001and happy Valentine's Day we have all nine members board members present his Kuntz will be joining us in a little bit she's running a little bit late so we'll call this meeting to order and the moment of silence and Pledge of Allegiance will be by miss Hill tonight thank you miss Hill for bringing that to our attention and a couple of announcements tonight the Knox County Schools Career Day will be held tomorrow February 15th from 4 to 7 at the Knoxville Expo Center located at 5441 Clinton Highway on behalf of the board thank you to Pellissippi State Community College for being our presenting sponsor and to all of the participating educational institutions and business partners we are looking forward to our spring 2018 Knox County Schools recruitment fair which will be held at Central High
002School located at 50 321 Jacksboro Pike from 9 a.m. till 12:00 noon on Saturday March the 3rd I don't see any elected officials in the audience tonight if you are please wave your hand okay then we will move on to changes to the agenda mr. McMillan thank you madam chair I'm requesting that the board had had and had tied him to the agenda to consider approving a request from Gibbs middle to engage in an agreement with Bauer Academy in Nashville to implement the compass model of social and emotional success skills with their students and I think each board member should have some information okay Thank You mr. Norman oh thank you madam chair I'd like to add short just a brief discussion on cultural competency as regards what's taking place on Monday okay do I
003hear a motion that we approve the agenda with these two changes to it a question madam chair I just I just saw this mister is there any cost involved with this miss Jackson do you want to come address that we can get into discussion okay so motion made by miss Hill seconded by Ms Fugate all in favor of these changes to the agenda say aye all opposed motion carries okay thank you we don't want to miss that as you know our Knox County school students recently participated in an attempt to break the world record for the most students learning to code at the same time I'm happy to introduce Brandon Bruce from serious insights and Caleb Bristow of the great schools partnership to share more detailed information as we recognize this amazing feat as the
004numbers have now been documented and verified thank you gentlemen so we have the certificate here as you might have seen in the paper we had six thousand seven hundred and seventy eight students verified that participated really on the day of we counted we had over eight thousand approaching nine thousand students participate some were younger using iPads and they didn't count all those students but we're thrilled to have broken the record we've already gotten a lot of regional and Technology and some national press coverage which has been fun to see so the idea really germinated over lunch calum I talked about how can we shine a spotlight on all the great work that the teachers parents administrators are doing in the schools with respect to teaching coding and Steam classes and so we came up with
005this idea which was paving a break a Guinness world record that's something that everybody rallies around and of course in Knoxville were very good at that we broke the record for game attendance in Bristol we have the biggest letter T in the stadium so we thought this would be pretty easy but really credit to Caleb who took the lead and all the logistics and Theresa and Nixon Knox County Schools and she wasn't able to come today but she was really a leader in connecting with all the teachers and making sure everything went off with a hitch because it's know so that was a key for Guinness they had to start the lesson and end the lesson at the exact same time so about 12 students that joined us to shoot of instructional video so one
006thing that was neat about the project is it wasn't just us telling the kids this is how you code that's not really our coding works it's a collaborative creative process so my daughter who's in second grade and that a dozen other students created the video that the other students watched and then they simultaneously played along and learned how to code so for those of you that saw some of the coverage on Twitter or the news afterwards you'll know that in scratch which is the program they use to learn the first thing you do is try to figure out a way to get the cat - miaow and so once they got the captain yeah we had a lot of really loud classrooms Knox County as you put it in a loop and the cap keeps
007meowing over and over again until you figure out how to end the loop so it was a it was a lot of fun we're glad to have done it hopefully we'll have a chance to do it again in the future but yeah I think it's a cause to celebrate we had almost 7,000 kids go home that day after breaking the record with the certificate that looks like this is that I participate in breaking a world record so there's a lot of local pride and hopefully we'll keep it here in Knoxville for a long time thank you all you do want to say anything if you'll come on up here to the program my form I think there's a picture opportunity [Applause] okay mrs. Cotner item seven consent agenda do I hear a motion to approve
