year three, year four, year five goal as we continue to to take incremental steps to get to where we want to be. Um, so we will be uh engaging all of our stakeholders. Again, that's the parent council. I'll have a principal council. So looking at what does implementation look like at the school level, making sure we gather all those opinions as we work
120with PCG to to build the plan for the next three to five years. Um the next uh bullet there, you'll see um some advancing action. So this is kind of a preview. Uh every year Dr. Ryswick asks us as divisional leaders to identify the work of your division moving forward. Um and so we've taken some of the recommendations and things um that we heard from PCG tonight and gone ahead and thought about what is that going to look like as we begin to make steps. Obviously, it's too soon to to prioritize what, but but like I said, we think there's some short-term things we can really make improvements on. Uh something Dr. Rise and I talked about is, you know, having things like quarterly professional reviews where our special ed staff will go out and
121meet with school staff and make sure that they understand what IEPs are coming up and and how they can support them in that process as we make those decisions closest to the student. Um, you heard a lot today about um co-eing and inclusive practices. Uh, Dr. Wilson and I have already identified that as a need and we've been discussing, we've already had meetings. We're looking at school uh improvement plans and how we build goals. We're actually meeting tomorrow morning one more time to to talk about what those goals look like. So special education and and the regular classroom are not standalone things, but they're integrated and we're talking about from there professional development. How do we support? So many of the things that you heard tonight are going to be a lot of these um
122advancing actions moving forward for special ed. Um there will obviously be continued uh engagement with the special ed council throughout this process. Um they um there going to be regular meetings, discussions, communication. Um and the new director will continue to utilize that group as an advocacy group for parents. You know, that's one of the things I've asked them to do is use that connection as a communication pipeline. So continue to have that clear communication, which is one of the things we talked about or heard tonight. Um, and also just a sounding board for the special education department moving forward as we think about implementation, talking with principles, talking with families, making sure we understand how that feels to each one of them um and how that's perceived. And again, I think that opens up that
123um that open communication and and probably takes care of the last two there. When we talk about enhancing customer service, I think we all have to continue to remind ourselves that we are in the kid business. That's why we're all here. No one got in to being a parent. No one got into special education. No one got into education uh to do anything but to help every child that we encounter and help help them be the best that they can be. So, we need to remember we're all on the same team. And I think the more we can collaborate and communicate and keep those open lines of communication, you know, that enhances our customer service and it also helps us to establish trust. So, I think those are things that we're going to continue to
124work on um and and continue the the the progress that we've already made. Um, so with that, I think that concludes my portion and we are open for questions if if you all have any, Mr. Triplet. Hey, yes, thank you for that. Lots of information. Good stuff. A couple of questions for you. There are, I think, 44 action step housed in those 14, you know, uh, 14 categories. My question for you is, um, is there a way I I assume we can expect you to work on on those action steps, right? I mean, that makes sense. I know that's part of your your plan. Is there a way we can get that made clearly public? Like, all right, here's our action steps. Here's expected due dates or at least a general timeline and we can
125very publicly sort of check those off like this is what we're trying to accomplish. We've made this move as we talk about communication, rebuilding trust, all of that. Like we can make that really really clear for families. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Madam Chair. Um yeah, I think that's exactly and I can't speak to the process of of the strategic planning which these two ladies can answer that but from what I've learned in just a high level overview is yes we will prioritize those things in the next three to five years making sure you know obviously getting some quick wins on the front end things we think we can accomplish fairly quickly but I think as they said you know they like to build goals that are measurable so I think not only will we have
126a roadmap we'll have the criteria on how we'll know we've met those things as we move through that three to five year strategic plan and I'll let you all if you have we'll be able to make that public. I guess that's the part that you know. Yeah. And I I would say that we've worked with a lot of districts recently that have taken that route. Um so we are very familiar with creating documents that are public facing that you can absolutely use to put on your website to really show progress over time. Um and we would encourage the transparency of it. Absolutely. And then the other question is how long is is this contract is this like something so in in three years they're going to come back do another review you know kind of
127a comprehensive analysis see where we are that we made improvements or is this just like a you know one time deal they do this strategic plan they give it to us and kind of walk away well so this contract yes has an ending and uh so the contract that we uh got through procurement with PCG was to do this analysis and then to build that three to fiveyear strategic plan so we have several hours of strategic planning that will come on the back side of this that we will set up shortly with them. Once that's over, obviously we will have the three to five years to implement those things. And I think at that point in time, we we'd reassess just like we've talked about um with with the salary study and you know, so
128many other things. Just continue to look at how we improve that. Perfect. Thank you. I think too to piggyback on your first question, I love that you guys are including the KPIs because those are easy to track. Um, so when you said that I was like, "Oh, this is this is good stuff because it's easy to measure measure that." Miss Fontner Ridley. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, first of all, I want to say thank you for doing this work. Um, being in the schools for so long, I heard I'd hear things in the hallway and I am so excited to see that we're going to address these areas that we need to. So, thank you for doing the work. I really appreciate I don't really have a question. I just wanted to say that. Thank
129you. Thank you. I really appreciate that. And and I also want to acknowledge too, Dr. Raz, you have your four priorities that I know as a district have been very public facing. And when we're thinking about action planning, we always want to prioritize what is what is on the horizon, what's being implemented now, what's on the horizon, how can we embed some of these recommendations and action steps within existing opportunities. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. If anything, this really affirms the messaging that students with disabilities or general ed students first. So, how do we combine initiatives? How do we put our heads together and say we've got a bond coming up for X. Can we allocate it towards XYZ theoretically? So, we know those four priorities are a key component. They're in the
130outfront of this report. We I feel like I could come. I mean, Dr. Rasbeck, if you need me to, I can be right here to I'm out here. I can help because like we you know, we know him now. we feel comfortable and confident and there's really a lot of opportunity for overlap and so thinking about how you put your brains together collectively to address this not in silo but um within of your public facing priorities as well too. Dr. Eisley, thank you madam chair. I I just wanted to add kind of thinking to give you guys some perspective too. Um you know Dr. Brown said this earlier like this is not new and what we've done for three years to bring in someone from the outside who's an expert in that group. Um so
