001e 4th 2024 regular session meeting please stand as we observe a moment of silence followed by The Pledge led by Miss bike the flag I ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all I just want to remind everybody that Monday April 8th will be a half day for students due to the partial solar eclipse I know my own kids are excited about that so just a little reminder that we do have that short day and also board members uh Celeste will be absent tonight she had a school event so we wish her well in her her game tonight I'm excited to to hear how that goes do we have any requested changes to the agenda if
002not okay motion by Miss Horn second by Miss Christie all those in favor I any opposed motion carries and I do believe we're going to start off with a special recognition Dr Wilson yes thank you I'm actually going to kick that to uh Jim Allen the principal from Ellen in STEM Academy to do a introduction and share a little bit about what we're recognizing tonight thank you thank you Keith and thank you uh um the board I want to recognize one of our students tonight and it was a really great honor to be able to be asked to do this uh the student that were're recognizing uh took part in the Congressional app challenge which is an official initiative by the US House of Representatives where members of Congress uh host contests in their districts
003for middle and high school students encouraging them to learn to code and inspiring them to pursue careers in computer science um this initiative uh supports and emphasizes those critical important pieces that we emphasize as a school and stem and in our rapidly evolving World um this year's contest had 11,334 students from across the US um and marking an impressive increase of almost a thousand more participants than the previous year um and so some really exciting things uh there were 3,645 original applications submitted so not groups individual projects put together uh indicating a remarkable growth in that town in our whole country um and many more in our community so each particip participating member of Congress uh selected a winning app for their District uh each winning team was invited to Showcase their winning app to
004Congress during the annual House of code Festival um which is a program uh that is a private and public partnership a really neat thing happening in uh in DC um when Ellen in STEM Academy student Dominic POA who's over here was selected by Congressman burett uh as Tennessee's 2023 Congressional app challenge winner he had submitted an app called rememory uh Dominic's words were that was motivated to create the app by his grandfather who suffered from dementia and also his grandmother who takes care of him the app stores or sorry the app supports iPad iPhone and and on the Mac and is meant to help those with Alzheimer's or dementia along with their caregivers to combat memory loss and cognitive impairment the app provides activities for the brain medication tracking progress reports resources among many other
005things and I can't describe to you just how impressive it is to to see Dominic having done this let alone in the ninth grade um our our students are impressive and Dominic stands out amongst that even and that was a really incredible thing so it's my honor to join the board superintendent risewick um and everybody else here in recognizing Dominic for not only winning the app challenge but for creating something that was going to help our community and the world [Music] wow [Music] the [Applause] [Music] M Mr Allan what what's the name of the app again re it's rememory okay thank you Madam chair a point of personal privilege please yes sir I want to say and the young man is leaving now but I wanted to say that thank you uh when I was
00618 years old my grandmother died from complications of dementia 1978 and I was her caregiver during the summer as much as I could be that was my senior year going off to college and then in 2020 after about 12 years my mother passed away complications of dementia so I know the need that is for those who uh suffer with this disease and then also those caregivers who do so thank you so much at this early age caring for people to put wow thank you so much and thank you Reverend Butler for for sharing those words about your family appreciate that next on our agenda we will have a presentation I'll refer to uh Dr risewick on the library collection management presentation I appreciate you putting this together and I know your staff has worked really
007hard on it thank you very much and thanks for asking for this this I just I know uh Miss Sarah s is going to come up and and uh and speak to that so as she's coming up I just wanted to take a minute and just to to Echo what you're saying I really uh the work of our Librarians and the importance of our Librarians in our schools uh just the the purpose that they play and just the uh exposure they give to our students to open their minds to lots of different things we really really are thankful for them uh and and above them we really are thankful for Sarah um you know those of you who' have gotten to know her just her ability to uh navigate which also is is very tough
008places sometimes there's lots of feelings about things like library books and uh and all that kind of stuff she does a great job of keeping our kids at at the center and at heart uh and keeping a great balance of what uh keeps our kids safe uh as well as what gets them exposed to different ideas so we're just very appreciative of you and and thank you for for talking about how we do library collections today and I do want to say I know we have several speakers on this topic so I think we'll have them after Sarah after you do your presentation we'll have them speak because I know it's there's several students students and just to be respectful for their time if in case they want to head out after that if that's
009okay with everybody the board all right hi Sarah hi well thank you madam chair Dr riswick members of the board um and thank you uh I just want to start by particularly thanking you for the opportunity to speak today um because this has been a national conversation and um locally it's been marked um by really a commitment from I think the people in this room to to lean in on our relationships and to making sure that we're always learning about the process and really considering it carefully and um finding the best solution for our kids which is a testament to the strength of our District's leadership and so I'm deeply appreciative of the opportunity to be here I'm proud to work for the Knox County Schools and grateful to be able to share in this
010conversation tonight so libraries um I think part of the mystery is that they have long operated as sort of a background memory um for many of us and that's really been kind of fueled by Nostalgia um but what's happening with this National conversation going on is it's really Awakening a lot of unknowns and a lot of uncertainty we suddenly realize like we don't know a lot about where these decisions come from and how they get made so my goal is to offer you transparency tonight and by uh talking about these three things we want to talk about um school libraryies mission and purpose what it is that we're here for um collection development management really just how that works kind of a peak under the hood um at a high level and um some opportunities
011that we feel like we've got for improvement in our process um through the district um especially by increasing engagement from our stakeholders when we talk about our mission and our purpose I think the number one misconception about libraries is that they are about books um the truth is they are about people and um and that's important because otherwise what are those books for so what you're seeing on the screen there are some excerpts from our most recent working Vision um School libraries are Dynamic centers designed to welcome motivate and Inspire the entire School Community our goal is to develop a culture of innovation achievement and collaboration in every library in every school crucial to understanding School libraries if we look at those italicized is the entire School community in every library in every school is
012that libraries are not only about people they're about a lot of people which is a complex system to balance and so our commitment in that complex system is that at its root School libraries exist to inform and Empower students we do that through our instructional programming um and research and inquiry instruction our collections of resources and a wide variety of formats our facilities as gathering places and incubators of ideas and we are committed through all of that work to creating and maintaining safe and engaging environments where students can think create share and grow we do that because it's the best work of libraries and more importantly we do that because it's right for kids libraries have a reputation for being kind of stolid institutions um but they are living organisms um our collections are Ever
013Changing to meet the unique needs and interests of our students and our schools um this is a thing that we know most Library collections are inherited our staff will change our curriculum will change the high demand skill sets of our graduates will change uh the funding structures and sources that we're working with will change the popular authors and series of what goes on the Shelf will change Publishers Trends will change and even the culture influence is impacting our children's choices will change so we know that that's a thing this is built into the structure of libraries they will live and they will grow but there are three things that we want to assure the families and students of Knox County can expect as constants that they can expect from every school in our district in
014Knox County uh our libraries will be managed by highly qualified trained professionals our school collections will be safe in inclusive age appropriate and our collections would be tailored to meet the unique needs of each School Community these are things we believe in they things we're uh committed to upholding as steady values across our Broad and complex District I want to talk a little bit about who our school librarians are um I think this is very important to understand in this National conversation that not every District district has the advantages that we have in Knox County in terms of the Staffing and the support structure that we have uh since we do have these blessings available to us we are ambitious that we want to create the best quality School libraries possible so in Knox County
015every school library is managed by a trained professional with a teaching license these are Educators um every one of them has a master's degree or higher they have extra qualifications beyond what we expect of the entry level for teachers and they have a Content area endorsement um on their license in library media so they have a minimum of 21 graduate coursework hours um in the specific um in the specifics of managing a school library their duties include managing the collections for sure also uh delivering research and inquiry instruction and supporting classroom instruction and programming all across their schools uh they also work with individual students and um so they're responsible to create a safe and guided Library experience uh for every student um we're very blessed here that our Librarians are able to participate in
016ongoing professional development as well specific to libraries that's a unique advantage of Knox County um in standards based instruction and best practices in collection management this is a look at the collection development process um it's going to for fall in four main stages uh the first of those is going to be needs assessment um where they're going to identify gaps in the collection they're going to look at requests that people have put in they're going to look in um at the curriculum at um interactions with teachers at observations they've made um of people as they interact with the collection and they're going to identify all those areas to better serve so they're going to develop a strategy based on looking at their collection and figuring out what it is that we need and at that
017point um they go to the selection and acquisition stage that's where they're going to look at those needs they're going to go through cataloges they're going to review um professional sources to identify a variety of resources um that are going to meet those identified needs um obviously within the uh funding available and that can be an interesting puzzle um sometimes to to work out uh Librarians love that challenge um step three is access which is not actually about um the purchasing process but it is critical to collection development that's where where um you do all the things that are visible on books you apply the spine labels and the barcodes and um certainly put them onto the Shelf but also you design your signage and you figure out where in the facility that the different
018sections will go because all of those um access pieces are going to affect how people use the collection and whether the items that you've got are actually useful to people and then in that stage four evaluation this is where you're going to consider the collection especially given that as we said collections are inherited um and sometimes things uh reach the end of their usable life uh for run reason or another so um Librarians will sit down they'll look at the balance they'll look at what has come in they'll look at usage they'll look how it's really meeting the needs and they'll make the decision about what needs to exit the collection uh and we do that uh for the same reasons we call it weeding uh we do it for the same reasons as you
019would weed a garden right it's not about what you're removing it's about what you're making room for so that it can grow and Thrive um these things are a circle um they go around and around and that's important to recognize because you don't you don't ever get done with that work um and each stage is going to affect the others sometimes you move backwards because that's the how the workflow goes uh I think it's very important at this stage to um to look at that note in the center is uh that relevant to this conversation is that at any point in time um if a librarian just in the course of their work realizes that they need to stop and evaluate something they do um in the moment um sometimes you can like something will
020just catch your eye on the shelf and you think that one's done um or a student will turn something in or you'll realize it as part of conversation with a teacher or something like that um and so we do want to make sure um the board knows um that whenever something is not right for a collection um Librarians um look at that as as part of their regular and ongoing duties um so so that can be something that we can handle as needed uh we know we need some clarity um because this has been part of uh the questions that have been asked um about what happens when a book is challenged um we know uh we believe that our collection development process that we've been discussing is robust and high quality but as with
021anything involving humans uh it has some subjectivity and um our board policy you can see on the sidebar actually even calls that out um with this because opinions differ um Clause um you know sometimes you make a choice and then you look at it later and um you know there may be some questions about that choice and that's why we have the challenge process the national conversation around us has had some heated rhetoric about book Banning and one thing I have really appreciated about our board's conversations over the last two years is that what we're talking about is reviewing books for age appr riess and best fit to school communities uh from the perspective of Knox County school staff that's what we want to we want to see the be best outcome for our school
022audiences and we want to ensure our students are taken care of we respect the fact that collections naturally grow and change over time and a thoughtful reconsideration process is just part of that cycle um if we're doing high quality work high quality work um includes room for rethinking so um so when that comes to a book challenges books can be challenged for a variety of reasons there's a whole gamut um we've seen anything from concerns that a material is just too scary uh for a given audience um all the way to the Other Extreme of um is material to explicit or obscene and uh what I would want to assure everyone is that in our district every concern is treated seriously every effort will be made to resolve the issue as close as possible to
023the student with more specifics about what happens um in that challenge um our current process step one is going to be always to make an effort to resolve concerns individually and what that looks like is it's just going to mirror anything else in the school uh where there may be a concern staff in our schools are always going to want to partner with parents to work out what's best for their child um so an example of that specifically to library concerns um in the late 90s early 2000s um there was a growing concern with a then uh newly popular series called Harry Potter um and the concern was that children would learn Witchcraft and that this was um in opposition to deeply held religious beliefs that would have been a case um where a librarian
024would have been in terms of individual R Solutions a librarian would have been happy to talk to that parent um and ensure that that particular children does uh child doesn't have access to that particular title and um and make some offers to guide them to a better choice um you know if if there was ever a case where um a parent had this concern and a child said but I like this it's part of the librarian's expertise to be able to say what do you like about it because we can find you something else that has those qualities and that's part of what they do um they want to create safe spaces for our children when we can't work it out individually um in that manner um our i212 um policy and procedure are what
025govern that process and um kind of the big step to there um it's multiple steps in uh API 212 um but essentially we would form a school level committee to review that material if the concern cannot be resolved individually um that school level committee would make a decision um if needed uh or desired um on the point of the person with the concern um that can be elevated in step three to a district level committee uh to review that material again if it's not resolved um the end of that District level committee is to make a recommendation to the board and the final decision on any instructional material of course rests with the board uh one thing that has been new in the last couple of years with the age appropriate materials Act is um
026that uh there's now a process for appealing those decisions to the state if the manner is if the matter is still not resolved at the district level and um so our policy does um inform individuals of their right to do so if needed so as we review this uh we feel good about the solid work that has been done on our reconsideration process in the past um that i212 procedure hasn't actually changed much um in revision Cycles over the last few years and we feel that's a pretty good sign about the fairness in the balance that it represents um but of course in Knox County we're always interested in how we can improve our systems to better serve our people um this conversation has been an excellent opportunity to um stop and take a close
027look and make sure that our practice is as strong as it can be um through that process we've identified some opportunities to improve and Eng more people uh we recognize that we can do more to get those voices at the table and we want to commit to that growth so we'll talk a little bit about what we currently like in the process and then what we want to commit to in those improvements so what we like about that current R review process that we've just talked about is that it allows decisions to be made at the point that's closest to our students we believe that's really important um that thing number one is knowing our kids and that decisions need to be made right there where our knowledge is we also like that it's narrowly
028tailored to specific concerns um we can zoom in on exactly which materials are causing discomfort and um and treat those um at a granular level it's also responsive to the district uh distinct needs of our individual School communities by starting at that building level um because we recognize that different parts of our community may have different needs um and uh and different pressures and influences that are impacting um how a collection needs to look for each of those buildings where we want to improve um it is clear that Knox County Schools families want to be included in this work and we love that um because inclusion is one of those values that um on an earlier slide we just committed to holding constant for you um we want our families involved and we know that