008motion by mr. norman seconded by mr. McMillan all in favor say aye all opposed motion carries item 8 a a pre first reading of Knox County Board of Education policy I 440 Wellness Policy nutritional standards for food items sold as amended motion by mr. Norman seconded by Ms Horne any discussion on this all in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries 9 a approved grant contract with the Tennessee Department of Education for a 2018 read to be ready summer program grant in the amount of one hundred and thirty nine thousand four hundred dollars designated for green magnet Academy Lonsdale elementary school and Sarah Moore Green Mountain Academy motion by mr. three seconded by mr. norman any discussion all in favor say aye aye all opposed motion carries 9b approve application receipt of funds from the
009Tennessee Department of Education for a 21st century Community Learning Center grant in the amount of one hundred and eight thousand dollars designated to provide after-school academic and enrichment support to students at n skip elementary school motion by Miss Ellen seconded by mr. Norman any discussion all in favor say aye aye all opposed motion carries I mean see a procedure of community grant from the town of Farragut Board of Mayor and aldermen in the amount of $22,000 for Farragut Intermediate School for fiscal year 2017 2018 motion by mr. Horne seconded by mr. Norman any discussion on this item okay all in favor say aye aye all opposed motion carries 90 approve application and receipt of funds from a Lowe's toolbox for education grant from the Lowe's gives back foundation in the amount of $5,000 for Fulton
010High School designated to create a makerspace within the school's media center motion by Miss Ellen seconded by mr. any discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries 9e approve application and receipt of funds from a Simon Youth Foundation enhancement grant in the amount of three thousand six hundred and thirty-two dollars for dr. Paul L Kelly volunteer academy motion by mr. Owen seconded by mr. get any discussion all in favor say aye aye all opposed motion carries 9f approved Memorandum of Understanding with the great schools partnership for receipt of grant funds in the amount of two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars designated for installation of a water bottle refilling and supplies for the outdoor classroom at West View Elementary School don't hear motion motion by miss Roundtree seconded by mr. norman any discussion
011all in favor say aye all opposed motion carries 9 g approve application and receipt of funds from a Knoxville chapter of the Tennessee Society of Professional Engineers grant in the amount of $1000 for the Ilyn in STEM Academy designated for the purchase of equipment to be used in the school's microbiology class motion by mr. Ridge seconded by mr. Norman any discussion all in favor say aye aye all opposed motion carries 9h approve application and receipt of funds from a target field trip grant an email have $700 for Sara Moore green diamond academy designated for student field trip to wvlt TV motion by mr. Goetz seconded by Ms Horne any discussion all in favor say aye all opposed motion carries 9 I approve donation from Knoxville Central High School Athletic Foundation in the approximate amount of
012forty eight thousand nine hundred and fifty five dollars designated for Phase two of construction of a new indoor baseball and softball heating facility at Central High School motion made by miss Owens seconded by mr. Norman all in favors any discussion on this all in favor say aye all opposed motion carries 9j approved donation for North Shore Elementary School PTA in the approximate amount of forty thousand three hundred and eleven dollars designate designated to a landscaping project at North Shore elementary school most of my miss Fugate second abdominus horn any discussion all in favor say aye aye all opposed motion carries 9k approve donation from Rocky Hill Elementary School Foundation in the amount of eighteen thousand three hundred dollars designated to purchase imagine language and literacy licenses for Rocky Hill Elementary School motion by MS Fugate
013seconded by Ms Brown tree any discussion all in favor say aye aye all opposed motion carries ten any approved fiscal year 2017 central cafeteria fund balance designation in the amount of 1 million one hundred and eighty nine thousand eight hundred and sixty seven dollars and 64 cents motion by mr. mr. norman seconded by Miss Dara Jenny discussion on this item okay all in favor say aye aye all opposed motion carries item 10b approve request to replace the windows in the original pond gap elementary school using skilled services LLC up to four hundred and sixty thousand dollars motion by mr. you get seconded by Ms Horne any discussion on this item okay all in favor say aye aye all opposed motion carries ten C approver vision to the 2017-2018 school calendar motion by mr. norman seconded
014by Ms Roundtree any discussion okay all in favor say aye all opposed motion carries tnd approved proposal regarding Longfellow Elementary School and Sammie Hill family community center motion by mr. through seconded by mr. Norman madam madam chair we have two public speakers signed up for those the this agenda item our first speaker is Tiffany Holmes Knox County I'm proud to say that I'm a second grade teacher at long fellow elementary school this is my 13th year teaching and within those 13 years I've also taught at Chilhowie Intermediate School in ball camp Elementary getting a lot of knowledge through very different experiences at these schools and so I feel obligated to stand here and advocate for Lonsdale I just frustrating just speak in the shadow of two new middle schools but silence shows acceptance and Lonsdale