131I think if you're thinking about what could it look like external facing again every organization has a little different but think about the region five plan how that came out and we kind of had a three to five year u you know it there there's a lot of complexity in that plan but end up being about 18page pamphlet that had a lot of things that you could understand and and what we could shoot for so there probably will be a lot of background documentation that we heard today but I think our hope in the end is some kind of three to five something we can communicate something that can go on the website what the expectations are the KPIs That was that was I love that there's going to be KPIs against those next three
132to five years. Um so I think uh teach was that way too like we have these things that we kind of have three to five year plans that were and a lot of times they show up in the annual action plan too. So um I think that's if you can think about that that we've done again every company is a little bit different but that's really what it what we're trying to get everything to in the end and and I will say too as they said they're willing to modify that to what we need. Um we are already having conversations with our uh project management department that's in Miss Lner's division. And so we're going to work together, you know, to present something similar to the region 5 plan, similar to the 865mmies, you know,
133something that's very forward and public facing. We're going to work internally and also with our partners to make sure that that's easily digestible by our families. Awesome. Miss Templeton. Oh, sorry. I thought Miss Morgan was first. I was waiting for you. Um first, thank you very much. Um, I appreciate you going all around this district. Um, the entire school system. Um, we we vary in size and range and personality um, across um, all of the campuses and each one is unique and has um, very distinct personalities that are um that that really create um, the entire KCS ecosystem that works very well together. So, thank you for your time um and willingness to do this. Um I am most looking forward to the metrics piece of this. Um yes, the KPIs, but also the definitions.
134Um I really um am interested in the difference between the case load and the workload and how that um really pans out across the district um and what that looks like. um on the ground because when you said it, I had never thought about that before, but it's powerful um to draw that distinction between case load and workload. Um and really looking at defining what those two mean. So, um I appreciate that. I learned something here. I also want to echo um what you said about the onbudsmen um that we have on staff. They really are amazing. So, I'm just gonna throw him a little bit more love. Thank you. Thank you. We agree, Miss Morgan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all so much for your presentation today and all of the work you've
135done on this. This is very important work. And I I know we're all in agreement on that. And uh I just wanted to echo something that you had said uh earlier when you were talking um Dr. Bearboat was that there's a human element to special education. And that's what makes this so unique is that for all of the families who are impacted by having a child in our special education uh program and receiving those services, uh it is such a hugely vulnerable important uh thing for us. And um I sat in an IEP meeting this morning for one of my daughters and um the caring just something I'd like to celebrate. The caring dedication that her teachers and the staff have is just unbelievable. And even I mean Dr. Brown is has talked to me
136lots over the last few weeks too, helping me work through some things. Um, and everybody from from the top all the way to the people who interact with her on a daily basis, uh, have been so wonderful and so helpful. And so we definitely do have that. We have the caring hearts and the the caring dedication of our staff here. Um, and I'm very thankful for everybody who is working hard on that. And I love that you called out celebrating that. And Dr. Riswick and his team do a great job of celebrating uh, our wins and we need to keep doing that. So my question for you guys, if we take these things and you all develop the plan, uh I know one of the things talked about is being a model district for special
137education, is that an attainable thing that we can achieve in the next three to five years? That's a great question. Um and a hard question to answer. I think that there's absolutely elements within the district now that could be considered model and that's why we highlighted Project Search. Um I will share probably a personal story from one of our researchers that was on site with us who said that the emotion when she was there from both the leader there and herself um was pretty incredible just in the care and compassion of the students in that program. um and the way it was set up and the way students had access to a variety of supports um and workforce development and just really getting what they need to be successful citizens right once they leave public
138education um was just something that she could not stop talking about in her experience there. Um and this is also somebody who's a former director of special education who has spent a lot of time in schools. Um and so in my mind you already have right elements of that and we've heard a lot throughout um our time and doing this research around some of these key areas. Um I can share that I was in a classroom and I was blown away by one of your CDC classrooms. Um and I remember I had somebody escorting me and I said, "How long has that person been teaching?" And it was her first year. Um and she had been a former educational assistant turn teacher and when I tell you I was blown away. and I visit a
139lot of highly specialized programs for students on the spectrum. Her classroom was wonderful. So in my mind, you have it already in pockets, right? That would be a class I would say, hey, other teachers come and check out the way she teaches because she had everything down so well just from having an amazing mentor teacher as an educational assistant in the district turned teacher. Um, and so I say that to say I don't know that special education is ever perfect, right? But I do say that you already have elements here that I would certainly celebrate and that can already be models um for other teachers in the district for other districts coming in that want to see really high quality instruction. You have some of those elements here already. May I contextualize that? I think
140Jen's absolutely right. Um really really strong programming and then some really talented staff. I think the the nuance and I always make complicate things so I apologize. I'm not intentionally complicating, but I want to con consider the nuance here is that what do we define as model, right? Like that's a very like expansive term that can be interpreted in lots of different ways. And to be a model district for special education, you really have to identify what are those core components and then chip away at being excellent at one of those things. Then you're a model for inclusive practices. Maybe chip away for co-eing. We're a model of inclusive practices because we've prioritized co-eing and we're seeing that through student the outcomes for students with disabilities have risen on state and math testing by 15
141to 17% in the last three years. And then you're able to sort of have very tangible outcomes that are quantitative because we we have folks who want to see the numbers and we understand that. Then we also have folks who appreciate the human element of the work and understand that too. So that's the the basis of this mixed methods approach. I think to answer your question, yes, how and how is really defined in what what are your what is that vision? What are the core components that you can build upon which are in here already? And then prioritizing how you want to address those and then chip away being really excellent at one thing and then excellent at at the other thing. Because what we always caution districts to do is you cannot write this