029the work will always be strong when we have multiple perspectives um in the table we also recognize um that this complex work is a big lift for each building's individual librarian so by harnessing the network power available in KCs again one of the unique advantages that we have as a large District we believe we can take better care of our staff and um keep their time and energy uh where it belongs uh which is taking care of our kids so how to do that we'd like to launch two new elements to add to our collection development and management process we're looking at the formation of school library councils and sensitive title review committees we believe these two elements will strengthen our processes now and also for the long run because we want to make sure
030all the people we support now and in the future are taken care of the school library councils what we're looking at is creating small groups at each building five to seven stakeholders um there will be some room for customization for each building because they all have different Staffing but we expect that to usually look like um a librarian um a principal or their administrative designate a classroom teacher a school counselor and at least one parent or Guardian uh we think there's room given a school's needs to um maybe up on some of those roles and um and just make sure that this looks like um how the school needs it to be but what this group will be engaged in is really thinking about um those processes in that collection development management cycle um identifying
031Library needs um collaborating on what those new titles should be um as they're added uh collaborating on uh what that removal looks like um as they get to the evaluation stage and especially on deciding on recommendations from the sensitive tile review committees which we'll talk about in just a second uh when we look at this um The Librarians will remain the expert curators in our building we're not trying to usurp that role um and uh but we recognize that formalizing the process of including stakeholder input which is something our Librarians have always done anyway but this will formalize it and make sure we're doing it with Equity um we think that we will arrive at a richer and more robust service for everyone and this engagement um at these different points is going to allow
032us a couple of different um places to get more perspectives especially on um some strategy for aligning funding to needs um since that is always tricky um looking at how collections grow um and that includes donations as well as purchases um making room sometimes physical room in the facility a lot of schools are interested in renovation in their libraries as a community space um so how do we do that to serve new and emerging needs and also to make sure that um any guidance we provide at the district level is going to be implemented in a locally responsive and school specific way so that District level guidance is where the sensitive title Review Committee um comes in so um we're aware that certain titles are considered um especially sensitive and those come especially in the
033areas of um drugs sex violence language um these are things that are known in the field and those titles require complex decision making in a library collection so what we want to do is form a committee structure that will support that complex decision making what we're looking at is um three committees these will be composed as Librarians as expert curators um there will be a group of uh five at each grade level um so one from each region at elementary middle and high so 15 people and these folks will be responsible for a proactive process of reading and evaluating titles that may be sensitive in their content on a schedule that would be established and facilitated by my staff um as a district level support what these folks will do um through their work reading
034and evaluating these titles is they'll be responsible to make a recommendation that will then pass down to the school library councils they'll make a recommendation about how a sensitive title would be handled but um that's at the district level we hope that this will take the work um but the decision then will push down to the building level through these School library councils so those School library councils will be able to decide whether to follow that District level recommendation or um if they don't feel it's a good fit for their school Community then they will be that much better informed then to send that title through their own formal reconsideration process at the building level through our existing process our challenge to these review committees is to provide an unbiased evaluation to the school library
035councils so that each of them can make a strong decision about keeping or removing any books our goal is to grow capacity in the district for supporting complex decisions so that we can take care of everyone involved and that's our families and that's our staff and that's most especially our students who may encounter these titles we hope this structure will provide support from the district level but feed it down to the school level for Action we also hope it's going to harness our Librarians expertise and honor what they bring to the table but feeding that decision making back to multiple stakeholders and ensuring that we have all those views repres presented what we hope for is that by adding these two committee structures to our full cycle of how collections are developed and managed in
036Knox County is um we see this as beneficial because it's a proactive report approach um our um existing processes while we believe they've been robust they've been reactive they've waited for a concern to come in this this gives us a chance to really increase the amount of um weight that we're putting on that evaluation process and um make sure that we have good thinking and on the front end uh we like that it shifts some of the workload and the decision-making from individuals toward groups um we know that um the one of the truths of working in public education is that our staff is overstretched um we hope this will be a valuable support to them and help them feel supported and um it helps helps uh by adding more perspectives to that development and
037review processes which we believe is critical for partnering effectively with our families which we know is uh the place where we want to grow um we believe we can do all of this while remaining responsive to each unique School community and ensuring that each building gets what it needs so in summary I think it's important to note that this complexity that we're talking about isn't new it's just the nature of the work it is how libraries are um but um it is uh an excellent opportunity for us to take a close look at it and see how we can improve in that area um because of that complexity there will be times where we need to remove titles from a collection there will also be times where we receive complaints or concerns and those titles
038will not exit the collection if we've done our job right with an unbiased review process We believe We Will C patch each of those cases and regardless of the outcome we will always take those concerns seriously review them appropriately to the best of our ability because we're committed to creating those safe and engaging environments for all students and title review is a valued part of that process we want to make sure that every member of our school Community is treated with the attention and the dignity that they deserve so we are excited for this opportunity moving forward to involve um more voices and perspectives and be more proactive in that work our immediate next steps so that you can know what to expect um we are starting this spring we're going to be doing the
039planning for those School library councils we want to make sure that we have put uh to the best of our ability some um some protocols and things together so that um so that we can support schools as they form those um we're also going to be piloting um this sensitive title review uh committee process um these are three books that we're looking at for the three um grade levels um to test the process these are just titles that we're aware of whose content is considered sensitive and they're all considered sensitive for different reasons so we hope this is going to give us a good sample view on um how the sensitive title review process will work um in a variety of cases as as we see how that work may take shape um over the
040summer our professional development for librarians will be focused on collection evaluation and weeding and um as we start next year we'll look at actually um forming those councils uh fully launching the sensitive title review and of course continued professional development um as those needs emerge what questions might you have thank you Sarah um do we members do we want to have the public forum speakers come up and we can listen to what and then we could direct questions to you after that Sarah does that sound okay I know this is more of a unique situation since it's a presentation with speakers versus a voting item does that sound okay with you board members I do we how do we want to do because I do have some specific questions just for her about this process
041but I don't know if like we're if we're talking after how yeah yeah yeah so I was I was thinking that the public forums speakers could come up and speak so we could hear them um and then we could have our discussion and Sarah will still be here and we can direct questions I just the process and everything so we will we will have a discussion for sure yes all right thanks Sarah you're welcome thank you to be continued yes so we have several public forum speakers Stacy Reese if you will come up and state your name and County of residence and you will have three minutes hello again I'm Dr Stacy Ree and I live in Knox County one of my students informed me last week my public forum speech from December and made
042its way onto a group's homepage they also pointed out the logical fallacies apparent in that video such as red herrings and AD hominum attacks but that's neither here nor there upon looking at the page I stumbled across a value section which had four things listed one of those was we build relationships that caused me to wonder relationships with whom the video in question integrates Knox County's teachers is being solely responsible for fourth grade reading achievement scores so it's not building relationships with us maybe it's there but I haven't seen any Outreach to other parents groups so I can't say relationships bit there either so I'm still wondering uh further surfing the site led me to a better books page for KCs an Avid Reader myself I wanted to see what that list entailed what I
043found were books that were written by Conservative Christian author supporting Western religious ideas and propaganda field non-fiction written by farri leaning conservative authors and even Fox news correspondents one book in particular caught my eye a children's book titled the plot against the king 2,000 mules this story is about a kingdom plot to elect sleepy Joe over King Donald I am 100% certain that my child will not read this book because it's based in falsehoods and name calling I'm also 100% certain that I would never ask for this book to be removed from a li library because that's limiting access if I don't want my son to read a book he won't read it that's it's that simple I would never deny access in books to other people's children because that's an overstep of my role
044as a parent I'm responsible for parenting my child not all of Knox County's children a six-month longitudinal study conducted in 2022 23 found that students reading scores increased after Educators added diverse books to classroom libraries an average of three points higher than the national average classrooms that added bilingual titles and titles representing lgbtq plus Community had the greatest growth in student reading scores averaging anywhere from 4.5 to 7even points higher than the national average student reading time increased by an aage an average of four hours per week after Educators added new diverse books to their classroom libraries 70% of students more often chose books to read that served as mirrors in which they could read about characters and experiences that reflected their own I can respect these ideas is where the people are coming from
045it's a place of genuine concern for their children I am just like them in that respect what I can't get behind is a politically motivated agenda and unwillingness to compromise those who created a nationally circulated book band guidance document that contains disinformation and the web curators for book looks don't know Knox countyians this doesn't have to be an Us Versus Them issue we all want what's best for our children and let's make Knox County the model for compassion and collabor ation for the entire nation free people read freely and again you are all welcome in my classroom at any time thank you thank you STI baringan stie if you'll state your name and County of residents you'll have three Bs awesome thank you I'm STI bangan and I'm in Knox County um good evening everyone
046my name is stie bangan and I'm a current senior at West High School I'm the president of the library ambassadors which is a group that works closely with our school librarian and West students to promote the library and its resources I'm here to today to discuss how completely removing books in Knox County high schools would restrict diverse perspectives and invalidate students real life experiences as Dr reee had mentioned windows and literature provide readers with a chance to explore perspectives that differ from their own while mirrors allow readers to see themselves through the texts it's vital for students to feel represented in literature and is equally important for them to understand viewpoints and ways of life that go beyond their experience West High School's website declares its goal to foster quote open-minded and caring young people
047however book Banning deprives students of the CH chance to explore both the experiences of others and of their own the majority of books that are currently facing bands Across the Nation surround topics such as sexuality abuse and inequality Banning these books does not erase the fact that even students grapple with these experience experiences es and deserve to receive support in literature one of the most common arguments about these books is that they are sexually explicit however according to the American Library Association the inclusion of sexual content in a book does not automatically make the book legally harmful to minors the American Library Association also states that the legal test for obscenity emphasizes how Works need to be reviewed as a whole in order to determine what is legally obscene because of this understanding the context
048of a work is vital for example George M Johnson's 2020 Memoir all boys aren't blue is targeted for ages 16 and older an age range that includes half the student population at West High School the book explores Johnson's personal experiences as a queer person of color the sections of the text that are labeled as sexually explicit are not intended to encourage promiscuity rather they are included by the author to honestly depict significant moments from their life these scenes do include sexual experiences but their context is one of trauma growth and Recovery Banning books that explore controversial topics such as these prevents students from finding comfort and representation in literature these experiences are real and impact students as much as adults these scenes only constitute a small portion of the overall story which is the case
049in many of the books that groups Across the Nation are attempting to ban texts that highlight the voices of underrepresented groups and that touch on controversial topics provide an opportunity for students who resonate with the themes to find their mirror in the library I believe it's crucial to consider how the overarching messages of the books on the band book list could impact high school students if a book has the potential to help a student feel valued accepted and understood I strongly advocate for its inclusion in the library thank thank you f Amelia Amelia if you will state your name and County of Resident you'll also have three minutes thank you I'm Amilia Bumpus and I'm with Knox County hello my name is Amilia Bumpus and I am another member of the West High School library
050ambassadors I want to demonstrate the importance of context by reading an excerpt from a book available in every Knox County school so the man seized his concubine and put her out to them they wanly raped her and abused her all through the night until morning and as the dawn began to break they let her go as the morning appeared the woman came and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was until it was light when he had entered his house he took a knife and grasping his concubine he cut her into 12 pieces limb by limb and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel I don't think most of you would argue that because the Holy Bible contains this passage from judges and other violent and sexual content that
051the Bible should be banned from our schools the comfort and guidance some find in the Bible as a whole outweighs certain disturbing verses this is an example of the importance of context it is the same with some of the books you have seen excerpts from Taken as a whole these books have value and can help high school students process their own experiences did you know that the suicide rate for teenagers is more than double in certain communities books tell us that we are not alone parents who have raised their teens with a strong moral foundation and the ability to think freely should not be scared that a book could undermine that it's disingenuous to think that teens aren't exposed to far more graphic content through other types of media specifically the internet please take this
052opportunity to show students what our freedoms mean not to engage in censorship and government overreach thank you Adriana Adriana if you'll state your name and County residence you'll have three minutes I'm Adriana agar and I'm in Knox County hello I'm Adriana agar I'm a library Ambassador at West High School as well and I'm here to talk about the effect of banning books Banning books with sexual content will not stop teenagers from engaging in sexual activities more restrictions won't fix these problems and in fact it's more likely that they will just turn to a different source that could be potentially dangerous or harmful for these reasons sexual education is incredibly important to the safety of our students students need to be aware of information on sexuality and gender High School is a time of exploration and
053learning getting out of high school with no sexual or romantic knowledge leads to an underdeveloped adulthood considering this there should be more sexual sexual resources available to teens in high schools according to education week 17% of band books in 2022 detailed teen pregnancy and sexual abuse and assault how do we expect teens to avoid or know about these life-altering things and how to prevent them without information regarding it according to adolescent pregnancy prevention program pregnant youth aged 15 to 17 reported a much higher drug use than non-pregnant youth National Library of Medicine also states that the pregnant youth have a higher suicide rate than non-pregnant youth Banning books will increase teen pregnancy teen suicide and drug use as a result and also allow for the possibility of students to be harassed by strangers supposed friends
054or mentors and even family members without the knowledge available on how to handle these situations or if the situations are even something to be worried about this gives Predators a large hand in taking advantage of and manipulating students that don't have access to this necessary information the ban also targets minority groups all around the board it's no coincidence that these groups have a higher rate of Team pregnancy due to the lack of resources Avail available to them according to the office of population Affairs also important Most teens aren't aware of how you can get hurt doing unsafe sexual practices these books provide helpful tips on self on self-pleasure which prevents teens from accidental self harm having sexual Outlets is healthy not something to restrict or demonize teenagers are stressed taking away Outlets prevents a healthy
