001Welcome to the Board of Education's April 29th, 2025 called meeting for consideration of our fiscal year 2026 budgets. Please stand as we observe a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance led by Dr. Butler. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Just have a few announcements before we begin our agenda. Miss Elkins will not be present this evening due to a school activity and our clothing center committee will meet tonight at this at the conclusion of this cold meeting in this boardroom. Everyone is certainly welcome to stay for that meeting as well. But if you are not attending, please exit the boardroom as quickly as possible so they can get that meeting started.
002Are there any requested changes to the agenda? So move. A motion by Mr. Triplet, second by Miss Christie. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right, on with the agenda. I do believe we have a public forum speaker before we begin. Thank you, Madam Chair. John Llewellyn. Is he not here? If I may, he's on his way. He's just not here yet. Um, problem is the part of that I think he wants to speak to is the first thing on our agenda. So, Do you know is he like in the garage or I know traffic was pretty bad. Is he walking in? Okay. Okay. Do we want to reverse the order and just switch and do the capital first? Sure. Yeah. I second. Okay. Motion by Miss Bike, a second by Miss
003Templeton to switch the order. So, our speaker has some time. All those in favor of that change say I. I. Any opposed? All right. We'll switch the order. So, he's got some extra time. Miss Cody, approve the fiscal year 2026 school nutrition fund budget at the major category level for $33,760,000. A motion by Miss Christie, second by Reverend Butler. Do we have any discussion on this item? Miss Fner Ridley, I just have one question. Um, I'm not exactly sure what all this what all that covers. Is it like the free breakfast and lunch? And do all schools get the free breakfast and lunch? Do you Dr. Adams, do you want to explain what the nutrition budget entails? Uh, madam chair. Yes, Miss Fono Ridley. So, there are some schools that are identified uh to receive
004the free breakfast and lunch. However, those schools are identified that there's a formula that goes into that. Uh this is just the the regular uh pay payment that students would have and faculty and staff if they choose to eat the lunches. And so uh within increasing cost uh with not only food but delivery um it's just something that we we had to address and we normally look at this every 3 to 5 years also. It's very comparable to surrounding districts in our area. So, it's the overall nutrition budget. I like talking about this item when I speak to Boy Scout groups on how much it costs to run our cafeterias. Do we have any more questions or discussion on this item? All right, seeing there's no more discussion, we'll go ahead and vote. All those
005in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right, motion carries. Approve the fiscal year 2026 capital budget for $24,400,000. A motion by Reverend Butler, a second by Miss Christie. Do we have any discussion on this item? Mr. Triplet, I have a couple of questions for Dr. Adams. Um I know that excited about the MLB solution. South Knox definitely needs uh you know, needs to be on there and that solution. I understand all of that. So, but I know lots of schools have, you know, um, everybody probably has a some parents that want to see some changes in their schools. How does one end up on the capital improvement plan? That's a great question, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Triplet. So, normally what we do is we look at projected numbers. And so, uh, unfortunately, we
006normally really start talking about purchasing land and building a school when we exceed capacity. Uh right now I can tell you um in your area for example uh there was one school in particular even though we're trying to get away from the portable business uh it was one it was a school where it was absolutely necessary and so uh we're doing a demo to Pal Elementary School one of their portables that did not have a restroom in it. Uh we're going to add two additional portables uh which was that would give capacity for four classrooms. Uh we were very fortunate to repurpose those portables from Mil Creek. They were fairly new portables so we didn't have to purchase portables. Usually those run anywhere from $600,000 to a million dollars affordable. Uh so we did have
007money in the existing capital uh budget um to to accommodate PAL elementary school. And so uh that normally again that's what we look at is projected numbers. Uh but uh we we really can't um identify land until we the need is there and and unfortunately it is when it is exceeding capacity or very close to. Thank you. I know you and I have been there. We've walked through pal obviously that's the the school folks want to see some improvement on. We've been talking kind of off and on about it for a year more than a year just trying to figure all that out. So in in your thoughts for them for PAL elementary that's you know a five six year out monitor the the capacity in the buildings see what see what that growth looks