142for 18 months because if everything's a priority, nothing's a priority. And what's going to happen is you're going to get a lot of guidance documents written and then nobody's going to ever go to the SharePoint for them and you're like, "We did it." And you're like, "Actually, we didn't do it because nobody's opened that SharePoint in six months." And that defeats the purpose. And so we are very intentional about trying to help plan and build those strong foundations. And like when I was a former director, I still do it now. Like when somebody asks me a question, I will go to hypothetical SharePoint and say, "Let me let me show you let me share my screen, show you where to get it. Here's the document. Scroll down to here. This is how you can look
143for it. It's this. Go into the space bar. Type this way. Like teaching someone how to fish. Those are the That's really that foundational work that you're going to want to build that muscle all all over as you're becoming excellent at one thing and then one thing and then one thing. And I say that as a parent to a child with a disability as well, too. So, I'm doing it at home. I understand where you're coming from from a personal perspective, from a professional perspective. Um, and yes, that is that's I think the the how is is defining it and then teaching that muscle memory of being excellent at one thing and then chipping away at it. Thank you. That's so helpful. I think it's such a broad and idealistic thing to say a model
144district and of course we want to be so having some tangible ways that we can uh as a board know what we're working towards and also that the community knows that we're working towards kind of like you were saying Mr. Triplet with being transparent about what we're we're working on. So thank you guys. Miss Pike. Oh, I thought Miss Christie. Oh, you're up. Okay. All right. Um, thank you so much um for such a robust report and presentation. Um, this has been really informational. Um, and I wish I could say that it were surprising. I think um when you when you talk to a lot of our our parents and teachers and everything, I think that um this report kind of sums up a lot of those things very accurately and so succinctly and um
145definitively. So I really really appreciate that. I wish it had been done sooner, but you know, here we are. Um, I'm really interested to seeing what this will look like because in and remind me kind of back in there. You said that one of the key things would be integrating this into our general education. Was was that what you said? Could you maybe expand on that or touch on that again? Sure. Absolutely. And so what as part of the action planning process once we identify the key stakeholders who will participate in that work we always advocate for having leaders um in the general education sphere. So whether that's someone who's overseeing MTSS and someone who's overseeing curriculum instruction, um the regionalized leaders for example, one or two representatives from those positions, a principal for example,
146we want to have a very robust representation of individuals who are leading the charge in special in general education across the district because they're going to know the groundwork and the initiatives that are already in place as well as at a leadership level individuals who are forward facing saying we know the you know 865mmies are expanding in this sort of way. We can tag this recommendation with that expansion knowing that you know we could expand it for students with disabilities for example in this sort of way. And so really it's building a very robust representation of stakeholders in this action planning process and then we as a team and we've already done a bit of this work already leg work but charting out what are the initiatives that are currently in the district. We have
147read the strategic plan from top to bottom several times, understanding the priorities of the district, reviewing past budgets, thinking about what the new budgets may look like, trying to build all of those pieces to be able to say this document and these plans don't stand alone exclusively within Dr. Brown's column of work within KCS, but that we can integrate these across the columns where appropriate. And so to answer your question, robust representation, analysis of initiatives that are occurring um throughout the district now and then in the future and then figuring out a way to align these recommendations with work that is currently in underway or will be underway. Um and that will also address some of the budgetary components as well too and perhaps some fin staffing as well if you're able to double down
148um and not have to expand staffing or expand budgets in certain ways to meet all these expectations. Okay, thank you. Um, my next question I think might be for Dr. Brown. Um, where do you find us to be at or where will the implementation begin that would be in accordance with this? So, I think that's a pretty complicated question. Um, I would say this, I mean, we have the recommendations, we have the findings. I think our next step uh without me just presuming on how we will proceed is to go through the strategic planning process with them to set out those goals and to lay out as as Dr. Ulik said, you know, if we prioritize everything in the next 18 months, we aren't prioritizing anything. Um so I think we've got to really take
149a look at what are what are the biggest issues. You know, what what do we think are the things that are are an easy fix or what are the things that may take longer? uh and work with all of our stakeholders, get input from, you know, like as I said, the parent council, get input from our principal council, make sure that we recognize what are the things that they think need to be a prioritized and and set those things out. So, um I think it's too early to make presumptions now, but I think, you know, in the next, you know, month or so, as we work with them to develop the strategic plan, we will bring that plan back to the board uh for you all to see and to have that roadmap before obviously
150before it publishes. I'm assuming and I I don't but but typically when we develop a plan we we ask the board to approve those bring it back for action. Um so I would assume that would probably be our next steps. Okay. Um would it be possible for me to ask for a a quarterly update uh for your progress? Yes. Abs. Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I think um I skipped that on my last slide trying to rush through and get to this question and answer session. Uh we talked about a regular um progression of of updates. um at a minimum like once a semester. But I think again it depends on what those goals are and the timeline of those. But yes, absolutely. I think moving forward once we have this plan and we
151are starting to put it into place, the special ed director would be glad to come and update you all on a regular basis on what that looks like. Um that sounds great. But I would while you're going through the process also like some updates about even if it's just a quick touch on here's what we did, here's what's going on, here's where we're going next just to keep us so that because I feel like there are a lot of times where you know potentially it's silent for us if we're not engaging for 18 months and then boom, we have this big thing and then you know all those questions and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say to that, I think the good news is is this will be a fairly quick turnaround. And I
152I I would let these ladies answer that question, but I do think we are going to have that strategic plan this summer. And so we will have, you know, some some clear directives starting with next school year on how we proceed on that. Um I'll be glad to as we work through that process, um I know Dr. Risewick sends a a weekly board update. You know, we can update you guys on the progress, what's been going on, who we've met with, um where we are in the process, and keep you updated on that. Okay. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Miss Christie, just briefly because I think everybody's kind of touched on most of what um I was thinking, but as far as our new director goes, do you have like a timeline ballpark on that?