055release it's strange how focused people are on censoring these these types of books that would help that would help students practice safe sex you were doing these exact things as a teenager looking at similar material and masturbating it is part of growing as person allowing outlets for teens will prevent injuries and increase teen pregnancy please consider this before passing this Bill thank you for your [Music] time kayn kayin if you'll state your name and County resident you'll have three minutes hello I'm Ken let's singer and I'm from Knox County tonight I'll be discussing the negative impacts of book Banning on the circulation of ideas using US court rulings and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights the so-called road map for freedom and equality Banning books undermines both a students intellectualism and their ability
056to participate in a Democratic Society without exposure to varied topics students face susceptibility to misinformation and will lack the for knowledge to prepare them for adulthood the 2009 court case American Amusement machine Association versus Kendrick held that people are unlikely to become independent-minded adults and responsible citizens if they are raised in an intellectual bubble having access to a variety of books will enhance a students critical thinking skills and Foster informed citizenship furthermore book bans actively hinder author's abilities to express themselves and disseminate knowledge Banning a contentious book reveals narrow-mindedness and shows a blatant disregard for inclusivity in the 1982 Supreme Court case Board of Education versus Pico the Court held that the school board may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas in those books even the universal Declaration of
057Human Rights the moral compass of modern Nations recognizes the necessity of multiple ideas circulation through books Article 19 states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and EXP ex this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference book removal infringes upon this notion and underscores the inherent value of allowing diverse voices to be heard moreover books targeted by bands sometimes grapple with controversial subjects such as Racial equality and sexual identity the Human Rights Watch posits that how any society tolerates those with minority views will often speak to its performance on human rights so what disbanding books that deal with minority groups stay about the United States with these Court rulings and the Declaration of Human Rights in mind it is necessary for us to consider the consequences of silencing voices we disagree
058with after all our country cannot be the land of the free if people aren't allowed to express themselves we must do our utmost to create a society in which sharing ideas is celebrated not censored thank you Jonathan Jonathan you'll state your name and County resident you'll also have three minutes hello my name is Jonathan Knight and I'm a Knox County resident I'm also a library Ambassador at West High School I work closely with the library and its books and I'm familiar with its systems as well as how they are managed sorry forward just a little bit yes should I restart or is that good okay um I work close with the library and its books and I'm familiar with its systems as well as how they are managed that being said I'm here today to
059discuss the options we can take instead of banning library books I can confidently say that book Banning is not the only option for protecting the decisions of parents to select what the what education their children have access to and in fact Banning books is absolutely the most harmful option that we could take here to discuss some other options I want to start with this some schools have the ability for parents to opt out of their students checking out certain books or certain genres of books or books that contain certain themes that is the type of Bill that needs to be passed if anything at all not a bill Banning or moving these books entirely and in a way this system this type of system is already implemented at West High School through our cafeteria recently
060parents have been able to view everything that their student purchases purchases so they can better Monitor and Implement their own parental decisions from there this gives parents freedom to decide what is best for their individual child or children this is not a hard system to implement or enforce that being said book Banning is a direct infringement on the rights of parents who actually disagree with these bans parents who either want or don't mind their students reading or having access to this information it isn't fair to Simply bar students from information to the students themselves or the parents in question especially when better options are available I can assure the board that libraries will work with you to ensure that students aren't reading things that don't comply with their parents desires but they cannot work with
061book bands it's also necessary to consider the ramifications of banning these books what's going to happen next what's the big plan how many more books will be banned from our school libraries to what extent will these bans be allowed eventually will there even be a library for students to find solace in book Banning destroys libraries no matter how small the ban may be please keep this in mind and students when you vote on this Bill thank you for your [Music] time mat Matt Blackman Matt if you'll state your name and County resident you'll have three minutes good evening I'm Matt Blackman from Knox County chair Henderson thank you for moving us earlier because after this meeting I will leave you to your hours of work thanklessly largely uh because my family tomorrow will head to
062a dreaded University down south I won't say which one but it's not orange unfortunately where we will attend an invited honors honor celebration where my daughter who graduated at the top of her class at Bearden High School a few years ago having made one of the rare perfect ACT scores is on a full academic scholarship I have no clue what she'll be tapped in tomorrow I suspect I'll cry why because that's what I do when you have these emotional moments I'm proud of Knox County Schools are you perfect I hope not because then I wouldn't belong here I'm proud of the work that you guys do as public servants which is largely thankless and a very polarized environment these kinds of conversations are not new they're just so much louder these days and they get
063magnified hundreds and thousands of years ago there were debates about schools perhaps not in Knox County Libraries but in access to materials and access to other things it's not a new story it's a loud story it's a story characterized by anger and fear and threats and aggravation that's not how people dialogue that's not how people learn oh it gets headlines it gets clicks and oh my goodness does it get attention but that's not education only a few weeks ago I spent over 120 hours with a large collection of Knox County High School students why would I do that community service I was convicted but I was innocent no that that's that's a joke that's okay to laugh that's a joke it's not a good joke but hey I'm a dad right I I was on
064a chaperon field trip when Bearden high school went to the St Patrick's today parade and oh my goodness did they represent you well but after 120 hours coming back on a bus they smelled I'd like to say they smelled good they they they they did it's not true but you know what I did he I heard all kinds of things none of it bad but it's the kinds of things teenagers talk about and people it's not about slicing Pages out of library books so they can have fear and things it's real life these teenagers deal with stuff that you and I never faced why I don't know it's just how it is we help them by educating them by giving them access to Resources by trusting our highly educated professionals to guide us all don't
065ban books Let's encourage teachers thank you Susan and I'm sorry Susan I have little trouble reading the last name I apologize but if you'll have state your name name and County resident she'll have three Susan grank r a cranky but I'm not cranky I promise good evening esteemed board members uh my name is Dr Susan grany I reside in sever County but work in Knox County over the past 20 years as director of English education at the University of Tennessee I've trained over 200 English teachers many of whom have gone on to hold leadership positions in the district and the state another hat that I wear at the university is director of of the for children's and young adult literature so I read a lot of children's books and young adult novels that are published
066every year one of the things I'm paid to do at un University is stay a breast of current research and Adolescent development and Adolescent motivation to read as someone with expertise in these areas it's frustrating to hear again and again the false narratives about adolescent readers and quote unquote sensitive titles uh that would be book ban ERS keep exhorting book banners cries that uh books Let's that are being called sensitive titles are dangerous or damaging or inappropriate for teen readers fly in the face of what rigorous Empirical research actually says about these books and what they do for teen readers research published just this year research based in real classrooms with real teachers with real students and their parent parents finds that when adolescents read so-called sensitive titles they actually help teens do a couple
067of things they help them develop positive relationships with their peers with their teachers and with their parents especially when their parents are reading these books and talking about these books with their teens sensitive titles also help adolescence learn to empathize with others and take on others other perspectives thus helping to develop Moral Moral judgments helping teens figure out what they stand up for and when these books also help adolescents develop personal agency or the belief that they have control some control in their decision- making and actions these books help adolescence learn to self-regulate their emotions and behaviors they help adolescence develop reading competence and they allow teen readers to understand the consequences of bad decisions in a safe space without actually having to experience them making it less likely that they would engage in Risky
068behaviors in the first place research supports that these books don't hurt teens in fact they can be very helpful and valuable to adolescent development and in motivating teens to read I appreciate the work that Sarah suros and the Librarians in Knox County Schools are doing and I would just suggest to maybe add teen voices to the school library council's and I would love to see a parent teacher teen book club as part of that Council work let's truly engage and read these books together and talk about how they can be helpful in adolescent development and Adolescent motivation to read thank you thank you [Music] Sean Sean if you'll state your name and County resident you'll have three minutes [Music] Shan Murphy Knox County I'm reading something that I wrote before tonight tonight you may hear
069from residents who oppose you taking action to protect children some will say you are Banning books or censoring this is a lie you must protect our children from rape incest pedophilia violence substance abuse and graphic instructional illustrations of sexual activity there is a precedent as we deny a child and access to an R-rated movie to M rated video games or Playboy magazine adults call this age restricted content it's not the government's role or place to cover these topics with children minors under the age of 18 that's what this issue is about under the age of 18 some will call uh people who oppose children being exposed to this material homophobes or transphobes this is a lie transgender is fiction a male a male cannot become a female uh a point of order um is there
070a rule about the audience interrupting when a speaker's talking is there any process with that there is we just ask that folks uh be respectful and listen quietly thank you thank you sir um a male cannot become a female nor a female become a male Knox County Schools has a mentally ill male who likes to prance around in women's clothes while in the classroom this is wholly unacceptable he can act out as sexual fetishes on his own time sexual preference is not a necessary topic talking about pronouns is not a necessary topic this pronoun nonsense is teaching us that we're not teaching kids biology there's man there's female the real problem here is there are groomers and pedophiles in our community who are okay with sexually and emotionally abusing children they are angry malc contents
071who protect their misery on others project their misery on others and this is a key thing this issue is more than just explicit sexual contact with photos and all of that it's also emotionally negative stuff like how to shoot up a school um drug use violence extreme that's we we don't need that stuff we need more positive things let's teach people I don't know they're rewarded in life by the value they add the world instead of we have 20-year-old adults who are entitled let's talk about how this is the greatest country that's ever existed instead we are taught to hate ourselves in our country we miss the fact that our Founders gave up everything so spoiled entitled brats today can talk about how evil they are thank you Sher Sher Garrett sherff you'll state your
072name and County residenti hello my name is Sher Garrett I live in Knox County I grew up with a mother who loved reading and istill that in me as a child we used to take trips to the library together and check out books from third grade until now I was and am now an ad reader as a child I would soar on the magic carpet with Aladdin solved Mysteries with Nancy Drew and Trixie Beldon I traveled to far away places and had adventures in far away countries I've read biographies on famous women such as Harriet beer Stow Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale as a child I would take whatever book I was reading I would go down the hill to my grandmother's house climb a tree and read my books so we make I get
073away from my brothers in high school I no longer climb trees but had a spot in the woods where I would read Shakespeare Little Women The Secret Garden even now I read daily reading suspense novels from Lee Childs Patricia Cornwall Janet deanovich as well as other genres even right out of high school I got a job at Los M library and I was there until I married reading expands the mind and the imagination it can take you far away and bring you close to home it can challenge your knowledge and make you want to learn but sadly today's school libraries are now filling up with books that do not challenge your knowledge but instead cause harm sexually explicit books with graphic text and details are being provided Ed to Children books such as gender queer
074trans plus which has QR codes taking children to descriptive websites with graphic imagery and video and many others trans plus so far has been found at Austin East and halls High School where it is currently now checked out as Madame chairwoman stated last month these are not challenging text this is inappropriate content for miners just as our Public Schools cannot show elementary anything above a g rating PG or 13 for middle and high schoolers these books should should not be in our school libraries they are available for purchase online so we're not asking for Banning books that is a falsehood they're available in book stores and some are available at our PIV public libraries where I've checked this out called Fun home we are not asking that books be banned simply they be removed from
075access as they are inappropriate we send our children and grandchildren to public school for an education so that they can be functioning members of society go to college or trade school and be able to get a job or career of their choice sadly that's not happening currently policy I 2412a stat said a procedure for the development of a library collection at each school that is appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access the materials and that is suitable for and consistent with the educational mission of the school I do not see how sexually explicit graphic pornographic materials are a mission of the educ educational mission of our schools it seems that when I hear from teachers and that many KCs policies such as the cell phone policy and bullying harassment
076policy are not being followed kind of seems par for the course that this policy is also being ignored it was seem prudent that that no longer be the case I ask you to please remove sexually explicit pornographic content from our schools thank you Loranne loran if you'll state your name and County residence you'll have three minutes feel like I'm throw up hi I'm Lori I'm in Knox [Music] County okay first I'd like to commend um certain board members for their candidate open speaking at the previous meeting um Miss Henderson mentioned uh her belief and academic freedom and text that challenge us and went on to admit that the books brought to the board's attention were not challenging texts and admitted that they did contain sexually explicit imagery that is inappropriate content for mind Miners and
077I agree for anyone in the audience or watching that is not aware of the books in questions the images in the books are um cartoon pornography with a very descriptive words included the text and addition of the pictures and the totality of both together is completely unnecessary for youth these books show cartoons in the act of undressing each other cartoons masturbating cartoons giving oral sex cartoons having sex um the topics in these books uh include topics of rape group rape group sex adult and minor sex sex with same gender sex with opposite genders just everything um it's a very expansive new genre of sexual literatures for minors um and the minors part is is what my concern is um risewick we you want on to say some of the same stating exposure to diverse ideas
078and viewpoints as being part of Education you praise the lead ERS ship in the libraries for choosing books of interest that build the love of reading but mentioned that you may need to be tighter on the selection process and it seemed like you're questioning how you were able to do that and how these books might have got by that surprised me because me um I'm not an activist I'm just a mom and someone who kind of wishes that they didn't see um some of these books that way I didn't have to be here tonight um I was just able to go online uh quick online search and saw your guys' policy so it seemed kind of easy to me just follow your own policies um like the ones that were shown before the I 241
079i211 i212 um and I'm not bringing anything personal up that you didn't bring up yourself at the last board meeting you had mentioned that you know you're a father and that you didn't want your daughter having access to certain things so my question is what about my daughter um what about all the daughters at um the middle schools uh even Austin East Lenn Central Gibbs because that's where most of the egregious books are and after looking into where they were found I saw a trend they're at uh the statistically lower income schools the less two parent in the household schools the lower socioeconomic schools less PTA involvement schools less money flowing um essentially in schools uh where the students are considered more vulnerable uh this leads me to believe one of two things either vulnerable
080students are specifically being targeted or the sweet children in uh faragate might not be getting the same Stellar challenging education as you called it as Austin East so I humbly ask that the board when you guys consider the board or the library whoever makes the decisions next time that you go through your vetting and review process whatever isn't appropriate at your faragate schools might not be appropriate for uh any eastn school either thank you thank you thank you L Sherry super Sher if you'll state your name and County residence you'll have three minutes Sherry super Knox County's um moms for Liberty chairperson the American Association of libraries fall under the umbrella of the American wait I'm sorry the American Association of school libraries falls under the umbrella of the American Library Association in 2022 a