015has been overlooked and passed by too many times to be accepting we have a very unique and fragile ecosystem at Lonsdale we receive a number of students in all grade levels that are new to the country and speak limited English or no English at all so during the day we are teaching our grade level curriculum as well as many kindergarten and first-grade skills we rely on our kindergarten and first grade teachers for advice strategies and materials to use with these students we even have some 2nd graders to attend phonics lessons with one of our kindergarten classes moving our k1 teachers to Sandy Hill will be detrimental to our school we are each other's greatest resource so just to put that in perspective an example would be that I have 15 students in my classroom currently
016and 10 of those students receive ESL services I'm having a hard time understanding the progression of a decision that seems to be Swift and not in the best interest of students it seems to me that a decision would have had to have been made concerning to split much early in the school year but our staff was not notified until the end of November and then a couple of staff and community meetings were scheduled to mask an extremely rushed timeline a single solution that was the only thing budgeted for and a counterfeit concern for our school if the concern had indeed been genuine Lonsdale MMG school would not be in the state that it is today and although you are entitled to your own opinions about the deconstruction of our school you are not entitled to
017your own facts Lonzo Lonsdale was built in 1936 and was added on to in 1956 our building is not up to code the main purpose of building codes is to protect health safety in general welfare as they relate to the occupancy of buildings we have sick teachers some teachers who have taught at Lonsdale for several years have been severely sick others have had respiratory and allergy issues we have cockroach lined hallways flooding mold and mildew and after a miss Grizelda our interpreter spoke at the work session about having to go up and down the stairs of our building with her crutch she has been for lack of a better term confined to the first floor drive through Knox County and look at other schools at the Knox County school system has found a way to
018fund like Hardin Valley Elementary that is a beautiful building it looks like a college campus I can't believe that that school is in the same County as my school absolutely sick to my stomach our robotics team wins the competition at Hardin Valley one of our students asked if I had a movie theater bowling alley in it any more than others any other school has within our district we are asking for a stable safe and unified environment for the kids we teach and the families we can who entrust us with the most important things in their lives whether or not whether or not our Knox County students come from another country or have grown up down the road their importance is the same but unfortunately we have learned through this process there's a difference between what's
019best for our kids and what's best for our kids because our school does not have a large parent army behind us or a social media campaign or the money and resources to get what we need most we seem to be no threat at all a school full of immigrants low-income families and teachers who as miss Thompson has put it don't complain but we will continue to fight for what our students deserve if split we will continue to fight for a solution that brings our stuff back together a permanent solution that puts our students in a building that they can thrive and be proud of nothing more and nothing less a permanent split is not a solution for us thank you thank you our next speaker is Griselda Santo doll my name is Jessica Sandoval I
020am the full-time interpreter Longfellow Elementary and also the community liaison and I am coming to represent the Hispanic community of Lonsdale they have wrote a letter write a letter for me to read to the board tonight and we also the community went around and they were able to collect 57 signatures a parent who also support this letter after attending two separate meetings in regards to the above proposal and attending a board meeting on eleven twenty seven seventeen as parents of children and who are currently enrolled at Longfellow Elementary and Sammy Hill we feel that the school system has failed the community has failed to communicate to families the problem of overcrowding at Lansdale miss Julie Thompson has held two separate meetings with the community one on December 13 2017 and that day the community would
021raise questions and concerns in regards to the move to kindergarten and first-grade monitoring for promise before making a final decision on January 31st a second meeting was held in the morning and approximately 18 parents were present to date/time and short notice of the meeting was nothing was convenient for the majority of our families to attend we feel that the community deserves another meeting in the afternoon before a final decision is made by the board and this February the second a small group of parents had the opportunity to be the last day of school nature was given by Miss answer in order to have a better understanding of the situation and to understand why the recommendation was being made at this time we realized that our children deserve better than being taught in the hallways and