153I mean, will that person be um engaged in the strategic planning process? Um, will they be ready to go? I mean, I know you haven't hired anyone yet, but No. Thank you, Miss Christie, Madam Chair. Uh, yes. So, as I said, we're in the middle of the process. Um, we have tried to um get that moving as quickly as possible. Miss Similgar and and her talent acquisition team have been very helpful in that process. Um, I I think our goal right now is to have that person announced in the next couple of weeks. Um, so it will definitely be announced before school ends. I think we can safely say that. Um and I think as far as their involvement in that process, uh as I mentioned, Dr. Eiswick has kind of tasked us to work
154with the project management team moving forward with the results that we have. Uh so I I think as much uh as we can involve that person, you know, again, I can't speak to their current uh commitments with their jobs. I don't know who we're going to hire. Um they could be out of state. The great news is is these ladies are going to lead us through that strategic planning process. They have protocols for online meetings. So um the the contract that we signed with them does not allow for them to come back on site. So we are actually going to be meeting with them through virtual meetings uh which would allow us to include anyone. Uh so I think based on their availability I would think the new person hired would want to have a
155say and be included in the process. I will also say that Dr. Ris you know typically we we bring people on board once the the their predecessor leaves and Dr. Dr. Risewick and I have talked about the potential of, you know, if the person is available, maybe even onboarding them earlier in the summer than July 1, uh, so they can be preparing not only for this work, but, you know, the work of leading that department for next school year and moving forward. Awesome. Does anybody else have any questions or anything? I think most of y'all touched on the questions I had and just the thoughts as well. Um, I appreciate all the work that went into this report. It was very thorough and robust, so thank you for that. And I'm appreciative of Dr. Brown
156and Dr. Risewick um for making this a priority and all your work, your continued work that has gone into this. And I'm excited to see um the next steps, the strategic plan. You know, when I was listening to this, I was also visualizing visualizing the region five uh plan that we did before. That worked out very well. So, I'm excited to see those next steps. And thank you ladies. You guys are very impressive. Very impressive. Thank you for all that work. I just like to do this. Thank you. That's incredibly incredibly thoughtful. I I mean I to end on that note is supreme excitement. So thank you all so much. And in the spir spirit of wins and celebrating we we acknowledge Dr. Brown and Dr. Ly and all of their hard work and Corey
157who spent a great deal of time with us and Steve Ruer who gave me more email. The Steve I got Steve my email. Steve, please, please, can I get my email? So, just lots of folks that we've worked with over these past few months. Um, and we've sincerely enjoyed working with all of you and the wonderful team members in KCS at the schoolhouse level and the district level who showed up in really thoughtful, vulnerable ways to contribute to this outcome and parents, parents of children with disabilities who went above and beyond to participate in this process in a variety of ways. We're very grateful. We're very thankful for your authenticity and your support of this work. And so, um, thank you all. Thank you all very much. At the end of the day, you know,
158the kids reach their full potential and all this work is is for the kids and um, so it's it's great. It's great work. Thank you again. Do y'all want to take a break before we Okay, I see a lot of headlines. All right, why don't we take a break and come back at 710 minutes? 12 minutes. Okay. We will now move into our regular session agenda. A few items. Board members, you did receive an email this afternoon, but I wanted to share some information on two of our agenda items since they changed after um it was published last week. for agenda item 66. The item was previously for consideration of a photography agreement for Farragen High School and Beardarden High School has also submitted a request to use the same agreement and due to the
159photography schedule uh we needed the agreement approved prior to our June meeting. So, Superintendent Rywick and I agreed to change the caption on that to reflect both schools. So, both Farragate and Bearden are reflected on that item. And then on item 9D, the caption did reflect a memorandum of understanding with Green Heck Fan Corporation for a studentrun enterprise at Carter High School, but the law department recommended in addition to the caption regarding the receipt of the donated funds from Green Heck. So, Superintendent Risewick and I also agreed to the addition of the fiscal information to that caption. So, we will move on then into our agenda. So let's move on items in contract 6C one two or three. We have any questions? Yeah, Miss Bike. Um this is 6C1. Um I just want to state
160per usual that I have a close relationship with someone that works there in this department, but I don't think that that would um affect my vote or how I will vote on this. Um, so just want to make a note. I appreciate that. Thank you. Anyone else on these three items? Okay, moving on then to four or five. Six or seven. 8 or 9. 10 or 11. 12 or 13 or 14. Okay. 15 or 16 or 17. Okay, moving on then to grants. A or B, C or D, E or F or G. All right, moving on then to contracts. A or B or C? Yeah, Mr. Trip, Mr. Triplet, it's just an update on this and then I think Heather's going to come and share uh a couple things about the clothing center and
161resource center during our last uh meeting. That's 90. Oh, sorry, wrong one. I moved on to C. The clothing center. The wrong the wrong letter C. He is ready to be at the end of this agenda. Yes, I am. That's so great. Go ahead. All right, then. On to nine regular agenda items. A Oh, Miss Spike, I'm so sorry. Yeah. No, sorry. A legitimate conversation. No, I was also um struggling with like which one we were on. Um this is for for 8C. Okay. the um the contract with the USI consulting group um the 403b. Um can we get someone to briefly um just go over what the changes are from last month? Yep. Who? Mr. Mgarn. Yeah. Just kind of a brief update since we've seen this several times I guess on the agenda,
162right? Sure. Uh Madame Chair, Miss Spike, uh as a result of the discussions last month and in discussions um with USI as the successful bidder through the RFP process, um they offered an amendment to the contract. Um and that would allow our employees with current accounts with either of our two current vendors to be able to continue those. Um and then USI would be the single vendor for all new accounts. Um and the third party administrator. So there there could be no no new accounts by current vendors, but there would be no requirement that current accounts switch to USI. They could, of course, if they chose to what is that it? Okay. Okay. I should make sure you didn't have any followup. Okay. I I will say I'll defer to Mr. Dupler in case I