081tweet made by Emily drabinsky the American Library Association president mentioned that she was a lesbian Marxist who wants to to queer the catalog in her 2013 paper titled queering the catalog she stated that engaging queer Theory and cataloging requires new ways of thinking what is queer Theory it has nothing to do with sex gender or sexuality world renowned queer theorist David halin says unlike gay identity rooted in the positive fact of homosexual object Choice queer identity need not be grounded any in any positive truth or stable reality queer acquires its meaning from the oppositional relation to the norm queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal the legitimate the dominant it is an identity without an Essence queer is a political stance against normaly and has little to do with sexual preference
082any mention of terms like gender identity cisgender gender expression transgender safe or inclusive Mak School administrators believe they are fighting against exclusion in reality you are a sister in creating future activists in the queer Theory Army queer activists think there's no such thing as a healthy innocent child they don't recognize boundaries between children and adults and when activists reduce children to an empty category Society can no longer say we must protect children queer Theory wants to collapse boundaries between children and adults by sexualizing children with books like gender queer and funhome which takes us to a nasty corner of queer Theory the founder of queer Theory theorist Gail Rubin says listen to this folks boy lovers are so stigmatized it is difficult to find Defenders of their civil Li civil liberties let alone their erotic
083orientation consequently police aim to wipe out the community of men who love underage youth shocking but many queer theorists support pedophilia these books intentionally sexualize and destabilize children they don't help children to be seen or educated it endangers children and it is not by accident it is by Design don't allow activist demands to Cloud your judgment queer Theory started in universities and has infiltrated K through2 education it must be rooted out of the curriculum classrooms policies and school libraries thank you thank you that concludes public forum on this topic thank you for everybody who signed up to speak okay board members we will continue on with our discussion on this presentation I know Sarah what's up yeah Sarah if you want to come back up thanks for your patience and a miss bike you had
084y thank you um I'm curious if you um could sorry um tell me about our Librarians and what it takes to qualify to apply for a job as a libraryi and in Knox County Schools sure my apologies for the cough I have uh two children of daycare age and germs are the one thing I share really well um so in Tennessee and it's regulated by the state like other teacher licenses um there are two uh three things that are required it's the teaching license um the uh library media endorsement as an add-on to that license and a master's degree um there are different ways of arriving at those three things in different University programs you can do them all in once as kind of a bundle if teachers take a a different route um to
085to come with us then they can get them peace meal but but those are the three qualifications um when they have the master's degree or these other qualifications I assume that these are accredited is that checked that they're in some way yeah there are a couple of different accrediting agencies and those mirror the um accreditation process for any other kind of teacher education program um but there's uh there's background behind that and then universities regulate that okay what type of master's degree would they have to have would it be any uh you can go through it um by any route in Tennessee as long as you have the content area um um endorsement the uh the usual what we call library school um because it makes us feel like med school um that degree would
086probably be either a master's degree in library science in library and information science or just information science minus the latter um but uh it'll be some combination of Lis in that case but it's not uncommon for teachers um to uh to have a master's in reading or a masters in curriculum instruction or um I had a co- librarian early in my career whose Masters was in De education um and um so anyone with a master's in another field um if they want to come into librarianship um they can do instead of doing a another full master's degree in library science um they can do an endorsement only program which would be um about the same length usually as um if you did an endorsement program for like an administrator's um certification it's about the same
087number of credit hours um if you did one of those it would be coming from one of these Master's programs graduate schools most likely just not the full master's degree okay um and then also you talked about in the in this process and some of the new things that um that there would be a group of librarians how how were those Librarians chosen um what we um hope for um and uh this has not been uh fully written out yet um but uh what we hope for and what we've talked about with some people in in focus groups is we've started to draft these ideas is is uh to the best of our ability to look at a rotation so that everybody has a chance to serve um you know there are um slightly over
08815 um middle schools and high schools so um if we had uh five members on th each of those committees at a time then in a three-year cycle we could get through most of them and we hope that that would be a good learning experience for each of them to participate okay thank you um that's all of my questions I do have some comments do we want to do questions first or do we want to go into comments is there a okay um I'm a mother of two children and um my kids went to Sequoia Elementary one is still at Sequoia Elementary and I've had the privilege to spend some time in that Library a handful of mornings re um stacking books uh for Miss Clark I think it's five or six years now and
089um I've always appreciated the collection that she's kept and on days that she's been absent when I volunteered she's left little notes and uh and during holiday time she always pulls out like specific holiday books and they really seem to reflect the what the kids want to read and really getting them involved and uh I I feel so good as a parent that I Can Am welcomed into the library and that I can be a part of that because I'm not going to claim to be a professional in reading or book books or anything like that and I like to see what the kids are reading these days and what my kids are interested in and stuff like that and what other kids are interested in because also my daughter had um some reading issues
090she's now in middle school at Bearden Middle School and um I would often ask the librarian you know she's interested in this stuff but she's really struggling so it needs to be a lower level can you give me recommendations and um I've really really always appreciated that I had that openness and I hope that all parents parents really feel welcome to kind of be a part of this I really like that we are bringing some parents in to some of be a part of some of these groups and um I think that that's really important and I think we're making some good progress in this and then my last comment is kind of um going back to talking about like books of different demographics that happen to be at other schools versus other schools and
091things like that and um I I come from a very poor rural farming family where um my mom was the only of her family and the first of her family to even graduate high school um the abuse that happened in my mom's family I don't want to speak about but it was not pleasant that my mom experienced and her siblings and my cousins and the fact that they didn't have books and that many of them tried to take their lives I I wonder if they had had books that helped explain some of what they were going through um would have helped them and uh I I welcome that um I am very privileged to be a part of my kids' life and have those conversations but for kids that don't have anyone to explain what
092might be happening to them I think that that's really important so I'm really glad we're making this process better thank you Mr triplet yeah I appreciate appreciate I do appreciate the work of our Librarians I know they work hard and sometimes thankless and I appreciate your work in putting this together and figuring all this out and I know that's a little bit challenging and um I understand some of the concerns um I did have a couple of questions on on these sensitive titles what is the you know so we've got people reviewing them you're going to have some you know these are going to be reviewed but what what standard I guess do we hold them to we have you know a policy that talks about some things about how things are you know picked
093for our libraries and instructional materials that kind of thing I guess what's what's standard will they be re be reviewed against it is difficult in librarianship to Define that because what you've done when you've published a book is you've taken a slice of reality and tried to pin it between Pages um and um in trying to define a standard you um you have to predict what might be all those realities that we would ever be able to and so um what we find um typically in the field is um that the best thing that we can do is drive it back to multiple criteria um it um if uh if there's anyone who's ever found a single standard by which things can be judged I don't know them I'm sure they would make a lot
094of money um but um what uh what the typical approach and what the approach in our policy is is um is to drive it back to quite a few problem uh different um criteria and to try to Tangled to try to use the preponderance of evidence and just make the best decision possible um you you end up with a lot of different data points in that and one thing that I think was really helpful from Miss lner's um uh presentation last month was really looking at how you have to each data point um in isolation really doesn't tell a story it's knitting them together where you start to to get a good understanding and I think there's a really good PA parallel there um with how those decisions um end up getting made um so
095the the criteria that are available um in our policy um I think it's helpful uh just to point out it's the same criteria in our selection policy as in our reconsideration policy so literally what we do in reconsideration is we reconsider was this a good decision and is it still a good decision trying to go back to that original decision mpoint um on those criteria and uh and give it a fresh look will and this may be a question for Keith or Dr R will there be an administrative procedure that comes out of that that sort of lays out that CL criteria for folks or I I would say again I think that the the criteria coming back to to the policy exists already just in terms of what is looked at in terms of
096those materials I think uh adjustments to the administrative procedure would be more around the addition of these new steps that we've talked about um and and being part of how go about both managing and and uh constantly reviewing our our titles and things like that I guess my challenge is you know when when I you know part of the Catalyst that for this was some books that uh I feel are inappropriate for the age group um you know I don't I don't think belong in in in a school and I'm not interested in banning all the books I appreciate a review process I think that makes some sense um but if we're just going to review them by the same standards we always have I guess the question question is why go through the process
097of reviewing if we've already if they're already there right they've been in theory held up to this standard so I guess what's what's different I I guess I don't I don't look at I appreciate the review and I appreciate the work and I think that a review process is good I think reviewing some of these sensitive titles is good I guess but if they've already passed the standard what's going to be different the next time we review it I hope what's fresh um in this approach is just having a lot of more uh voices involved the traditional approach um has been um because we honor and value that expertise of the librarian in each building and that detailed training that they've gone through um they have been positioned um sort of as the so deciders
098uh what we really hope um by the addition of these two layers is um that a um on the sensitile title um Review Committee we'd have multiple Librarians because they're going to look at each of those criteria differently um there will be some subjetive nature anytime you um um line the content of a book up against this like um uh list of criteria it's not going to be clear um how they necessarily align and there'll be a point at which each person makes a call and so I think when you get more people at the table you get a much better view of how that call is um is going to come out uh Librarians value that too uh when we've had focus groups um telling them um just getting some feedback about this idea
099in development they've said oh yes I would love to have that opportunity to talk to my colleagues um because many of them disagree um and that's why we see different um collections in different schools in addition to um you know trying to customize based on the feedback available we also see different decision making among our Librarians so I think we would see um that come out um as a new layer within that committee and then I think especially the new layer would be um coming back to these building level committees because then not just Librarians in the process and so we hope that all of those perspectives um would um you know given the inevitable subjective nature of some of these um decisions we hope that having all of those perspectives at the table would
100um just bring a lot more richness um to that decision-making process I appreciate that I appreciate explaining all that um and I know this probably all of this wasn't created in a vacuum I know you had you know help and and folks have worked with you and I I guess I would just give a challenge that I I think what we I I believe what we need is at least a base standard you know I I think we would clearly state that you know we wouldn't want pornography in the school but you know if it's just up to a few votes that could get in right so I would think that from a a central office level I know that we have differing viewpoints and I wouldn't want everything I disagree with removed from the
101school right I I wouldn't want that at all but at the same time I would think we would need like a base standard somewhere um to say like this is is this this is the base standard that we're going to we're going to start from and then we're going to review some sensitive titles and we're going to look at some other things but um I I would I would challenge you to develop some sort of base level that parents know that this kind of content is is not available and it's not you know every time you know you find the word sex in a book we're not you know say get rid of that book you know I understand that but at the same time there should be a base standard that folks can trust
102Knox County Schools won't have these won't have these in and then the the other question one more question then I'll I'll I'll leave it up and let somebody else talk but um the the the state has a Law related obscene materials um Mr duper is not here so um Mr Sanders did not feel prepared to answer those questions and that's okay I understand that is that something that you know our current protocol says it's got to be a parent from a school you know of a child in that school that questions a book and that's how it gets reviewed initially I know you're going to review sensitive titles that you find other places the state law how how do if I felt like something was obscene and I don't have a child in Al County
103Schools can I appeal that decision without going directly through the normal process do we know uh for the state review process specifically does it have to follow the process in Knox County and then go to the state or it stipulates that um that that process is designed um to appeal District level decisions so the expectation that if is that if it goes to them it's gone through the first steps gotcha okay all right Mrs hen thank you madam chair um thank you Sarah for this presentation this is helpful I think that you know obviously this is a complex issue we've had conversations about it and there's it's very nuanced and it's uh it can be complex based on various opinions um and I think that that our reconsideration policy is important because opinions do vary
104widely um and I think also that the good thing I think about having five to seven people on a group is that the trained professionals may not represent um the Viewpoint of the community and so I I really like that we have various people represented in that that group I think that's very important um and I think two concerns that I had made note of and then I heard from a couple of speakers that I would hope we would pay particular attention to and Mr triplet touched on one of those regarding sexually explicit materials and how books are chosen and that kind of thing you know I think in our policy um and just based on what we're expected to do by the state regarding Tennessee State Standards our policies I mean our policy says
105that um books should be chosen that satisf a need for educational purpose so I would hope that as we're reviewing books that that is particularly um noted and you know I think that you it's difficult to make blanket statements but I think when we think about um specifically visual images that that we need to be very cautious on what is included um and offered in books because there are a lot of examples that I don't think would add value to um students or would be supported by our Tennessee State Standards because those standards um certainly don't include a lot of those explicit images um so I think based on those standards based on our policy I think we have some books in our schools that should not be there so I would hope that we
106would take care of that sooner rather than later um and then the other let's see I think or maybe that did touch on both of them I think it it actually did that that's kind of the the big thing is um I understand that as Mr triplet also said I may not like every book that's in the in there I'm not um I'm not saying we should look at these things with a broad brush but I do think that we need to be extremely sensitive to um the fact that that we're spending taxpayer dollars on these books and they should be books that are age appropriate for students and that we should not be I understand teenagers may be having sex we shouldn't be promoting that they they do that and we should not be
107spending money um the taxpayers money in such books and I think we need to keep that at a very um High very high priority in our minds thank you thank you Miss Horn Mr Watson thank you madam chair um thank you Sarah uh also want to thank uh the community for coming out um there's many many opinions that have been um shared and it's obviously a a topic that hits homes because it's based on values it's based on Viewpoint um and I would expect everybody in this room feel something about this topic I would guess um and I appreciate the different differing of opinions I do want to give a little shout out to West High though because that's where my daughter goes um I didn't know that West High had a Library Association so
108I mean with student Representatives which I think is fantastic um I would never even thought to join that when I was in school so uh the fact that there's students who care and are that passionate about what's happening in our libraries I think is important and I think it's great always when we have student reps no matter what their viewpoints are when they're coming and sharing with us because we need to hear more and more from our students um Sarah with that I do have one question that I I know you addressed a lot in terms of um our collections at the beginning and kind of how that works and and what a librarian does to kind of help make that work the thing I didn't really here and I just wasn't clear about is
109when we use the word collection and we and we think about building it um what I know that individual collections live in individual School libraries but are we thinking about the collection by school by grade Band by District like Define The Collection I guess is what I'm asking and when you when you in in terms of the process that you laid out when you say collection at what level are you talking about a collection thank you for that last clarification so in that case we'd be looking at the building level colle um collection um because that's the um the primary um the primary set of materials that would be available to um any given child so um easiest way to think of it if you walk into West High School's library what do you see