022to switch from one classroom to another to receive ESL classes again we feel the lack of communication among the school and the community felt our children if the world makes the decisions today without any further meetings with the lancedale community we were asked to consider the following suggestions made by the history community do not make this proposal a permanent solution we want our children under the same roof not to different schools advanced Allah add our sorry Atlanta elementary school to the top of the list of priority schools to be added to the capital plan improvement we want our building to be handicap accessible for students staff and community in general Sammy Hill has only 17 classrooms available we do not want to have the same conversations three years down the road because of lack of
023space at Sammy shield no outdoor buildings to accommodate these situations will be accepted consider building a new elementary middle school for the Lansdale community and the property where all high school stands which is already a property of Knox County provide the same Support Services nurse after-school programming interpreters currently offer advanced elementary below you will find a group of parents who backup this letter and who will continue to push for a better and bigger school for children we thank you for your time and for taking this letter under consideration we look forward to continue to work together with the school board and closing the disparities for students Alonso Elementary thank you that concludes public forum on this agenda item and I just want to inform you this letter was done in Spanish I took the time
024to translate it for you guys so I really wanted one of our parents to read it to you in Spanish today but most of them they're on Ash Wednesday so that's why they're not here today thank you okay I saw miss Owens live and I just want to remind the board several months ago when this came well not really cerebral a couple of months ago when this came up it was pointed out that a solution had been in the works for three years but it was just brought to the community in November that doesn't seem very transparent that does we're really working with the parent to have a community meeting on a Wednesday morning that kind of says the same thing to me so um I hope we will consider putting this off and letting
025parents have some input okay thank you madam chair and I appreciate the parents and the support from the council that came up but I have attended the meeting several times and this particular situation came up years ago because we would landlocked and we need a parking space and as the know the community has continued to grow so now you gotta come inside the building capacity problem I understand that this is not a good solution for everybody but I'd rather have us to do this in the interim in a temporary time frame to get kids off of floors to get kids in a place where they can at least have us a place to sit down and be taught by teachers eighteen parents showed up at that particular meeting because the principal called it at eight
026o'clock on a Wednesday morning it had nothing to do with Knox County that was a that was a principals decision because she already had a meeting with parents that were already had been established and so that was the reason why it was the clock Julie Thompson and the principal and everybody has been out there several times to try to work out different solutions and solutions are yes you need a new building but we don't have the money nor do we have the building before the kids can move into them anytime soon so you have to come up with something that's temporary that's that hopefully there will be a permanent solution later on but right now the kids cannot be in the floor in the building in order to satisfy the needs of the kids at
027Discount it's not a solution that we would like at this point and I believe that we have had several meetings we have had several suggestions the even the superintendent we have taken all the list of the things that have they wanted I think the administration has been up there several times talking to Lonsdale and Sammy Hill and so I know that it's not something that everybody's going to like but we have to do something now I we do we really have to do something now and the conversation doesn't have to be with just the people in central office I think that the conversation could have been with the community and the principal's in the building and then some solutions could have come back to the central office I'm just not I'm not complaining I'm just
028stating the what's been going on so it's not like we haven't tried it's not like we haven't had conversation it's not like we're not concerned but something has to be done to get kids off the floor something has to be done to get kids in building in space you got empty spaces Sammy here one block and one and a half block over from Lonsdale and this hopefully this would be something that we can do at this point in time in order to help facilitate a need and so I appreciate the comments I appreciate the compassion because I also have passion for the kids I also I know that we have a lot of diverse and immigrants minority then we're gonna try to do whatever we can to help alleviate this situation but right now we
029are just a landlocked issue and we have to something and it's not gonna be something's gonna be happy for everybody but I just wanted to let everybody know on the board that we have been working it's not like we haven't ignored this situation thank you miss Dandridge miss Fugate did you okay in this round tree thank you madam chair um I don't see Miss Hansard here I don't believe um she couldn't be here tonight and maybe miss Shana and Jackson could help answer this question so in the information that had been presented in the presentation from back in November you know and as mr. Etheridge just mentioned having numerous cluster groups of kids being taught ESL at the same time and then various interventions and this space issue I was just wondering miss Jackson if