163summarize that any of that incorrectly. Um but but um that's my understanding. Yeah. I thought you did a great Yeah. Yep. Mr. Dler. No. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Himarn, I agree. I mean, just just to explain a little further, um, you know, we weren't we weren't negotiating with value teachers. I did hear from their council, Mr. Holyfield. Uh but um but any discussions regarding um the amendment or addendum is is how it's come out with the contract uh were held between uh USI and Mr. Cross and and Mr. Holyfield or some other value teachers folks. Uh as far as the county's part and the school's part, uh we have a proposed contract with USI. So, so when we heard back from USI saying that they wanted to to make a change, then that
164that's when the change was made and then we consulted with procurement um specifically with Jay Garrison and that department to uh to come up with the addendum. Uh so that's how it came about but I mean it was it was something voluntary from USI. So y thank you missley. Thank you madam chair. Can you clarify what the two established companies are? No one's value teachers. Madam Chair, Miss Font Ridley. The second is Corebridge. Okay. Because I've had questions about that one this week. Thank you, Miss Morgan. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Miss Himlgarn, just to be clear, everybody who does have their account with value teachers or corporate, they can continue that account and contributing to it. Just no new ones. Is that right? Correct. Okay. Can contribute can continue contributing to current accounts um
165via the payroll deduction. Okay, great. Well, thank you to USI for making that uh change to the contract and for Miss Himlgarn. I know you've worked a lot on this and to um all of the teachers and I know value teachers has been here a lot too to it's just been a lot of work on everyone's part I know to make sure that our teachers and our staff are taken care of and I appreciate your efforts on that. Thank you. Any more discussion on that item? All right, moving on. Regular agenda items nine A or B? Yes, Miss Pike. Um, this Thank you. Um, this is for 9B. I went all the way through this school calendar for 2026, 2027. I feel like this is a great school calendar. I am so excited about it.
166I really hope that everyone else is also pretty happy. I noted we got that two weeks during Christmas or holiday winter break. I just like to say don't get used to it, but then you're welcome. Yeah. You know what? I just I'm want to celebrate our wins and I feel like this is a good one. You know, we've got a nice space with spring break and all of those things. So, thank you so much for everyone that worked on it. We did learn tonight to celebrate the wins, right? So, that's what that's what we'll do. That's what we'll do. All right, Mr. Trible, you want to talk about 9C. Go. I do. I was ready to move on and get rolling. So, um Heather Wilson is going to come on up. She's going to speak.
167Uh she has promised to be three minutes, just so you know. So, it'll be a short one. So, should we put the timer on? Yeah, it said put the timer on for the public forum. Uh, so during our our last meeting, we talked about uh the clothing center and that we'd received a joint proposal from the uh school culture department and the dream center. Uh, and that was the proposal we had brought and we had recommended. Uh, there's been a little change in that and and not a major one. The dream center is still going to assist but not in a formal way. And so there is noou needed from them. So the proposal that we're bringing um to this meeting to the meeting on Thursday to vote does not include anou. We don't need
168anou from the dream center. They're still going to support us, still going to help, but uh Knox County Schools is going to be overseeing all that and managing all that. So uh Heather's going to present and talk a little bit about our clothing resource center. Thank you. Thank you so much for allowing me to come and share the great things that the social work department has done over the last few months to sort support students. Um we have served 263 students since February. All regions have been supported 74 schools. We are opening and expanding um the clothing center and resource center into schools. So we're calling them our satellite um sites. And so we are expanding and sending clothes out to the schools so that we can have immediate um needs filled at the school
169level. The referral process is really easy. Contact your school social worker. That's it. Um, they have an online referral form. We get information about the students favorite colors. Um, our standard order will have underwear, socks, and five outfits per semester. Um, the social worker can either pick up the order at the clothing and resource center. They can make the order and they can just do a little drop by. They can come by. They can shop for the students. They can also bring families to the clothing and resource center to shop for their children too. Um or we can fill the orders and send it to the school and school mail. Um we take a lot of donations. Um in addition to clothing, we are expanding to prom and homecoming. We have a shoe store. Um
170some new um school supplies. And the Knoxville Dream Center has been an amazing partner for us and helping us with our new or gently used home items, kitchen supplies. They have been absolutely a huge supporter of pretty much everything that we have asked for. We are located at the Cedar Bluff Preschool in the upper level and um we do accept donations starting from 7:30 until 3:15 every single day during the school week. The thing that I am most excited about is our student integration. I am extremely excited that we have partnered with Project Search this semester. We had an intern. We are working with them to um extend and expand that program because this does provide a lot of job training for our students and our project search interns. 865mmies we are working with them
171to look at those social service pathways and to train our students that are wanting to enter into social work in a lot of variety of different fields. Um we have also um established um a system with the National Honor Society where we can look at volunteer hours, clothing draws. We even had a Halls High School senior wash day this year and looking at really trying to get our students engaged to help their peers and to help others in the community. Um, lots of our community partners. There's way too many to mention, but Knoxville Dream Center, Helping Mamas, NTYCE, these are all very ongoing um donors that we work with every single week. And we also have had received several donations from other community organizations. ASO Apparel donated 14,000 sweatshirts recently. And yes, those are all