110on yourselves that's the collection um we would also um consider um digital materials um part of that collection um and occasionally you get something fun in a different form but that would be the main thing is looking within a building um and what is primarily available inside that building my assumption is that's probably a pretty intentional decision in practice um why why do it at that level so um it's intentional it's also historical um I think the historical reason would be was that before we had the internet that's all we could control was what's literally um in your building um we do it that way now um because that's where um the preponderance of feed Fe back is going to come from to inform that needs assessment um and a lot of that is to
111miss Horn's Point um coming from those educational purposes and those educational programming because um we have state standards that theoretically Define a consistent experience for all of our students at a a given grade level um but we know because we've met schools um that they we end up with tremendous variations and those variations are often at the building level so for instance um I too have a soft spot in my heart for West because that's where I was a building level librarian and so um one of the um biggest um you know examples from my own experience that I would give as as where you might see big variations in the educational programming is um I was there when the IB program was first implemented and um and I assisted with the extended essay that
112those students write as part of their diploma program and uh what we realized as we started to teach students um to to re uh to to write this extended essay which was a very different assignment than anything they would get in their standard level curriculum um that we needed to give some different instruction on topic selection so we changed up our topic selection instruction and what we instantly found um was that students were interested in subjects that weren't being taught in their standard curriculum they were interested in Psychology and how you interpret dreams and um and uh and the criminal justice system and things like that that and so that really told us we have to invest some funds here and um and that was a budget strategy that other schools would not use um
113because they would not have that driver in their instructional programming coming from that um given our modern um technology we do have some options to think about expanding our collections outside the four walls um uh our Librarians keep up a hefty traffic on our uh email list serve borrowing items from each other but we also have formal lending relationships with knoxx County Public Library and um which we use occasionally what we more often use is um a lending arrangement with UT's Library um primarily the high school level um often for those kids in advanced classes whether it's IB whether it's AP or something like that to to access things that aren't in our collection and that helps us be thoughtful too um with our use of funds because by extending outside our four walls we
114can um use our funds primarily on the things we know are big ders um within our building but we can think about um how to be really efficient with gaining um additional resources um from the outside so that gives us a way to kind of expand those resources but again based on Case by case so it's is it fair to say then that across all of our collections within even a particular Grand grade band like high school that there would probably be quite a bit of variety between and that's intentional yes it is it also fair to say then that that variety has probably evolved and changed quite a bit as culture changes right as as the culture shifts our collections will likely shift yes too um and there's probably books that are no longer
115in our libraries um that people would have deemed pretty appropriate probably 40 50 60 years ago that we as a society would no longer deem appropriate correct so I think one of the things that I'm I'm hearing in this conversation I think there's two I I'm hearing two things in the conversation one is what process does Knox County Schools use what's the right process to try to get at a healthy collection um that honors uh the variety of viewpoints and the educational purposes that our students have I'm also hearing another conversation and that conversation is what is the Baseline in terms of appropriateness for a given Society at a given time um and that changes and I certainly don't want to be the person who gets to make make that ultimate decision for any one
116group of people um and I don't think as a board member that's really my role or our role is to to claim at this one point that this is this is the Baseline of what we consider healthy or not as a society and I and in that I can also say that I have a set of values that I'm pretty uh that I stick to and that I expect my family uh to not stick to because they're all human too and they get to make their choices but that I want to inform them and and help them understand uh and so to me in a pluralistic society the only way you get at what is that standard at any one m one moment because I think it shifts I mean I think it absolutely shifts
117and maybe the the maybe the um uh word is better guideline than a standard State Standards to me are different than what we're talking about I um I would think that that's the minimum expectation that you all are operating with as Librarians um I think the way you have to do that is a pluralistic societ is you have to gather enough of that Society those stakeholders to have good hard conversations um that also allow for people to bring in their bias because it's really hard to completely Divorce Yourself from it but also to bring in um good research and training and how do we do this right like I don't just bring my bias to the table I've got to bring some other things to the table I've got to have other tools in the
118toolbox um and so to me what I appreciate about this is you all before you even came did some some work to get ahead of it and say Hey how do we need to modify and shift and adapt our process I don't know that I'm the expert in the room to say man you nailed it or you know here's some other things that I might shift I think the idea that I did hear that I actually liked was um having some student representation um on the school library councils I think that could be helpful I think I mean I know some folks at West Al high would jump up on it um and there's probably others too but um to me that's the best like the best we can hope for and again my comments
119are not saying that there's no Baseline there is um but you you get to that through wrestling it out um and I don't think any one group gets to own that and and claim that for anybody else and and I mean that I mean any group I don't I don't think any group should get to decide that um and so again I appreciate the work on the process I I this is not the first time that you've been before the board and um I've learned more about uh Librarians and the work that they do um you know as somebody who's never met one in person and had a long conversation uh you know I've got my my images of what Librarians are right and I'm sure we all do uh but the reality is I
120I think you all play a pivotal role in our society because again as culture changes what we access changes or what we want to access and what we collect and what we cure rate changes the last comment I'll make is um I can honestly say as a a parent of three kids uh now 198 and 14 um I've never fought with them about what they accessed in the library um I don't say that to minimize people who have that's not why I say that uh but I think we have a lot of other challenges out there that we have to face and I've also learned as a parent that I cannot completely shelter and monitor my kids and what they're doing not in today's world I just can't um I tried to fight that battle
121for a little bit um I lost really bad um and to me as a parent I think I think the thing that I want to shift into and how I want to be better as a parent is I want to be prepared to have really good conversations with my kids and help them be good thinkers and how to wrestle with the content that they are going to be exposed to that they are going to face whether or not I like it or not I mean they are um and to me that's how I would want to posture myself and I hope as a community um we can do that because what our kids need to feel from us um is not alienation but hey you're willing to be in the mess with me and you're
122willing to help me kind of make decisions and figure some things out so thank you thank you Miss Christie thank you and thank you Sarah I first of all I appreciate this and the work you do I can't imagine being a librarian right now um in the current climate Nationwide um just one question do we have any systems in place where parents can op their students out of materials or is that something we could look at if we do not already have it I I would it's not systematized it's an individual basis but I would strongly encourage any parent who's got a concerned to make contact with their librarian and um they want to take care of their kids Librarians want the same thing as parents and um every school library has a public facing
123website um they can find it as a branch off from their school website and if they have any trouble they can let my staff know and we'll be happy to help them put in uh get in contact okay so that is something parents could use I mean yes as an Avenue yes our Librarians are masterful at ensuring that if they're doing that as part of partnership with a family that there's no Stigma attached to the child okay and they would just need to reach out to the school librarian okay thank you um just just a couple of other notes um as far as I mean I think we can all agree we do not want pornography in our schools um you know when we talk about baselines I do worry that maybe it will catch
124some of those books that we do want in our schools so I do think we need to be careful about having very rigid baselines because a lot of that you know just different people have different opinions so I I would be just caution that there might be unintended consequences there and I do think we need to be mindful of that I do like having more eyes and um love the idea of having a parent on it as well and I do appreciate the work you put into this and then I know you all get tired of hearing me say this but I'm going to say it again um since we are talking about children being exposed to explicit material or Predators I would also caution parents that they need to be mindful about what their
125kids are accessing on their devices and I I mean those we we're talk about social media YouTube streaming services online gaming platforms and there there are people out there um that want to Target your children and can send them private messages and they have it right there on their phones all day I know that's kind of off topic but you know just it does go along with with some of what parents are worried about in this discussion thank you Miss Owen thank you madam chair Mr may have already answered my question for Mr Sanders um are you able to talk about the Miller test or is that best save for another time that is best save for another time these issues are very complex from a legal perspective and Gary has done a lot of
126good work with the schools helping you draft policies helping you draft procedures I'm not going to try to step into it at a moment's notice so I'm going to leave that to Mr dupler thank you I appreciate that answer answer so um holding that over for another time the thing that I would like to most point out is that our Librarians have a responsibility to look at the work as a whole and that's important to considering all of those pieces considering its its value or its lack of value and so if we are taking a look at a teeny piece of it or even um selections from it or photos from it then when we're looking at those those individual pieces might very easily be considered to be um inappropriate or obscene but those pieces
127have to be considered as part of the hole when we're looking at it so I would encourage board members when you're looking at those things to be sure that you have read the work in its entirety to make those decisions thank you Mr triplet I just want to make one more comment I've heard several times from several different people that you know I know culture shifts people change opinions change feelings change communities are different and I'm well aware of that and I understand that there are differences and I do understand that culture does change over time U but I just simply want to say that absolute truth is not and there is absolute truth and if we will live by that we are far better off for it and if we will measure Our Lives
128by that we will be better off for it um so that's simply all I want to say thank you Mr triplet I agree Reverend Butler so we have a policy so let's follow the policy and if at one level is not resolved you go to the next level if it's not resolved there you go to the the next level and then if it's not resolved they come to the board if it's not resolved it goes to the state we have a policy we've talked about this a lot and we end up in the same place every time so let's work the policy and if the policy doesn't work then we would have to change it but we haven't worked the policy I haven't been on the board long I keep on saying I'm new I
129was told I can't say I'm new anymore but none have come to the board yet I'm not sure how many have gone to the central office I'm not sure how many gone past a certain point I do know there are three books you're looking at they were reported so is that the reason why you're looking at them those are books that um we're just aware of um that uh on a broad scale um are um widely considered to have some sensitive value um one of those has had some attention um locally um I think there's plenty of room when we think about the huge uh perspectives including what we've seen in this room tonight um that there's certainly room for questions on the other two and that's where we want to really think about that
130PR active um approach the main reason we picked um those three was thinking about um the the the wide sources about um what's considered sensitive we really wanted to make sure that we were testing different types of books is is primarily what you're seeing on um on that list so um it was important to us uh to thoroughly test the process by seeing how it comes out with more than one type of text and so um so that's a lot of what you're seeing there so then if they were reported if it's it's if it's not resolved at that level it goes to another level the other thing I'd say is uh I agree that there is truth but one of the things I found out and a lot of people may not know I'm
131a pastor I Pastor an African Methodist Episcopal church and uh and we have our name Zion we call some Zion and one of the things I found out just from the study of ministry have a doctorate in Ministry is that even among church folk there not necessarily absolute truth tonight I've heard some very eloquent young people speak and I've heard some other folk who spoke and I agree with some of but both of you all have said I said uh at a point where I don't want any of our children no matter what school they go to to have to be subject to information that's going to harm them in any way but also I don't want to have anyone to have information held from them that can help them in some way so I
132think that we have a process that helps us with that there are going to be some folk who's been trained to to do that work and that they have have to go through the process and I don't think it's going to be a Baseline and reason is because you just got to look at each case and say is this book uh a book we should have in our school and if the answer is no then you take it out it can be gotten somewhere else if you say yes and it's not agreed upon you go to the next level the last thing I will say is I say this as graciously as I can I think it's I think you speak for your school you speak for your community I don't think you use someone
133else's Community to make your point I don't and I just be honest and say it straight when someone mentions Austin East and they're not from Austin East you can't say what Austin East thinks you can't say what Austin East feels and and I'm saying it as graciously as I can because my son is 2,800 and so he was he graduated in 2012 Valor Victoria went to p w in School of Business we're proud of all he's done he's working hard now for his church for his community and I could probably say every book he ever read I read and some of the books he read I'm like boy you reading this and we talk about it and some of the things I said no you can't have that no that that's not you not we're
134not reading that and so I'm saying this to say that we have this situation this discussion and we can talk about it every board meeting and it's not going to resolve it we have a process we have a policy let's utilize it and as we utilize it let's get better at utilizing it because I for one do not want to spend another hour talking about this at the Schoolboard meeting thank you Reverend Butler Sarah I just want to thank you for you know guiding us through this and um I really appreciate that these new steps do involve um you know more stakeholders as an added support I love that it is more proactive versus reactive and you know you also went through the current process which I think is important for parents to highlight for
135parents because you know a lot of times they don't know how to use that and so you even highlighting that I think is a benefit for parents um I was talking to somebody recently uh from another state and we were talking about book programs and she said to me oh you know we don't even have libraries in the certain community and I assume she meant public libraries she meant their schools don't have libraries because they're more rural in a poor school system and that shocked me I think we take for granted that we are blessed that we have libraries and thank you for working with us on this process um you know I do like I said last meeting I do believe in academic freedom and exposure to diverse ideas but not sexually explicit imagery
136and I think that this process will help and I really appreciate all the work that you've put into this so thank you for that I think everybody oh Sarah did you have anything no I was just making sure I got everybody awesome um thank you thank you all for the opportunity thank you I think we should probably uh take a break and then it'll give some of our guests a chance to uh stretch their their legs or leave if they if they've spoken and are ready to leave so we'll come back in about 10 minutes give me time to eat more Snickers e now we will go into our regular agenda Miss cotney would you like to start reading our item thank you madam chair item seven consent agenda Mo motion by Mr Triplet a
137second by m Christie any discussion Miss Owen um I'm I'm looking for it I'm not sure if it's on the consent agenda is the cors fairou somewhere else it's item 14 on consent yes I okay um I have I have a question about that so should I ask it now or should we pull it out of consent pull out consent yeah pull it pull it out of consent so we can discuss it later I guess do next yeah we can pull it out thank you does that work Miss cotney okay do we need a motion to pull it out so the motion on the floor is to approve consent agenda so we might want to amend the motion to um so I so move so I move minus so move minus number 14 if that
138works M Chrissy is that can you second that motion so new motion by Mr triplet second by Miss Horn okay all those in favor oh I'm sorry Miss christe Miss Christie that was made by Miss Christie all those in favor I any opposed motion carries 8A approv second reading of kns County Board of Education policy a100 School District School Board legal status and Authority as amended we need to go back to 14 I apolog I thought we were moving 14 regular agenda item so it would be at the end that'll work too that's fine that's that's TR would you like for me to read item 8A so moved on 8A I don't think we know where we're at it's been a long evening already uh motion made by Mr triplet second by Miss Horn any