030you can speak to you if that is developmentally the best learning environment for a student as the teacher was saying has just arrived to this country if you could just speak to that because I know we've as a background I'm thinking about the program we've put in place at Central to try and address the needs of our bilingual learners and so when I'm hearing large groups of kids on the hallway and things I'm not sure that that's the best learning environment so if you don't if you have information about their schedule and how that works I'd like to just share that publicly on the record thank you so I will say that I've been over one or two times to walk through the building and what I have seen our intervention groups and yo groups
031that are in the hallway or in shared classrooms and the concern there is that students who are in intervention or in Yale that's the language acquisition it's a highly aural learning process as you well know and so it is best if those groups can be in places where the distractions around the room are minimized and the room itself can be used as the first level of scaffold to support the learning thank you miss Jackson I appreciate that thank you just just a comment um following on what miss Dennis Roundtree have said I do think there is a interim solution that has to be done what I would suggest and encourage the passion that is here tonight I've been on this board seven and a half years one meeting doesn't get you that we need you
032to stay engaged and mobilize the community and keep bringing the situation forward and advocating for capital improvements that typically how it works there's limited resources and we make a capital plan years out and I hear your concerns and I am that happens with some of our old buildings and but then we balance that with growth and other parts of the district where we have kids sitting on a floor there as well so I just encourage you to keep the conversation going and the passion to help the community move this forward mr. Norman thank you ma'am sure thanks two speakers did a very good job and you're learning several of us things that we're not aware of and I mean this may be directed to the superintendent or to our facilities person but a couple of
033those are pretty serious charges if we're talking about people getting sick and we've got mold and mildew and cockroaches and things like that school old schools are old schools and they can be very nice and they can be very clean and welcoming and good environments to oran and we know that and we have some of those but it's totally unacceptable to have mold mildew and cockroaches that's just not that that shouldn't happen so could somebody in our you know and our staff or somebody speak to that in facilities let us see what's going on there mr. Oaks I can say that I've been to Lonsdale many times and I don't agree with the characterization of the cleanliness of the building there are challenges with an old building like that and we can have to continue
034to address those supposed I've heard about a concern of a mold problem but will certainly go out and look at that and have our environmental people do some testing and make sure there's not an issue there but we can certainly go back and look at that yes so you're not aware of any water issues that we have some water in the basement this over this past weekend but we had water in probably seven or eight different schools over this weekend where we had the extensive rain so that's something that we can look at as well okay so I just certainly to suggest strongly that any any kind of concern like that in this transition period absolutely should be addressed and we should do everything that we can to make this facility as as good as
035we can thank you madam chair and and I would concur you know we have other buildings that are probably nearly that old bluegrass and Sequoia and several others and so so they certainly deserve the same attention as any other school we have so I appreciate you checking in into that and I understand the difficulty in having elementary students in two different schools and the concern that that has for parents one positive is you're the younger ones are kind of insulated from the from the state testing and they can be insulated from that if they're in a different building which is one positive but I worry more about if we don't make this decision to move the students right now we're gonna continue with kids in the hallways so that's the problem so but I do
036appreciate you both coming to speak and giving us some insight into your school in your community thank you okay I see no other lights so we will take a vote on that so all in favor say aye aye all opposed okay motion passes Adam 10e approve request of Simon Youth Foundation to relocate dr. Paul L Kelly volunteer Academy to West Towne mall motion by mr. Horne okay any discussion on this side him miss about the distance for selling yes thank you miss Owen thank you madam chair as you might imagine there's there's a fair amount of differing information out there about liquor laws and beer permits and things of that nature West Towne mall in the city of Knoxville and and there's an ordinance with regard to liquor sales package stores have to be 500