172out into schools in our satellite programs. Um we have lots of consignment stores um that have partnered with us to um so we have a lot of great community outreach and partnership. This is where we started in January. We got lots of donations. We wash every single item that comes in so that all of our students are receiving clean clothing. Um this is one day for laundry. Um, yes. My husband has told me to stop bringing laundry home because we need to pull into the garage. Um, so we've had lots of laundry. We have a shoe store and this is the new clothing center. We have a ton of options, a variety of styles. We really are focused on making sure that students get what they like. We want them to be proud of what
173they're wearing and to have good quality um donations and get a lot of name brands and um I'm very excited about all the opportunities and I'm very proud of the social workers and what they've done just the last few months to help support our students. Questions? Reverend Butler. Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, thank you for this. This is a lot uh more heartwarming than the last time we had this conversation. So, this is really good. Uh I see you have the standard order is per semester. Yes. That per student. Per student. But if there emergencies or something like that, social workers can still Yes. Yes. And social workers have access um to the building from 6:15 until 10:00 at night. they can fill emergency orders. We've had to go in late at night.
174We've had a lot of families lose housing to fires and so we want to make sure that we're supporting students and going out and making sure they we meet those immediate needs. Um we do not deny requests. Um we do serve all students. But in addition, that's a standard order. We can in addition provide coats. We can do more. We even have an interview section where students are going on interviews. We have suits, we have dresses, we are really trying to we even have welding outfits for students that are doing dual enrollment for welding because they are apparently very expensive. Um so that's a basic standard order. Um if a student doesn't need that much, they don't have to get that much. Or if they need more, we can do more. Um but that's just
175a standard order. Mr. triplet. Yeah, I just want to say thank you. I know you've been to our meetings and you've showed up to all those and I appreciate that. Obviously, what you're doing is great. You can see it just on the screen. Also, the work with the Dream Center and all this. My question is this, the donations, if somebody wanted to donate, how does that happen? Where do they bring it? Where do they drop it off? How do they get involved in that? Yeah, Cedar Bluff Preschool building, if you go around to the very top floor, the upper floor, um, we accept donations. We have a little bell. You ring it. Uh we accept donations from 7:30 to 3:15. Um we also um if someone wants to reach out to their social worker, they
176can drop it off to the social worker and put it in school mail. We also have some sites. Um it's on the um presentation, the counselor YMCA is a location that we're doing drop off sites and next year we are hoping to expand our drop off locations to do a few in every single feeder pattern. Awesome. Great. Thank you. Awesome. Miss Spike, thank you. Um my my question is that kind of in this interim time and I think maybe a little bit before that as well um some of our PTOs and PTAs had um been doing clothing drives or clothing sales and stuff like that. Is there will they continue? Is it okay first for them to continue that? And also, will you all be partnering with them in any way? Yes, we are encouraging
177that to happen. Like I said, donations are probably our where we want to go so that we can get more name brand um clothing for students. Um so, we are partnering with um all the different parent organizations. The social workers are very involved. Each social worker does make fi at least five contacts per semester to get donations and part of that is reaching out to the schools to partner with the parent organizations doing lost and found um but really um expanding those donations. Okay. And then I guess um from that do you or this might be like farther in the future or a no it's totally fine but um I know like Beard and Middle has been doing kind of like um $5 per bag as a kind of intermediate um type of sale. So
178they take in you probably know all about this but I'm just going to talk about it anyway. um where they take in a lot of donations predominantly from parents and some teachers and stuff. Um and then everyone that comes to the sale that day, you know, it's $5 per bag. You whatever you can stuff in that bag and then the rest of it kind of gets donated or kind of goes to like the school closet. Is that any sort of model that you all will be entertaining at other school levels? Um maybe in the future, but they did donate all of their um remaining items to the clothing center. So we went picked them up and washed all of them. Um so in the future but we are really focused on providing things free for
179students. Um so that would be more of the school level parent associations but we are really looking at providing on-site free support um to our students. Yeah, that's great. Um I guess I was more like I like the free absolutely 100%. Um, but the kind of like at the school level for families that might str I know social our social workers do an amazing job, but some of the families that might be a little little hesitant to like accept help that would be more willing to come and like shop themselves, what exists for them. Um, yes. So, we haven't really expanded to that yet. Um but we do have clothing that um are items. You can see we are very full right now. Um so we are picking our high quality items now and we
180are looking at ways to donate um give back to the community. We have supported some families too with clothing that we know um need support and help with our extra items. So in the future we are looking at having a family section to where the social workers if they are getting clothes for students some of our clothes that maybe look more like my age um clothing for people my age and then we can donate those to families um and provide support for families but that is something to definitely consider in the future. Okay cool. Thank you Miss Christie. Thanks Miss B. Thank you Madam Chair. I just want to say thank you for all of your work and just the innovation of it all. I love we heard a lot about Project Search tonight um
181in our earlier presentation. I love that you have brought them in um to work and just the collaboration with that and the 865 and the um community service hours for um National Honor Society and I assume Tennessee Promise even if if they needed them. So just just thank you for you know I know it was a heavy lift but clearly you all are very capable. So thank you Miss Morgan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Miss Willis, thank you for doing this. We started the school year with a not functioning clothing center. Not to to look backwards and dig, you know, that back out, but we are ending the school year with a highly functioning uh wonderful system that's working really well for everybody. And thank you for heading this up. and love the student engagement and