139discussion all those in favor I any opposed motion carries item 8 B approv second R of not skinny Board of Education policy a120 20 School attendance areas as amended motion made by by Mr triplet second by Miss Horn any discussion all those in favor I any opposed motion carries 8 C approv second reading of kns County Board of Education policy b110 method of election of officers as amended motion by Mr triplet second by Mr Watson any discussion all those in favor I any opposed motion carries 8 D approve second reading to resend knoxx County Board of Education policy b112 duties of board members motion by Mr Triplet a second by Miss Christie any discussion all those in favor I any opposed motion carries 8 e approve second reading of kns County Board of Education policy
140b60 school board meetings as amended motion by Mr Mr Triplet a second by Miss Christie any discussion all those in favor say I I any oppose motion carries 8 F approv second read of knots County Board of Education policy b171 complaints and appeals to the board as amended Mo second motion by Reverend Butler a second by Mr triplet any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8 G approve second reading of not County Board of Education policy b230 civility code AS amended motion by Mr Triplet a second by Miss Horn any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8h approv second reading of KN County Board of Education policy c180 advertising and solicitation in schools as amended motion by Mr Triplet a second by Miss
141Christie any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries eight I approve second read of knots County Board of Education policy c231 surveillance photography video retention and viewing as amended motion by Mr Triplet a second by Miss Christie any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8j approv second reading of KN County Board of Education policy c260 sexual harassment and sex based discrimination as amended motion by Reverend Butler a second by Mr triplet any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8 K approv second reading of not scanny Board of Education policy d130 donations gifts and bequests as amended motion by Mr Triplet a second by Miss Christie any discussion all those in favor say I I any oppos motion carries
1428 L approved second reading of kns County Board of Education policy d140 receipt of funds at school level as amended motion by Mr triplet second by Mr Watson do we have any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8 m approve second reading of kns County Board of Education policy d230 purchasing as amended motion m Mr triplet second by Miss Christie any discussion all those in favor I any opposed motion carries 8 n approved first reading of KN County Board of Education policy b180 public forum as amended motion by Reverend Butler second by Mr Watson any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 80 approved first reading of kns County Board of education policy d241 internal School funds as amended motion by Mr Triplet a
143second by Miss Christie any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8p approve first reading of KNX County Board of Education policy d280 fundraising activities as amended motion by Mr triplet second by Mr Watson do we have any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8 Q approve first reading of KN County Board of Education policy e120 safety as amended motion by Mr Triplet a second by Miss Horn do we have any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries eight R approved first reading of KN County Board of Education policy e122 emergency preparedness planning and training as amended a motion by Mr Triplet a second by Miss Christie do we have any discussion all those in favor say I I
144any opposed motion carries 8s approved first reading of kns County Board of Education policy e123 crisis management as amended motion by Mr Triplet a second by Miss Christie any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8 T approve first Trey of knot County Board of Education policy e170 student transportation management as amended motion by Mr Triplet a second by Miss Christie any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries eight you approve first reading of KN County Board of Education policy e171 scheduling and routing as amended a motion by excuse me Mr triplet second by Miss Christie do we have any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8 V approved first reading of KN County Board of Education policy e172
145agreement for Pupil Transportation Services as amended motion by Mr Triplet a second by Mr Watson any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8 w approve first reading of KN County Board of Education policy e190 Food Service management as amended motion by Mr Triplet a second by Miss Horn any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8X approv first read of KN County Board of Education policy f121 building new athletic facilities as amended a motion by Reverend Butler a second by Miss Christie any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 8 y approve first read of KN County Board of Education policy i340 promotion retention acceleration as amended move to approve on first reading is that right okay motion by
146Mr Triplet a second by Miss Horn to approve on first reading any discussion all those in favor say I I me opposed motion carries eight Z approved first reading of not County Board of Education policy I 341 uniform grading policy as amended motion by Mr Triplet a second by Miss Horn do we have any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 9A approved Tennessee Department of Education fiscal year 2024 additional targeted support and Improvement Grant in the amount of $823,000 for Beard and Gresham and Vine middle schools motion by Miss Owen a second by miss bik any discussion all those in favor say I I me opposed motion carries n excuse me nine c approved Great Smoky Mountains National Park Education Program travel Grant in the amount of $200 for
147Westview Elementary School motion by Reverend Butler second by Miss bike any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries 10 a approve recommendation of Evergreen Solutions LLC to implement a new salary schedule there's a lot there a motion by Reverend Butler a second by Miss Horn we do we do have public forum on that do we want to do that first very good and then we'll discuss Paula thank you for coming Paula and if you will state your name and County residence and you will have three sure thank you Paula Hancock Knox County Knox County Education Association Madam chair members of the board and superintendent risewick a perfect storm in the teacher labor market has formed and our students are withstanding the worst of its impact while the teacher shortage is
148being felt across many states and school districts the most critical resource denied to our students is an experience fully Serv certified teacher an acute deficit that threatens our students ability to learn not only does it threaten our students ability to learn but it also reduces teacher Effectiveness and high teacher turnover consumes economic resources that could be better deployed elsewhere the teacher shortage is real the teacher shortage is large the teacher shortage is growing and worse than we think teacher compensation is not just an issue of Staffing a effective teachers are the most important School base determinant of student educational performance to promote children's success in school schools must retain credential teachers and ensure that teaching remains an attractive career option for College Bound students finding qualified teachers in mathematics science and special education are especially
149challenging the erosion of educator pay over the years couple with the marginalization of the profession has led to this alarming teacher shortage we are experiencing to recruit and retain talented teachers school districts must address the inadequacy of teacher pay by eliminating or closing the gap on teacher pay penalty wages than other educated workers with similar experience is crucial to building the teacher Workforce we need as your collaborative conferencing partner partner the kca's Pekka team is committed to advocating for an improved salary structure and salary increases for our Knox County Schools K12 Educators Educators our Educators have had long increasing day-to-day demands and responsibilities from bus duty to coaching counseling to Leading additional classes and buying basic supplies for their classes Educators feel disrespected undervalued valued and Expendable because our expertise is not treated the same
150as the expertise of other professionals it has been said and I quote if we generally want to do what is best for students we must do what is best for teachers if we are hurting teachers we are hurting students inadequate educator pay comes at a high cost for schools and children who must deal with the ramifications of high turnover and teachers shortages now is the time for healing in our profession now is the time for our Educators to be respected and supported now is the time for our Educators to be restored to wholeness thank you Paul thank you up next up next we have Lance Lance mcole Lance if you will state your name kind of residence and you will have three minutes Lance mle Knox County um and I'm here to speak to you
151to encourage you to hold off on in um adopting this salary schedule um since Tuesday uh well actually just uh Wednesday I took some time and studied part of the recommendation the recommendation for teacher salary schedule um and I sent you all email I don't know whether you've had a chance to see it but it shows that over the course of 20 years a teacher who started out getting the same amount of money as an administrator or some other staff person who is not a teacher would end up making $20,000 less than if they had been a non-teacher the salary SC the structure that that this program lays out has uh retention bumps it says but it pays for but the retention bumps are actually underpay teachers you know make their raises lower 1 two
1523 4 years years and in the 50 years you Bo boost it up to the same place it would be if there was a linear thing um what it really does is it cuts it it um takes a $1,000 increase a year out of teachers on average and puts a $1,000 and saves $1,000 for the district for each teacher now if you want to tell the teachers how much we value you this is not the way to do it because when they figure out that they're actually getting lower raises than people who are not teachers with with in the not system they're going to say well wait a minute you guys don't care value us so I I want to you know that's something to be concerned about but you've had two days to look
153at this thing and there are other things that we don't understand about it they're talking about compression and how adjustments they're going to make to avoid comp salary compression so now what exactly does that I mean do you do you board members really understand how they're going to do that what that is and who the benefit offici and who the losers are in that there's also talking about there's people who are already being paid over Market values what's going to be happening to them um my conversation with Mr Bolton suggests that what they're going to do is they're going to put them in a different salary schedule than the one they would naturally be so they will be it'll look like they're being paid their overmarking really understand what's in this salary schedule you know
154we and and you don't haven't had time to do it you have the option of put this off actually understand what it's in this thing and vote on it next time you meet when is your next meeting I guess it's uh the budget meeting but you don't really understand it and I don't think you should take vote on now thank you very much Madam chair that concludes public forum thank you Mr triplet all right we'll move on to discussion of this item Miss Owen thank you madam chair um first I want to let the board know that um I'm going to recuse myself from the vote on this um I I don't necessarily have to but I feel like I should because I have always said that when my time on the board ends I
155would want to go back to my classroom so I feel like even though I'm not currently a teacher that I would be voting on my own salary and I don't think that's right so I will be recusing myself um that said I share some concerns about the speed with which we are doing this I think it would behoove us to wait until closer to the budget um even if we did it as a special called meeting right before our other special called meeting to talk about the budget and part of the reason I think that is because it took me until today to even think I should probably recuse myself that didn't even strike me until today and that tells me right there that this is being moved a little quickly um I've had more
156phone calls and texts about this with really confused questions that I've had about a lot of things in a while so I want to ask some of those questions and just also really think about the fact that what we are approving is is a salary scale a salary scale for a public school district is supposed to be public record and we have not not only have board members not fully seen every piece of the salary scale the public absolutely has not seen every piece of the salary scale and that's why they're confused if we were doing this in a really open and transparent way all of these pieces would have been laid out so that all of our employees understand exactly where they would be when I looked up at the screen I could see
157where I would be I saw exactly what my pay would be if I were in a classroom today if I were in some other positions in the district I never got to see that I would have no idea if I'm a custodian at um step two I've been in the district two years I can't look up there and see where I'm going to be not only can I not look up there and see where I can be there's nowhere I can look to see where I can be because that information is not available right now um to the public and it should be so that is my other reason that I think it should be put off and would encourage you to do so so my questions I I think I know the answer to
158this one but I want to be sure I do is there anything in this that impacts career ladder funds at all Madam chair Miss Owen um I I have a backup to correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the answer to that would be no okay thank you that that was my assumption and so at some point I heard something about career ladder not during this but career ladder is not ending anywhere right that we have ever heard of it's just rolling along fine okay thank you all right so next is where do speech pathologists fall in the pay scale so Madam chair Miss Owen speech pathologists um would not be on the teacher scale they would be on the general scale I do think that that there was some confusion um in the
159in the presentation we shared on Tuesday because the teacher plan we had labeled as the certified plan so I I think there was some confusion in who who would be on the teacher scale versus the general scale the general scale will have both certified and classified employees and the slps would be on the general scale on a grade band on the general scale so I haven't I haven't looked deeply at the speech pathologist pay scale so is it possible that as as time goes on that that wherever they are now they would pass the teacher pay scale at some point are their increases going to be greater than teacher increases per year I think Mr Bolton you want to speak so they would be and I'll let Mr Bolton come too they they would be
160on a different scale so the market value for slps um was different than the market value for teachers um so so they would have a different progression I'm not sure that I understand the question fully they would have a different progression so a different Step Zero and step 20 yes and they are having difficulty understanding the question as well they they're they are trying to look at what is involved in their certifications to understand exactly how they how they could even begin to determine what their pay might be and that's part of the issue of not having this put out transparently to the public is they could also look up there and see what the teacher pay was but they can't look and see what their own pay is and so that's that's a concern
161um where do School nurses fall on the schedule and what they want to know is a the difference where RNs would fall and where LPNs would fall sure so RN and LPN will also be on the general scale and I will say that each of each individual employee will get a notification of grade band and specific annual salary so grade band that they'll be on step what that computes to annual salary for our employees that are paid on the annual basis um as you'll notice on the general plan what is on the general plan is hourly rates that is what Evergreen based the study on comparing hourly rates across all of these employees because districts pay people in different ways we do also we have some people working 8 hour days some people paid for
1627.75 hours a day some people on 7.5 so should the board approve the general scale then for every category of employee that will be converted to an annual salary for those that are paid monthly and yes um you're correct all of those will be posted together on the website um as the full salary scale okay so the the school nurse who asked me this question said that she is currently paid on the teacher scale and it was my understanding that that was a state requirement that we pay nurses on the teacher scale so if we move them to the general scale is that a problem so I I may have to uh lean on Mr Sanders I believe there was legislation that moved um through that that did not make it to right that did
163not make it um to TCA at the end of the session um but so so the answer is no only teachers will be on the teacher scale everyone else will be on the general scale but RNs will be slotted in on the general scale at market value and the same for LPN is that where would curriculum generalists be on the scale would they be listed as teachers or would they be different curriculum generalists so the facilitators or any of those um so so yes instructional facilitators be in there inst right instructional coaches facilitators General scale okay um so looking at the bumps this may be a question for Mr Bolton looking at the bumps and um using those as an incentive for retention what kind of data was used to determine where those bumps should
164be for retention purposes that Mr Bolton may have more to add those would have been um would have been Evergreens data that they used in their recommendation to us that that was part of the recommendation um so we can I I don't know that I have specifics um in what they considered in making that recommendation Okay the reason I asked that specifically is because there was a time when 5 years was a place where um there was a dip in teacher retention but I believe that is now around three and so when I look at 5115 I'm not seeing something that aligns with where the actual dips are in teacher retention so it concerns me that we are putting in something that is purported to impact retention that doesn't align with what the data currently
165is are there any supplements or stiens or anything else for a person who has additional endorsements so I would say generally the answer to that would be no with the caveat that Mr Bolton shared on Tuesday is that that one of the recommendations from Evergreen um also was to convene a committee to develop payroll procedures so they didn't recommend what those were necessarily but just recognized what what we know is that our current payroll procedures are developed around our current salary schedule so should we move to a new one then then the team needs to revisit all of those so I'll I'll make that caveat that there may be some recommendations that come from that team um but if you mean um additional like if if a if a teacher that is teaching One content
166area also has an endorsement in another content area um then currently no there there would not be additional compensation for that my thinking is more of a teacher who had um an endorsement in a Content area and went back and did additional hours for a high needs content area so that they could teach in that area so so I right now the salary study does or the salary schedule does not compensate or does not uh uh consider additional compensation for that but we do still have our strategic compensation model so if if if a teacher was not in a high need area that received a signing bonus and moved into one then they could receive that okay thank you [Music] um looking at supplements for Department chairs I assume that would be the same Department