008like see what that needs look like and then make that decision. Would that be a fair assessment? Yes sir. That is correct. We also look at as we start looking at community solutions, we also look at where there's capacity in existing schools. And so, um, we want it to be clean, right? So, we have conversations about reszoning. We look at very clean feeder patterns and, uh, where students are outside of their community. A prime example is when we looked at the Mechanicsville, Lonsdale, and Bowmont solution, uh, there was just a section of Lndale, uh, that was really identified in the Mechanicsville and Bowmont area. And so that's where we would try to clean that up. If we see existing areas to where it just doesn't make sense, we go ahead and clean up that feeder
009pattern or zone for that particular school. Uh we did have and this is not uncommon that we have a a community like a little culde-sac that will reach out to us and say, "Can um rethink reszoning a certain area for a particular school?" And and we have been able to accommodate that for the past two years. Perfect. Thank you. I appreciate it. I've gotten lots of questions about it, so I figured I'd just ask in this setting and let you kind of answer how that process. Absolutely. Thank you, sir. Yeah, I appreciate that, too, because I've heard from some Powell families about that as well, Miss Bike. Thank you. Um, my question is kind of pinging off that one a little bit. is um when you're looking at the capital plan and deciding and assessing,
010are you using some of the information that you got from the facilities assessment that was done? Uh madam chair, Miss Bike, so what we did is when we looked at the data from the facilities assessment, we coordinated that information with our maintenance director and his team and so there was it it aligned very well to some of the items that they had identified as need. Uh the facilities assessment is really something that's going to house that information. So we'll have the software uh that will long live Garfield Adams and Chris Ta who's our maintenance director. And so that information it just does it doesn't leave with me, right? And so it really projects where we have deferred maintenance. And so just getting aligned and and if there weren't any inconsistencies, we really uh did on-site
011visits and worked very closely with Roth IMS uh to see if if there were any discrepancies in in the actual data. So uh yes, that facilities assessment is a key component on the way we identify capital planning projects. Okay. Um do you think that is there a plan for having facilities assessments every so often or is it just that one and then we'll see? That's that is an excellent question. So this is something that we may revisit uh five years 10 years down the road. Uh right now um what this shows us is as we um do the do the the necessary maintenance or replacement of whatever it may be. What happens is those schools move in category uh and as as far as need and then when you start looking at the need of
012the schools for instance if if you replaced a roof in a school right and and they still remain in a in a low category uh in instead of rising to the top as far as a school that was in great condition then you would really have to assess what's going on with that school. So that that shifts schools around by project. And so, uh, if if we feel like it it's not capturing, uh, the full assessment that we need as we start doing replacements and updates, then we we would revisit that. But we feel pretty confident but that as we, um, update that information that it gives us an accurate picture on how we move forward. Okay. Um, and my last question. Um, so on that and when assessing things and replacing stuff and and
013making that plan, um, and I guess this one is specifically for Bowmont. Um, but it kind of applies to all the schools in our district. Um, so when we're looking at that and we're looking at the what the community has put into the building and some of those extra things that are not necessarily in a classic plan to replace um kind of like some of some of the murals, um the outdoor stage and some things like that that would potentially be direct to programming. How is that kind of factored in when you're doing this? Certainly, that's a great question. So, we do have a Knox County schools standard and how we build schools. Uh when I speak specifically about a K8 school, this is a non-traditional school, right? And it gives us a very unique
014opportunity uh to look at multiple designs and look to look at programming with academics and Dr. Wilson and his team and and really get an understanding of uh what the needs of that school are. So, so that's that's down the road, but it does give an opportunity uh to have unique features. Uh I will say when you talk about murals and things of that nature, a lot of our older buildings have murals. Uh it's more of an update to the building. Uh it does become very problematic as far as the maintenance of the building and I know it has character, right? Uh but we want to ensure that uh the building itself, it does not look dated. Uh I will tell you I've had multiple uh principles who who've stepped in first year, second, third
015year principal and they've asked for the clean chic uh look in the building. They wanted it all one color and and they just wanted to designate certain areas. And so I just wanted to mention to you when we when we talk about murals that is traditionally something we've done in the past. I don't think we see that as much as we do now. Uh but again as far as the programming uh it gives us a very unique opportunity to look at things differently. also uh you know with fair the new school in the town of Farragut new elementary school that is one of the largest schools that we've ever been right built. So we're getting outside of just the standard build and so it does again give us opportunities to look at readjusting our standards.
016Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. Great questions and thank you for adding that. I do believe Okay. Is there any more discussion on this item? All right. We'll go ahead and vote on that. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Yeah, I believe. Is he here? Okay. Awesome. I saw you walk in. Welcome. Yes, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. John Llewellen, you can come on up to the microphone and if you will state your name and county of residence and then you'll have three minutes to speak. Yes, sir. My name is John Llewellyn and I live in Knox County and I have all my life. I went to school in Knox County. I rode school buses in Knox County. My father runs started driving a school bus in 1980.
017But anyway, uh I want to talk to you about the transportation budget. The transportation budget has been overlooked or been cut and I've got several contractors with me. You got understand I just got off a school bus. So I apologize for being late and I thank you very much for letting me be here. But in the past five years, uh we've have 22% of raise, but also in the past five years 21% inflation. So we are at zero. So if we adopt the budget the way it is now, that means we're going to get a 3 or 4% pay cut. So I would ask you to look at that. Uh let me give you some some examples. We have made some big time capital investments. Me myself, my fleet, I have a fleet of 20
018school. We've got 20 routes. We got 27 school buses. And our fleet uh is very modern. We've actually bought some new buses and we're very proud of that. But the same bus that I bought in 2020 for $123,000 is $187,000 today. That is 35% increase just in those vehicles. And then my other contractor friends that have the small buses, those buses have doubled in price 100%. So uh uh just stupid little stuff like physicals for bus drivers were $45 and now they're $90. Uh our insurance, you can imagine where our insurance is. So, the uh we we personally spend $500 a month on recruitment through Indeed and the recruiting to recruit bus drivers. And if y'all didn't know, in 2020, we were 60 bus drivers short as a transportation department as a whole, not myself.
019We were short four or five. Well, as of today, we are 20 bus drivers short. So, we are really gaining on this and we are giving some great service and we appreciate what y'all have done. But my biggest concern is my school bus drivers. If you all approve the budget the way it is and we don't get a raise, my lights are still going to stay on and I'm still going to eat. But $50 or $100 a month extra to a school bus driver is probably the difference between them eating and their and and them paying their light bill and staying gainfully employed with me. Right now, I have 18 of the best school bus drivers out there, and I'm trying my best to keep these people employed. So, if you would reconsider that, we
020uh our transportation director has asked for 6% and we come back with zero. We was hoping we can get something to try to, you know, try to keep up with the times. But like I say, my name's J John Llewellyn and my company is JLL Transport in Knoxville. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Miss County, can you read this item? Approve the fiscal year 2026 general purpose budget at the major category level for $700,485,000. Second. A motion by Miss Christie, second by Mr. Triplet. Do we have any discussion? Miss Christie. Dr. Adams, would you like to speak a little bit about the email that was sent to board members and just for the record involving transportation? Thank you for that. Uh, Madam Chair, thank you, Miss Christie. I appreciate that. Uh, uh, first, Mr. Le,
021I would like to thank you for coming out and speaking tonight. You know how much I greatly appreciate your service and the work that you all do. Uh I I do want to to mention that in 2022 uh our our uh contractors were hit with high increased cost as far as um gas prices and diesel prices. And as we looked at a very tight budget, uh some of the conversations we had is how do we reflect on and look at the needs of our contractors? Uh normally traditionally if you look at when the the the cost of gas and diesel goes up, it's roughly in the summertime, right? And even though we have a tight budget, one of the things we're going to do is we're going to assess um the the increased cost. And
022just to give you an example, in 2022, I believe we increased the their or contractors $450,000 to address their needs. Uh this isn't one of those situations where we're going to reflect back really assess where the costs are. Uh Mr. To Mr. point. Uh he is correct when you look at the price of bus the new buses and and and keeping up with the cost and we don't know what gasoline's going to do. Uh so that is something that we are certainly going to revisit and bring back uh some options to the board and just see where we are u with our budget and and see if we can't address those needs. Thank you, Dr. Adams. Cat, I know you had your lot on before, so sorry. I think it was echoing. That's why I
023turned it off. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Um I am sorry but what would be the time frame on kind of that it would it would be in the fall in the fall. So um they would potent potentially see that reflection directly to them in the fall. So in the past what we did is we we adjusted what we gave our contractors. We revisited that in the fall. Okay. So it'll just be a revisit in the fall. Yes. And so if if we revisit in the fall and whatever steps we took to address that, that would probably come in the fall if we were able to compensate our our contractors. And um sorry to be so nitpicky. When you say fall, do you mean August or like November? It just depends on what we what information