037feet or greater from property line to property line from Oh from a school and specifically there's a different ordinance that covers beer permits beer permits have to be at least 300 feet from a school that's that's a little bit more vague because it talks about building lines so that might not necessarily mean property lines and there's also exceptions so you know this is not a hard and fast rule this is this is pretty much a general a generality at this point and then and then you throw in the there's a Tennessee state license that's for liquor by the drink if a business qualifies for that then that business can also sell beer and and could automatically get a beer license so and there's no restrictions on that there's no there's no distance requirements at all
038so what we're doing is russ oaks and i have talked about it and he is reaching out to the Simon Youth Foundation Simon properties we're gonna try and find out exactly what the situation is out there and then then we can report back once we know and then and then like I say that I mean I mean not only could there be a state licenses out there which would negate this whole discussion but but there also may be exceptions under the under the city ordinances as well sure that we have communicated with Simon youth so that they are aware before before we approve something and say yes go ahead and then realize that there may be a law protecting it thank you since I made the motion I would like to amend the motion to
039say that we approved this subject to approval involving the liquor and beer licensing and discussion with the Simon Youth Foundation I don't want us to wait and slow this down because well let me just be quiet that was I just changed my motion I need somebody toss her in that whoever second it did I need to say were you okay thank you um now man discuss part of why I wanted to go ahead and move forward this discussion is Simon is being very generous they have given a space for an alternative for a different type of high school which isn't going to meet the traditional a lot of the other traditional things that we deal with in high school so if it came down to it I you know I would ask the law director
040is there a way to petition for an exception for a mall school and so I just want us to go to sort of go on record saying we're okay with Simon moving the school if we can get those legal issues worked out an amendment on the floor with if you get making a motion mr. Rowntree seconding it so although I think we had the similar situation in Knox just sentim all because she had a restaurant downstairs that I think that served beer and the school was upstairs so they may already have something in writing and I was just going to bring that to the attention they thought is you get motion carries okay madam chair could I have a clarification before we move to the next item and that is on the Lonsdale thing Russ
041will you give us a report we give the board a report about the condition of the school kind of a good going-over in terms of the and address these issues that have been brought up yes sir I can tell you though if we're going to go back and do some environmental testing that may take several weeks to go go through that process and get the results back okay well I don't know how to do it or when to do it but it needs to be done this year but before we move forward okay I'm 10 and approved 216 day teacher contract link for priority in custom schools including Austin East magnet high school bill Morris Elementary School green magnet Academy Lonsdale elementary school Sarah Moore Green magnet Academy environmental magnet school so and seconded by
042mr. Norman any discussion on this miss Roundtree thank you madam chair I know that we've previously discussed this but there may be folks here tonight and watching at home that don't understand why we're approving this sort of separate from our future budget process since it goes into school year 18 fiscal year 18 so if the superintendent wouldn't mind just clarifying the rationale behind that I'm jarem embers the board be glad to shed a little bit more light on that but we've of course priority schools and and custom schools we're working with the state right now and on ways to strategies to make sure that those schools don't fall in the bottom 5% we actually do not want them in the bottom 10% in terms of the budgetary impact the cost of this is about 1.3
043million dollars what we had recommended is that with the vote that was taken on the Leadership Academy that paring the money down considerably to take the funds saved from that agreement and in addition to funds we we don't know yet from the state but there's there should be some additional funds maybe we won't know until later in the year but the title funds that we can use but to come up with the total cost of 1.3 million dollars but this would fund approximately $900,000 of the cost and and actually to use this time for professional development for the staffs and now in terms of the teachers giving them a little bit more incentive in terms of some extra pay to to do the work work is difficult in all schools and we recognize that it's
044very difficult in the priority schools and just to give our teachers a little bit more incentive to stay because it's important to have consistency in terms of the teaching staffs and we have on years we have turnover there then that certainly interferes with that consistency so we want we want to fake the teachers everywhere obviously and we want them in our priority schools and we want to make sure that we can compensate them in a way that they will stay there and also to provide the kinds of professional development that will help them to be more effective in terms of the students that they're working with Thank You superintendent Thomas and Madam chair my only follow up comment to this item as we had discussed at our work session there was quite a bit of