167chairs would would receive a supplement so that that is one of the things that will not be the same next year as it is currently um under the SR funded Department chairs name though and will there be a separate schedule for coaching supplements yeah we do not anticipate changes to the coaching the athletic coaching supplements so that we we anticipate that remains largely the same Evergreen did not make recommendations on the coaching supplement primarily be as they shared they're they vary so there isn't a market value necessarily because coaching supplements vary so much from District to District okay so are we talking about that whole page of supplements that included um it included some administrators too on that supplement scale or are we just talking about the lower portion of it I can't see it
168in my mind we're just talking about athletic coaches there would be no administrative supplements what about um the supplement for head band directors and middle school band directors I I believe Mr Bolton can correct me if I'm wrong I believe those would remain Lead Teacher supplement so if it's if it's outside the the scope of the the the position that they they were hired for so the extra duties like department chair Lead Teacher um those supplements would remain okay so the bottom part of the okay um so I would encourage board members to look at what Mr mold talked about it's really hard to to look at the numbers up there which are significantly higher and then consider that there's a loss but the same way that we came back and talked about the reasons
169for not stretching out our salary scale to more years so that teachers could get that money earlier we're doing the opposite with the bumps because instead of spreading them out so that each increase is the same we hold on to some of the money and hold on to some of the money and hold on to the sum of the money and then in the fifth year we equalize it and then over the next five years we hold on to some of the money and hold on to some of the money and hold on to some of the money and then we equalize it so more than an incentive to keep people what we're really doing is paying for some of the plan that way and I think we need to be really transparent about how
170that's working so that people understand that that yes it is significantly better we can't really argue against raises that's hard to do but I think we it's something that we need to look at in the future so that we don't forget that there is that that piece that could make a really big difference if we did it equally across all the years instead of holding back and then bumping up so um I would encourage us to really keep all of these pieces in mind and to bring them back so that we can make adjustments to them over time and that we don't get really committed to this exact salary schedule because I think there are a lot of things here that have not been anticipated and have not been seen that we are going to
171want to really dig into later thank you Miss bike thank you um I've got a couple questions um so this looks like we're we're voting on these four pages essentially um and I know that it's been mentioned before but is there any guarantee that none of our teachers or employees or anything will be decreased in pay or salary or compensation whatnot Madam chair Miss bike no one is moving backward as a result of the salary study that is correct okay um and then what are the implications in not passing this tonight and instead passing it um in our budget meeting uh Madam chair Miss bike that that's of course what what we will um what we will do is is carry out the will of the board um what a what delaying may do is
172is impact the ability to be ready um if if this were to be implemented on July 1 um so that that's one and then two at the at the special called meeting where there is the vote on the proposed budget um if there were changes at that meeting proposed um then that would that would require some uh on the spot recalculation of the proposed budget um so those are those are two um two that I can think of but of course uh we we will carry out the will of the board um my next question is that um in the on the fourth page at the very bottom where it says KCs May value recognized certifications given um May is kind of like a a very optional word is there a possibility of changing that
173of will or anything like that because I do think um like um Miss Owen mentioned that there there are many people that have put a lot into their qualifications and they really want to know that they're going to be compensated fairly right so yes they like Mr Bolton explained on Tuesday once that payroll once the committee um that Evergreen has recommended that we convene once they develop those payroll procedures they will be published on the website the misso and also also pointed out uh made a good point on Tuesday that should we associate those certifications or the degrees with the position that the person's performing so that may be something that comes out of the payroll committee I would be hesitant to change that to will um without considering what type of certification and what
174type of position um is there a way to say that any current one that is already be comp comp being compensated in an extra way way will continue to be compensated like having that in [Music] writing so that that's a that's a tough one to answer on the spot without without considering all of them because I some of the some of the qualifications were considered by Evergreen in making the determin a of market value um so I would be hesitant to say everything so for example the this this isn't technically a certification but the administrative supplement that that is that supplement scale is going away the dollars that are are there um for the employee are not going away but they will just be paid on one scale versus a base and a and a
175supplement so with little things like that I would be hesitant to put an absolute in um without making sure that we had considered everything um and my next last question um to just really understand like what exactly we're voting on we're voting on these these four pages essentially three pages that um have our teacher salary schedule and then this the hourly rates that are grade bands and then um this extra educational certification um stuff um so if we're voting on that is there and I apologize if um I've forgotten and you've already said this and you're repeating yourself it's been a whole lot um that when you go through and start to look at where everyone is placed within this um are you getting teacher input what what is the group that's making that decision
176uh Evergreen Solutions is is the the group that built the classif ation um rubric um to place people at market value on the scale um so we are using the recommendations from Evergreen okay is so are there any times where um groups of teachers or administrators or anything are having any sort of input in this process so yes in the compensation and classification study um Evergreen conducted would release a job assessment tool release an employee survey and did focus groups with our employees as well okay but not necessarily like after we vote on when so when we vote on this this is um you kind of already know where everyone's going to be at based on what Evergreen has recommended but mostly currently we already know where everyone will fall the range everyone will fall
177that is correct we will provide individual notifications to all employees and that that notification will also give them um a path to ask for clarification um to ask any questions they may have um but no the the employee input um was input on the job duties the functions they perform every day is the job description that we provided Evergreen encompassing of the duties that they perform every day and Evergreen used that for comparison for market value okay all right thank you Mr Mr triplet yeah just a couple of questions one I just just to hear it for clarity Jennifer are you recommending we vote no tonight is that correct I know you had a bunch of questions seem really concerned I just wanted to get clarity on that no I I thought I was clear
178I'm recommending that we take more time okay and then S I know we had to cut you off you only had three minutes but KCA supports this decision is that correct because I know like I said I didn't get a chance to uh say it to the end but in accordance to the collaborative conferencing act um the KNX County uh Education Association with the management team of the board uh for our Pekka collabor uh collaborative conferencing um we did uh get consensus for this to move forward perfect for me thank you Paul I appreciate it there is uh there are a few things that are easier yeses for me than this I don't know what else maybe the playgrounds for children I don't know that was an easy yes that's always a good move um
179but I mean I you know Mr Bolton M helar and I know you put a lot of work into this and uh when we vote Yes tonight you'll have a lot of work to get all this information out and get it all figured out by July 1 so your work is in some ways just beginning and uh so I appreciate all the work I think Knox County's done a great job Mr mcferson and others making the decision to pay down some debt ahead of time um I had my budget meeting today and so the work they've done to to save money and other places to be able to absorb this whole lump sum uh is is pretty impressive they put that kind of work in and figured out a way frankly to find you know
180$40 million is an just an incredible um that's not something you get out of your couch cushions you know so I appreciate the work uh that they have done uh to make this happen uh and so I mean frankly to be honest with you there there there really are a few things that are easier yeses um than raises for teachers uh we have gone through Evergreen they have said the market value it is their recommendation based on market value that we do the steps the way we do them with with the extra bump the fifth year so that is not a a taking money out of their pocket in any way that is just a fair market value that they recommend um nobody's getting a deduction in pay the vast majority are getting an increase
181in pay some of them an incredibly significant amount I have heard from several principles how thrilled they are uh that the pay increase that their secretaries will get um they they they hold it all together in a lot of ways and so um I've heard just so many overwhelming positive comments even the questions that have been asked I I felt very comfortable answering so uh I just I to be honest with you I think it would be in many ways disrespectful of us uh to our teachers to vote no on this uh I think it's an absolute yes and allow uh allow Mr Bolton his team and Jennifer to to get to work on figuring out how they're going to implement all this and and get all that information uh out to teachers so uh
182that's my opinion on that Mr Watson thank you madam chair um thank you Miss suar and Mr Bolton uh you all have done a lot of work and I know a lot of other people have as well and appreciated the time I had for a few minutes before this meeting and the time at the budget meeting and um also getting access to the whole report that was good reading uh I mean I was really um I thought it was good work I thought it was a good work product um and appreciate the work that's gone into it the I I want to make sure that I'm clear on something the what's driving a lot of Evergreens recommendations to us is alignment to market value is that fair to say Madame chair Mr Watson yes there's
183a lot of other objectives you could try to meet in a in a shift in a salary schedule um and one of the approaches that you could take and I think this is where it gets real personal for people is you could try to say well how does this job align to this job in terms of value and compare people to one another positions to one another which is not what this is doing correct that's not the objective of it that that is that's correct that is not the objective um I believe that ever green would agree um with our belief that every position in Knox County Schools is is equally important to completing our mission um and some of those we are currently paying closer to market value than others um so which is
184why at the end of this um no matter if the objective was to get closer to Market there will be some who are going to experience more significant raises than others correct that is correct and that's not an indication about how we value individual or separate positions that's just saying hey the objective was to get closer to Market and this is what Market looks like absolutely that's fair okay so um One technical thing that I think could be helpful is on the document that we received the hourly rates by grade bands that actually is not labeled the general scale which could be helpful I don't think people necessarily know what that scale is if they just look at it um also um in that one you have grades running Z through 20 across the top
185in the teacher one you have grades running down as a column which can also be confusing and actually the row I don't think in the hourly rates by Grand B grade bands is actually labeled I don't know if the I don't know if the general public I know I don't know what 101 102 means I know the end result of it is that's the classifications and that's where you're going to put certain positions but I think having a label on the rows could be helpful cuz you there's nothing identifying what the 101 and 102 is does that make sense what I'm saying uh I think I think that could be helpful too and and so to miss Owen's point it is really easy as at it's fairly easy right now for a teacher to look
186at this because they're the only people on that scale and they can say I can kind of work my way into figuring out about where I'm going to be but we have a whole host of employees that can't right and there there's a decision there's a decision that's been that's been made to in the beginning say hey we're going to publish the teacher or or um a draft of the teacher scale now they're the only ones on it right so it's kind of obvious uh but there's been an intention not to say where everybody else is going to be and Miss s you already mentioned that you you feel like you all have a pretty good idea where people are going to be different positions not individuals uh based on that classification rubric um can
187you share why uh and I'm not I'm not act asking this antagonistically there's an intentional decision that's been made to not do that right you could have chose to do it so can you take us through the thinking of why you didn't do that sure Madam chair Mr Watson yes um what what we want to do is we we are very excited about this we're we're excited about the the impact that this will have on all of our employees um we when we share the information we want to be 100% accurate um Evergreen has made recommendations for place um of all categories of employees also all specific employees in the district um and so Mr Bolton and his team are meeting with EV every department chair um in the district and going over all of
188those to make sure that we haven't missed anything um to make sure that for example we discovered one where employees were were reversed um so checking every single employee and employee category um to make sure that they all line up before publishing the full so then list of employees and employee am is it fair to say then that you haven't made that known yet because the last thing you want to do is retract absolutely you don't want to be like oh my gosh we goofed so sorry you thought you were going to get this and right and you're not you know right I I can get that I mean I get that from a from a process standpoint I also get the desire everybody who's watching this in Knox County Schools right now trying to
189like mat themselves out kind of figure out where they're going to be I totally get that too um also I know because I I did read the whole packet there's and you all mentioned this too there's seven recommendations correct there are U you brought you're bringing one only one recommendation for approval right because that's the three pages we have that's the conversion to the to the new salary scales um is there should the board anticipate you all bringing other recommendations or do do you feel like you have the um Authority through the superintendent to act on all the other ones except for this one um and then do you have some sense about how you're going to act on the other ones you you've identified some things like starting this committee already that you intend
190to do that sure so um I I believe that that right now this is the the only recommendation for approval the other recommendations we intend to take in some capacity one of them is the classification system on how we slot employees into or how we place employees on the new scale um determining market value through the classification system so that that's all contingent on the new salary schedule being approved um I will say like like we've discussed in the individual meetings some of the recommendations are for the future what we may need to do in the future to maintain um so implementing those right now we would we would not do the because those are for some time in in the future um one of the recommendations is to convene the committee like Mr Bolton
191described to develop payroll procedures so I I believe that that the vote the one that would be required for a vote is the the move to a that's what I want to get at so required by what because I think it's important for the school system and the general public to know that there's some recommendations you all can just act on and then there's some that need a vote and so why is this one need is it requiring a vote demanding a vote sure so there board policy does say that um the board will set teacher salaries um and in in addition to that this is a a huge budgetary commitment sure um and also a huge shift in the way that we we approach compensation we we have not made a change of this
192magnitude to our salary schedules in decades um and so are are bringing that before the board before we move in that direction and all other recommendations are really dependent on this one right correct depending on what you do on this will affect all the other recommendations um one of the recommendations that was in there was um doing some micro studies year to year but also doing kind of another Deep dive every three to five years so one of the recommendations was once we transition to the new scales um should the board uh vote in that direction that if we are experiencing hard to staff areas on the new scales that we consider whether whether specific positions um should be identified for an additional salary study and then yes another one of the recommendations was we
193consider um every three to five years doing a comprehensive salary study so I want to hone in on that one for just a second um you mentioned when you first presented this to us last year that you all were looking at doing a study that we haven't done one in 20 years I think what we don't want to do is like wake up in 20 years and realize oops we did it again right um so I I don't know where the board could act on that if that makes sense to put that in policy or something I don't know if that's where that should live but the idea of codifying the practice that at least every five years we do a salary study I think could be good so I would kind of I would
194challenge the administration to give some thought about one do you all really want that but also what's the right mechanism to ensure that does happen as leadership changes as board changes all the type of thing because that's why a salary study hasn't been done in 20 years because there was that codified it that said we're going to do it at some frequency right so nobody made the intentional decision to not do it for 20 years it just happened right so I would and then I think I have a qu I think it's from Mr Bolton and I know you all were not uh directly copied on the email that Lance referenced um it was only the board have anybody has anybody in the administration seen that email have youall seen that math I yes I
195have seen the email I have not done the math I have not checked the math I've just seen the numbers yeah I um yeah I didn't look at his formulas and all that he didn't send his a spreadsheet and all that which is completely fine but to me the I think what he's trying to articulate there and I don't know if it's right or wrong in terms of his math and all the things but I think I think the question is What's the total value of somebody's compensation or a teachers compensation over 20 years if you break it out this way versus if you break it out this way we know that in the general scale um I think this is right that it's a 65% spread all the way down correct between lowend and