024we find out from. So So when we talk about we're going to reassess it in the summer. Normally what we did is in the fall, I'd say it was probably roughly around close to closer to October when we really had a solid amount of the the gas prices and the increased cost and so we were able to address it at that time. Okay. Thank you. I had that same question of what does fall mean? So yeah, Dr. Risley, thanks. If I could uh Thank you, Madam Chair. If I could just add a little bit to what Dr. Adams said, uh any action would would be something we have to bring back to the board. Um, and so this this budget that we have right now, just so it's clear, like like we don't have other
025money stashed somewhere, right? So this would have to be us looking into the fall, assessing as as Dr. Adams said, and then looking for some cost savings in this current budget to be able to bring something back. So um I think ju just so that's clear, you know, it's not we have money, we'd be shifting from somewhere else. It would probably be some realized savings early in the fall or maybe some things where we were uh had some space at that point in the budget. So we we don't we don't have the $450,000 right now to to your point. Um so it would probably be us assessing that through the summer, but it would be something we have to bring back to the board um for you all to approve um you know because it
026would be it would be obviously a change to the budget at that point. But u we have as Dr. Adams said in the past been able to look at some of those look at some of those costs. Um and I'll just say this too. I mean you guys know we had individual conversations. Um this was a pretty tight budget this year and and we do I echo what Dr. Adam said 100% rely and appreciate all of you contractors that are here what you do for our kids uh every day. We we couldn't do it without you and it's great to have this partnership. When we explain to people in other parts of the country how we do this u they're amazed and it is because you of your commitment to our kids and we do
027appreciate that and uh you know uh Ryan Dillingham does a great job bringing those things to us as well. Uh and and so we we do hear that and we do want to try to uh do what we can in that. But um it really wasn't an oversight. It was really just us having to make some decisions to be able to keep operations the way they are. But I do think um in good faith we're going to take a look at that and try to bring something back that you all can take an action on uh in the fall. And you know I know that's not September, November. It probably depends on where we have the money when we get to that point. Right now we don't have it. Um so it may take us
028a while to get some months ahead of us to know where we have some savings realized after July 1. Thank you, Miss Templeton. Thank you for that and thank you Miss Spike for this question because I have the same ones and thank you for bringing that to our attention. I think that um this this is a lot of numbers. Um so we as a board I cannot speak about from board I can speak to myself. um the number of eyes and the number of emails that have come in just questions and concerns I think are always helpful because it guides us kind of in the right direction or things that could um be better explained um to ourselves as well as to the community. So, thank you for speaking today and thank you to everyone
029who sent emails um and queries um and also thank you to the staff for meeting last week because it offered a lot of clarity and I was able to give answers um before today um and that was very helpful. So, thank you for that. Um I do have one question however um in regard to staffing. Um and I was looking through kind of that cursory glance you know um top of mind the schools that I serve. Um Gresham Middle School losing an assistant principal and it's the only one losing an assistant principal. Um I had some initial concerns um primarily because um I I guess my first question really is how these are allotted the assistant principles. Um I can assume that the at risk population um is brought into the equation and the um
030overall population this sheer numbers um and are those the only two um items that are taken into account. Madam Chair, Miss Templeton. Uh yes. So the ADM and the at risk percentage um both factor into the formula to allocate assistant principles at the middle school level. Okay. Um and I know Gresian right now is at 24% at risk and it is losing an assistant principal which will put it at a ratio of about 400 students for one assistant principal. And from what I understand based on conversations with um Principal Glover earlier in the year, um they are, and Dr. Brown, you may need to speak to this, they are somewhat of a hub for special education because they have the ability to manage um a larger number of special ed special services kids. Um is