182how you have them involved. Uh this is just a night and day difference from where we started to where we're ending. Thank you. Thank you, Sophia. Hi. Um I just wanted to thank you for what you're doing and um I wanted to ask if there were clubs out there that wanted to volunteer, how do they reach out to you to get volunteer hours? Yes, they can reach out to me um or on the website. We also have some email addresses for staff that are actually there um full-time and we welcome all volunteers. Um and we like I said really want to expand that student volunteer. Actually my niece at Farragate High School heard all about it and she was like why am I not doing my volunteer hours at the clothing center? I'm like well
183you can. Until then my sister started saying stop sending clothes home to wash. Um but yeah, so you can reach out to um we have a new email address that will be starting as soon as um the board decides if Knox County Schools is going to be the operating agency which will be clothing [email protected] and that should be up and running once the decisions made. Cool. And um I was going to ask about so you said prom and homecoming dresses which is great because prom is so expensive. Um, have you thought about partnering with school cosmetology departments to do hair and makeup for free? Yes. So, we did pilot a program um this year at one of our high schools and we started out um where we have a little dressing room with lights and
184mirrors so that everybody can come and try it on and get fitted. Um, and looked at looking at next year we are expanding in a couple of schools to partner with some of the um different thing. We actually have some hair stylists that have volunteered to help. And so we're looking at having a little space in the clothing center during prom time to where we can offer that service and to expand with hair. And my final question is, so one of my friends, Ya Angel, she received an email from Helping Mamas. Yes. Who works with you? They they said that students didn't really know they could go to their school social worker or nurse to come get the things that you have sent out to um the school. So, do you have any way we
185can um and better inform students to go to their social workers or go to their nurses to go get things? Um, so the personal hygiene items um that you're referring to, I have collaborated and spoken to the nursing supervisor. So, she is trying to get the word out. I did speak to all of the secondary um social workers. I sent out an email um to work with the rep student representatives to see what's the best way at each individual school. So, some might do posters in the restrooms to say, "Hey, you can go to your nurse or you can go to your social worker for these items. Um, but we are leaving it up to the individual schools to determine the best way to get that marketed out to students." So, I personally went to
186our nurse and asked about the items and she did not know if we had them or where to go to to find them. So, do you have an idea of who I could ask besides the school? just I mean I'm happy to follow up with the nursing supervisor or you can follow up with the nursing supervisor. Perfect. But yeah, we did communicate a few weeks ago about it. Thank you. Anyone else? Miss Willis, I just want to say wow, this is incredible. I want to thank Christie Christie for bringing this to our attention um and making it a priority and you have taken this and run with it and your vision and Miss Christie said it best, your innovation on this is incredible and I'm excited to see that the students it serves. Thank you.
187I will not complain about how much laundry I have this week anymore after seeing all the laundry you've had to do. Uh but thank you. This is incredible. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Last item here. 9D. All right. Moving on then into public forum. Mr. Triplet. Yes, we have one speaker, Courtney Piper. Courtney, thank you for sitting through a long meeting and then a break. And if you'll state your name, county resident, you have three minutes. Uh Courtney Piper, Knox County. I'm also a member of the Special Education Parent Council. And as a member of that council, I'd like to ask the board if they'll allow me an extra minute. I'll make a motion. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um I want to start by saying that I received
188the special education report this morning. So, thank you, Dr. Brown, and I've read through it. Um the report was difficult to read primarily because it highlighted the main challenge within the special education department is leadership. It highlighted how poor leadership in the special education department was allowed to persist for far too long. to the detriment of the very students it sought to serve. A non-negotiable requirement for the next special education director should be a wellocumented history of successfully overcoming grand challenges within a special education department and establishing a culture of excellence. This moment requires someone with that documented history and intestinal fortitude, not simply a candidate that's demonstrated a job well done operating a special education department. I concur with just about every statement in the report and there were a couple of things that
189stood out upon first review. A case manager with 40 students is far too many. We cannot expect excellence by allowing this to persist. We can only expect survival. The items related to reading are especially personal to me and my family. I raised concerns for over a year about my son's reading scores and was told it's just autism and KCS does not diagnose for dyslexia. I sat through an IEP meeting IEP meeting where I aggressively advocating for a specific learning disability evaluation while a building level administrator suggested my son just needed more consequences for his behavioral outbursts during reading, writing, and spelling. It turns out he did in fact have a specific learning disability in reading and writing fluency. And once the proper supports were put in place, his behavior and academic performance improved. But it
190took nearly two school years to get there. This leads me to the mention of a chronic shortage of school psychologists within KCS. School psychologists are difference makers on IEP teams. The school psychologist assigned to Sunny View Primary is exceptional. She is thorough and communicates clearly. She is a model professional, but she's only part-time. The report notably mentions that school and district IEP team members make decisions based off of fear to prevent legal actions and this is perhaps leading to the overuse of special education. However, the report also goes on to note a significant and widening achievement gap between students with disabilities and students without disabilities, raising concerns about the academic trajectory of students with disabilities. It's difficult to reconcile those two topics. The report also mentions the creation of a positive behavioral positive behavior inventions