196highend it's actually not 65% on the teacher scale I'm pretty sure I didn't bring my packet with me I left it on my coffee table um I think the Evergreen notes say it's actually 50 something percent but in my math it's 63% every time I do it um it's that's the difference so two questions one is why is Evergreen making a recommendation for a different spread for the teacher scale versus the General scale um and then have you to me um it's novel in the sense if I didn't think about it I didn't beat Lance to it but to me the idea of looking at total value is probably not a novel idea um I'm assuming you all probably have done some of your own math even if you haven't looked at his can you
197talk to us about that um in relationship to uh what Mr Miss Owen was pointing out in terms of the bumps that there was some intentionality to do it at 5 and at 10 but also curious about the total value cuz I think yeah that's worth something Madam Jer board members I think uh now this is just speculation I've not put paper to pencil and so I need to do that but if you look at that percent that you've increased what is not included in that would be the full spread of those additional degrees so then if you add for example for the largest spread $5,000 to it you may come closer to that 68% when you're looking at the full range spread so you have that compression because it's only on two BAS I
198got but I I have not done the the full analysis on the what it would look like in terms of a career yeah um and you know Lance when he did it he didn't um he sent us um if it's just equalized but you know there's no way to do it for another position because we don't know where any of these other positions going to are going to live um to me that's an interesting I'm I'm not suggesting that we necessarily postpone our decision although um if we oops into that like oh my gosh we didn't realize we were potentially taking $20,000 away over the life of somebody's 20 year tenure as a teacher to me that's like we should probably think about that I mean I get the reason to it to do incentive
199bonuses and a lot of what I see in here addresses a lot of the challenges that I read through my work at Georgetown and my certificate for Education Finance I mean I I get all that but that's that's the one thing that is interesting to me and I'm wondering if the school system has considered the tradeoffs of doing those larger bumps without increasing the total over the 20-year period right because then effect what you do is you do shorten you do decrease the value of the life of of the tenure does that make sense what I'm saying I don't know I I will say this speaking as an old math teacher I think when you look at that number I don't think that you would see a difference between between that because you're looking at
200values that have been equalized over a longer period of time so I think that it's uh not necessarily the case that you would see any withholding of money because you're looking at the same spread over a period of time so for example if you're looking at you're what you're looking at is a stair step and so the midpoints of each stair step are going to be exactly the same so as you round it there's not going to be any kind of difference between what a person that progressed through those would be as compared to somebody who progressed at equilateral steps I I think the the area under the curve so to speak would be equivalent in both of those scenarios I've not put paper to pencil but just thinking through that process it looks to
201be the same yeah thank you and Miss Horne you wanted to speak in then miss Christie did you have I think we have some guests here from well I just had a question I don't know what this might be a Mr Sanders question but I know Carter Elementary has been waiting and they have to get up really early in the morning I don't know if there's any way we could yeah sorry Carter Elementary I tried just so you know I tried yeah Miss Horn okay I'll try to make this quick I'm sorry y'all are waiting okay um so I just want to say um thank you to the staff for all the hard work to get to this this point and even going back to last year's budget because obviously that what's causing part of
202what's causing us to be able to um to be able to do this and you know if we think back many times over the past several months we've had so many conversations that's censored around the fact that we need to be able to pay um custodians and secretaries and nutrition more so that we could retain those folks so to to be able bring up this mic is going in and out I'm so sorry but to be able to bring them up to market value is tremendous and so I'm very thankful for that um and I there are still a lot of questions and it's it's hard to have those questions um but I know that um I hope that the STA be can be patient hearing that the big takeaways that um all staff will
203have increases some at higher percentages than others since some are already paid closer to market value um but the fact that everybody will be getting an increase is great um and just to make sure I I know you said this already missar but just to make sure everybody knows that there you will be coming out with the same kind of salary the teacher scale that we're seeing where you can see the increases year to year you'll be coming out with that same scale for each job classification is that correct Madam chair Miss Horn that is correct so when when if the board approves um when we when we post the full new salary schedule on the website it will be very easy to to understand what someone paid on an annual basis would make so
204we will convert um for our our 200 day our 211 or 221 255 um in and instructional coaches all of those all those pieces yes so I think that those answers will come um and I think that having that transparency will also help us be able to retain staff um because we're obviously competing with those around us so that will help us um retain staff which I think is huge and um so it's difficult to approve this without having all of the answers that we want but if we approve this now that allows them to get to work on this and I think that's what's what what is important and I think um just again tremendous that we're able to have this opportunity to to make sure that all of our employees are being being
205paid market value and I think that's what we need to hear is that that's the goal is to get everybody to P to be at market value so thank you for the tremendous work that you're doing and that you will be doing because it's a big job that you have ahead thank you I'd like to call the question a second we vote on that right yeah all those in favor I any opposed motion carries is it clear that I recused on that I think we were voting on calling yes I can so you recuse yourself on calling for the question yes thank you okay oh I'm calling for the question or calling the question yeah we haven't voted on the the item yet okay do you want me Mark you as a favorable vote on
206that M now we will we'll do we'll vote on the original motion on 10 a yeah can we please do a roll call though absolutely Dr Butler yes Mr Watson yes Miss bike yes Miss Horn yes Mr triplet yes Mr Wright Miss Christie Miss Henderson yes so that's eight yes votes and one recuse vote motion carries okay item 10 B consider ation of nomination of Sandra n hbert for naming of Carter Elementary School cafeteria so Move Motion by Mr triplet second by Miss Horn I know Miss Christie we have some guests here we do thank you for they have waited patiently um I know Miss jell course is here the administrator for Carter and I believe our assistant principal and Miss Jones and and not to leave out our cafeteria manager Miss Brown and just
207just to go back they did come to our uh meeting the other day and they just had so many inspirational things to say um you know I know it's been a long night for you but it I'm sorry easy and I apologize in hindsight we should have bumped you up it just sorry about that no you're great um so I'm Emily jel course I'm the principal at Carter Elementary this is Stephanie Jones our assistant principal Amanda Brown our cafeteria manager um so we just wanted to come and thank you all first of all for even considering the nomination U Miss Sandra recently retired from KNX County Schools after about 35 years most of that in our Nutrition department most of that at Carter Elementary she is a staple of Carter Elementary and has served and
208loved on Generations um of hornet so what better way to honor this Beloved Community member um than than honoring her with a permanent space in our school so uh we would just appreciate your consideration um I'll let Amanda talk a little bit um but we just appreciate the time and consideration in in naming this facility for her good afternoon um I do want to thank you guys for this opportunity to come and speak to you guys um and allowing me to speak on the naming of the Carter Elementary School cafeteria I'm going to do my very best to not get emotional again my name is Amanda Brown and I am the cafeteria manager at Carter Elementary School I was asked by Miss Sandra's daughters um who were wanting to keep Miss Saunders Legacy in our
209school after her retirement um her daughters wanted to name the Carter Carter Elementary School cafeteria after their mother Miss Sandra um these very genuine ladies U reach out about reach out to me about how to get the proper information to do so miss sa was born and raised in the Carter Community her home place is in with two miles of the Carter Elementary School prior to her recent retirement Miss saund was with Knox County School's Nutrition department for 26 years as a food service worker um I don't know if many of you are fond of what we do um but to be a nutrition worker for 26 years is phenomenal um she has fed hundreds of thousands of hungry children of many generations in our community and her life has touched many students including those
210who have grown graduated started their own families and remember Miss SRE when they attend school functions with their children they remember her kindness and what they've done for her or for them I'm sorry these students still cherish and remember her kindness It's astounding how important Miss SRE was to them and still is even several years later as the manager now I can go on and on about the great things that Miss Andre has taught me in the three wonderful years of being in her words her boss she's the exact role model that I needed to be a better uh to better serve our students at Carter Elementary and her guidance and Grace has gave me has gave me the opportunity to be a better leader in my career Miss H is more than a lunch
211lady to the Carter Community she is a well-known hero I'm very sorry um Miss SRE is the reason that cter schools are the best I'm so Sor don't be sorry at all it speaks so so highly of her Miss came to Carter Elementary School um from Carter High School and when we built the new building um she opened it um for the Carter Elementary School students um for the Carter Elementary School cafeteria to be named after her it is one of the most honorable motions to keep her Legacy and love in our students lives as the manger of Carter Elementary School this is the biggest honor I have ever been given the opportunity to part in and I want to add this this actually happened yesterday in our act in our school cafeteria um we
212served homemade macaroni and cheese so today a student in the third grade came in and I as and asked and I quote is there any more Miss Sandra mac and cheese Miss SRE has been retired for three for three months two weeks and two days however our students will forever remember the goodness she brought to them every single day I will forever be miss it will forever be Miss sandress mac and cheese for many many students in our community again thank you for your time and considering Miss Miss sa for this amazing nomination that's amazing thank you for being [Applause] here y'all may see me for some mac and cheese do we have any other discussion Miss Christie well just before they leave you know we've not voted but assuming this passes Miss jell course
213um Miss Brown I would let if you have a ceremony okay six yeah that would be great if you could share that with us yeah that'd be great and you know if Miss SRE has some mac and cheese there that would we it's a little bit past supper right now so that would be great as well is there any more discussion on this item seeing none we'll go ahead and vote all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries [Applause] congratulations yes item 10 C approve memorandum of understanding with K's Fair also known as K's Community fair to establish terms regarding facility usage for annual Fair pageant and Festival events held at KS middle school and K's high school for a maximum term of 5 years so moved second motion by Mr triplet
214second by Miss Owen discussion Miss Owen thank you madam chair I I'll be very short on this so the ks Community fair is such an integral part of the community I think that when when people attend they almost forget that it's in a school and what happens is we end up with a lot of political advertisements inside the school and it happens year after year after year every time we think that we have taken care of the situation it's back and I don't think it's a purposeful thing I think it's just happening and so um just to to get some clarity I'd like to ask Dr Adams if there is a way that we can help ensure that everyone understands that political advertising in a school is illegal it's not just a policy thing so
215that we can make sure that we don't end up in a bad situation Madam chair members of the board uh thank you Miss Owen we can certainly work with Mr dupler to ensure that they aded to all Knox County Schools policies thank you I appreciate that and thank you for letting me put that off yeah thank you is there any more discussion on this item okay with that we'll take a vote all those in favor I any opposed osed motion carries see that was the last item we'll move on to the rest of our public forum speakers thank you for being patient yes Julie Gorman Julie I do appreciate you sticking around for the long night you tired so I can wait it out very good if you'll state your name and County of residents
216and you'll have three minutes okay I'm Julie Gorman I do live in Knoxville and I'm here to talk to you uh I'm a retired teacher after 30 years of teaching in Knox County Schools I retired this past May and I was very fortunate because I got to spend my entire career at one school and I was at Mount Olive Elementary and our goal every year was how can we make the students better we've had Mount Olive students to go on to college to go to trade school become loving moms and dads we've had valedictorian salutatorians one year South Dole High School even had the valedictorian and salutatorian from from Mount Olive you just witnessed one of my former students speak a few moments ago I'm so proud of her and um this year we were
217even a a reward school so you can imagine our surprise when we were told a few weeks ago that we were having cuts and we are no longer going to have a pack teacher and our teachers re really depend on pack for behavior issues we were also told that our office Personnel was going to be cut from two full-time to a full-time and a part-time and I don't know when the last time you've been in a uh School uh office but it can get hairy with all the needs that have to be met five minutes ago and letting school or letting uh visitors in making sure that the visitors are safe for our school and there's a concern about that we also are losing our kindergarten assistant and I see her quite often in the
218hallway uh testing kindergarteners on letter recognition letter sounds math facts and that's a lot to be asking kindergarten teachers to be teaching the curriculum and then having to test individually as well that's that's very time consuming and kindergarten is very constant as you know uh and we're also losing our tutors we've had fulltime and a part-time and I'm the part-time uh this year and our full-time tutors what they have done is they have collaborated with the classroom teachers on reading goals and the tutor students they hear the vocabulary words in the tutoring sessions and then they hear them in the classroom so they're hearing them twice and the teacher teachers are reporting that these students have increased their confidence they've increased their motivation and we even had a teacher or a student tell a teacher
219uh a tutoring uh person that um that was his favorite part of the day that he he loved it so much so in conclusion what I'm asking is just let us continue we are making a difference and we need our full-time tutors but I'd also like when you're going over the budget to consider part-time tutors that my hesitation in retiring was will I lose my purpose and working part-time for me has allowed me to still teach and be a part of my community and it's also allowed me time to take my mother to the doctor so um one more thing as you're deciding about the budget consider what one of Tennessee's best has said Coach Pat Summit you win in life with people and when teachers are supported students are too thank you so much
220thank you Michael Court Michael court if you want to check I'll move on to the last one and then we can come back uh Denzel Grant very good then we can check on Michael on just second Denzel if you'll state your name and County resident you'll have three minutes thank you thank you thank you uh my name is Denzel Grant uh Knox County resident um I currently serve as the executive director of turnup Knox turnup Knox were violence Interruption program uh we've been partnered with the city over the last 18 months uh my reasoning for coming today um is really just to raise an issue uh and concerns that we have um as an organization um through the last 18 months uh we've kind of been able to uh build relationships uh in a brief
221period of time that we're able to go into Knox County schools um we've been able to create a partnership with United ways Community Schools they've kind of been able to allow us to piggyback um off the influence that they have to be able to come in Knox County Schools um and just build relationships with the students um just to give a little background on our program and what we've done the last year alone uh our practices have played a huge role in decreasing gun violence in our community uh homicides are down 33% compared to last year uh crime in East Knoxville was down 52% um compared to last year and TBI reports also showed uh that juvenile crime was at a uh a 10year low actually um last year and I would like to humbly
222thank not only my staff but community members um who played a role in that uh decline not NE as you can see I'm not necessarily here to speak about an item on the agenda um but I did want to talk about and advocate for the presence and how important it is to have community members members in KNX County Schools uh the school district obviously as we know released a discipline report um obviously uh those results showed that black students as well as low-income students are suspended more than any other race in our community uh in our schools uh and you know in reading that report and reading um the news report I can agree with Joe M uh Joe Maddox who is the co-president of Justice Knox when he says that it is important that
223we give everybody in our community and all the kids in our community the best chance that we that we can afford in our community uh I also believe director of school culture uh uh Janice Cook who I've been able to have conversation with when she says that we are looking to put structures in place that include Pacific schools uh and strengthen the support we can give both students and staff uh Mr B Mr Butler actually just spoke about policy and when it comes to volunteers and coming into the schools both level one and level two uh volunteers um are not required to have a full extensive background check only level three and level four volunteers uh or have to successfully complete a background check um myself and our and our program staff will fall underneath
224that level one and level two uh volunteer requirement um again this is not an attack uh on you guys um this is just simply a ask what do I need to do to get my program into Knox County Schools thank you thank you Denzel no no Michael very good then that concludes public forum all right with that our meeting is adjourned thanks for being here y'all