031that accurate? because I was understanding that um I know that there are 504s are going up as they are across the county, but curious if that is accurate. Uh thank you, Miss T, Madam Chair. I wouldn't call it a hub. Okay. Um so we have various services that are No, no, no. It's okay. They do have some specialty programming there. Um what we try to do is operate in feeder patterns. And so I mean I can say as a former principal at Central High School, they have programs there that align with the programs that at Central. So those kids once they get established in a feeder pattern can continue. Um but it it wouldn't be any different than let's say uh you know programming we'd see at a K's middle school or um a South
032Middle School. Um you know we we have a lot of those specialized programs in lots of schools and actually there are other schools that have additional programs that Gresham does not have. So, uh, for instance, Gresian may house a satellite program, a satellite from KEC and a CDC self-contained, uh, comprehensive developmental classroom, which is very common in a lot of our schools, but like a Northwest Middle School and a Bearden Middle School, they have an autism specific program. So, they have even additional programming that Gresham does not have. Okay. And so the percentage of kids that are a higher need um there there isn't a large percentage transferring to Gresham for those services as opposed to a Northwest or a bearded. They don't have like that's not No. No. No. Because I would say the
033programs that Gresham had uh are more common. Um, you we have CDC programming and satellite programming in a majority of our middle schools. Um, actually there, you know, probably, like I said, out of the 15 middle schools, 10 of them probably have those programs and five may not. So, it's really a majority and most schools have those programming. So, there wouldn't be a large influx of students into those um, right? You know, that are that are not zone students for for Gresham already. is really more of a service to the students in the community of Fountain City for for students of Gresham so they don't have to leave and go to another school. So they're not students transferring in for that program. There may be again it just I would have to look individually to
034see. Okay. Um but I you know there are there are programs at Halls so that we wouldn't get kids from halls. There are programs at PAL. We would not receive students from PAL Middle School. Um Whittle Springs. I don't know off the top of my head if they have those programming. Uh but again so it would just it would just vary and again we try to do those as close to the students base school as possible. So it there is a likelihood that there are students who would transfer in but I wouldn't say that that would be a large number. Okay. Um the other 24% at risk and all all of the at risk percentage and up they have a lower ratio. So like Farragate which is amazing has a ratio of 478 students for
035one assistant principal but their at risk population is 3%. So I just want to make sure that we're kind of thinking through all of the needs that are being serviced when we apply across the board. Like are we catching everything we need to catch? Because if she's if they are if these assistant principles are being legally they have to be in every meeting for any kind of services. So do we have enough feet on the ground to do that with this high percentage? Question. Madam Chair, Miss Templeton, I think that the the answer to that is we believe that we do. Um applying these staffing allocation formulas. Um we do have a staffing committee. We're in the third year of the staffing committee that looks um at each of these formulas. Did not make any
036changes this year. Um so these are the same formulas that we had last year and and this school specifically um knew last year. So it was a hold harmless for a year because they were going they dropped out of a a higher at risk percentage tier. Um so we're told last year that this the following year that would be reduced by one assistant principal position. Um so I had a year to plan for that. But of course that is something that the staffing committee is continually you know if if hearing something from our principles from their principal colleagues is something that we would continue so to continue to evaluate. So I think that that can be something that we take to the staffing committee um to revisit middle school. I I just think that there
037are a lot of these contingencies over at Gresham. It's a title one school. Um there's a lot happening over there and to lose a assistant principal I think will be painful. Um and they may have had a year to you know plan for it. Um but just walking those halls and being there um that's it's an important it's important for um each one of those grade levels to have a human um that they can point to. Um, so especially like I said being a title one school and um having special services I think it's important to take that into consideration with the assistant principles. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Templeton. Have any more discussion on this? All right. I want to thank our bus contractors for coming. My own kids have ridden the school
038bus for many years and they've had the best bus driver. So, thank you for reaching out to us. I know we've had a great relationship over the years. So, I appreciate that and all you do for our kids. With that, we'll go ahead and vote on this item. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Right. Motion carries. All right. I guess moving on then to board forum. Reverend Butler. No, this is a quick meeting. Miss Templeton, Miss Fontner Ridley, Mr. Triplet, Miss Bike, Miss Morgan, Mr. Wright, I almost called you Mr. Travis, Miss Christie. All right. Well, with that we are ajourned. Thanks for coming out.