191interventions. I can't get that out. Positive behavior interventions and supports framework for student behavior as a strength. But the opportunities for improvement column suggest it is not used consistently. The report goes on to communicate something that I and other parents have mentioned in front of this body several times which is the need for clear, transparent, recognized and universally imp university implemented protocols and processes. Those are just a few of the things that stand out and I want to make clear the seriousness of this moment and the findings in the report. I also want to offer some hope and thank Dr. Risewick for selecting Dr. Brown to lead this process. While I at times have expressed frustrations to Dr. Brown about the lack of engagement of the sped parent council this year. I now understand the
192depths of the challenges he was navigating. I appreciate the leadership he's brought to this process and hope that he remains in this role to oversee the transition from one special education director to the next. Dr. Brown, I did not fully appreciate your role or leadership until I read this report. I think I now have a better understanding. So, I'd like to publicly thank you for your grace and attention to my requests. My hope is the special education parent council is engaged robustly as KCS works through the report recommendations and actions. We have a lot of work to do and KCS has a lot of people that are willing to roll up their sleeves and be part of the solution, me included. Thank you. And that concludes public forum. Thank you. Thank you, Courtney. All right,
193moving on then into board forum. [Music] Sophia, I just wanted to say congratulations to all the seniors. Friday is our last day of school. Yes, I I feel like I am crawling to the finish line. Like it is a lot of work. But also, today kicks off AP testing season. So, good luck to everyone on their AP tests. Um I have one in late May. So I feel everyone going through their studying reg regimes and yeah Reverend Butler, thank you. I echo congratulations to all of the graduates and to all of the parents who's been who've been going on for 13 some plus years. So we just thank you for all the work that you've done as parents and then all the teachers and administrators and central staff. Miss Templeton, I have a list. Um
194first I want to say publicly thank you to uh Mayor Jacobs this morning for including our full budget um in his proposal to city council. I mean to county commission, my apologies. Um that was fantastic and it was good to hear um all the wonderful things that he had to say this morning um about the team sitting around this table. So um thank you to him. Um congratulations to Austin East Vine Sarah Green and Bowmont Magnet Academy on the amazing dance and art showcase last weekend. If you guys have not been to this mark it down. I have been for the last five years and I was sitting in the audience last Saturday. so upset with myself for not telling you about it last Monday to make sure it got put on your calendars because
195it truly is one of the most fantastic um just showcases of dance and it's all different kinds of dance um and all ages participate in this and it's really amazing. So mark it down first weekend of May next year 2026. We'll see you all there. Um, also congratulations to teachers. Um, just teacher appreciation month and you're doing the hard work every single day and we appreciate you and um, just want to make sure that you know that we you are seen and um, congratulations to the seniors. I will echo that as well. Um, it is a hard-fought race. So, congratulations Miss Elkins on um, your graduation as well. We are um, all rooting for you and what you will soon do. Awesome. Miss Fontner Ridley, Mr. Triplet, I want to shout out Sophia uh winning
196a full 1/4 25% of the awards at the senior awards. So, great job. Well done. And she worked hard, deserved them all. Her parents are going to have to build a new shelf or something to house them all, but great job. Good job, Sophia. Love it, Miss Bike. Thank you. Um, okay, two things. First, um I want to thank Courtney Piper coming to speak with us. Um yet again, I echo everything that she says and I really look forward to to what we're going to do in the future with um student supports. Um second is that um our we are selecting our board student rep uh currently and we usually have that announcement on Monday. Um but due to schedules and whatnot um we will be doing those interviews this um this Wednesday we have
197the three top scoring candidates. Um, sorry I went a little um navigating all the things. Um, the interview scores will be added to the application scores and the final decision will be made by the committee hopefully um, Wednesday evening after them and hopefully we will be able to announce this on Thursday. This is this my first time going through this process. So um, I'm very excited but also um, using everyone else's guidance. So thank you so much. Awesome. I'm excited. Thank you, Miss Morgan. One of the things that Dr. Risewick says a lot is that leadership matters. And I think we've seen tonight um I Miss Piper, thank you for recognizing Dr. Brown's work with the special ed. I know it's been a long haul and a long time coming, but um Dr. Brown really
198appreciate all your work on that and uh that you do really truly care and that means a lot to our students and um to everybody everybody sitting up here. I wish that everybody got to uh work with all of the assistant superintendent and uh Dr. Risewick like we do uh because we have a great leadership team and thankful for all you guys do Dr. Riswick and all of you Mr. Right. Thank you, Madam Chair. I also want to say congratulations to the graduates this year. Um, congratulations to the teachers on another hard another year of hard work. Um, thank you also to Courtney for being here tonight. This appreciate that. Uh, and lastly, the Enlist 865 ceremony. Also want to give a shout out to those uh graduates that are going into the armed forces.
199That was a great ceremony by the way. Look forward to continuing that. That's great, Miss Christie. And I'll just um echo what everyone else has said and again thank you to our teachers. I know it's um time to recognize them and their hard work and I know it's that time of year where everybody's really tired and um just just thank you for for showing up and giving your all every day. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Thank you. Um, I also want to echo everybody's um, thanks for the special ed presentation. Um, I didn't know all that went on and I've been in it for a long time. Um, I want to congratulate all the graduates like everybody said and I would like to um, show my appreciation for uh, Cedar Bluff Elementary School for allowing
200me to help proctor their teacaps. It was a lot of fun. The kids the kids got excited when I the next day and the next day when I came into the classrooms. Thanks. Awesome. Well, I echo everybody else. Um, happy teacher appreciation month. Congratulation graduates. Congratulations Sophia on all of your accomplishments. And with that, we are ajourned. I'll see y'all Thursday.