045overlap between the schools that we would be approving for this extended contract and other funding including some of the magnet dollars so while I may support this item I think that as I stated at the work session I look forward to seeing the rationale behind the magnet programming and how it is directly impacting achievement and moving those schools and students forward thank you thank you madam chair is there a reason that we're approving this now versus during as during part of the budget cycle in terms of advertising positions we've normally given priority schools first opportunity and advertising positions at what we're going to what we're going to do this year because of the timing and we're opening two new middle schools we're going to post but if this is approved this evening where we're going
046to post positions on Friday morning dr. Drummond is ready to release that and we have teachers at some of the schools where we're moving students and they're concerned they're like felice oh about a job and I just want to say too that the teachers that are that are doing a good job are going to have a job actually when we look at staffing we talked a little bit about this this morning the staff is we've got we actually need more positions than we have teachers right now at the middle school level so teachers that are doing an effective job right now may not be in the same building that they're in this year but we want to make sure that that they we relieve those fears that they're not going to have a job so
047I know I know how that is and the concern there we want we want to just reassure as much as we possibly can that jobs are going to be there we'll get them posted and and folks can go through the interview process and and then we'll kind of go from there motion carries item 10 G discussion an action on Leadership Academy committee proposal and if approved a memorandum of understanding will be prepared by the Knox County law department and the University of Tennessee general counsel to accurately reflect the proposal and to be signed by the board chair but I want to restate the motion because this isn't really a motion to make a motion that says approval moved to approve the Leadership Academy committee proposal as presented and then add the rest of the language
048and if approved well because discussion and possible action it's not really a motion okay do I have a second is Bugis made a motion seconded by Miss death Ridge madam chair we have one speaker signed up for a public forum on this item yes Candace Bannister Candace Bannister Knox County resident good evening madam chair and school board members I Monday evening at the public forum a speaker felt she was able to confidently speak for the silent majority of those underrepresented voices I won't pretend to speak for all of the scientist RT but I will say that many people questioned whether or not it is safe to voice their opinions regarding the Leadership Academy for fear of repercussions or retaliation there are leadership academy administrators in almost every school building across Knox County I am sure
049you have found it those lucky enough to attend are certainly 100% supporters and may not like for the leadership Academy to be questioned it could be that if the underrepresented voices speak up they could be given early morning bus duty afternoon daycare pickup duty for the remainder of the year just to be clear I'm against any continuation of the partnership with the Leadership Academy and with good reason I have a as I have emailed each of you my concerns I will not meet them here tonight in the limited time I have to speak thank you thank you okay we'll have discussion starting with I'm sorry and then miss Fugate thank you madam chair I just wanted to state before the discussion begins that I will be recusing myself from the vote on this agenda item
050as you may recall I didn't vote on this when it came up before the board the first time but since then there has been a change in the hierarchy within the college I'm some of you may know that Dean Reiter is out on extended medical leave and so my direct supervisor within the college dr. Sheri Bell is currently acting dean and so she would be the person that would also be negotiating as a member of the college with any agreement that this board brought forth and that because she is my direct supervisor it has a direct financial tie to my graduate assistantship and stipend through the University so I wanted to go ahead and state that on the record before the discussion began thank you Thank You chair not really much about this I think
051this has been talked about and I can pretty much count noses and tell you how the vote probably is going to go based on the way we've talked about this for several months I just want to address a concern that I heard from our speaker because I've been hearing it for seven and a half years that there is fear no matter what the issue is any time a teacher or a staff member feels like they can't speak it doesn't matter who the superintendent is who the principal is anything if people are afraid that if they come and speak to the board that there's the ramifications so I just really think that that's something that we've got to think about as a system because it doesn't matter what the issue is it doesn't matter who's sitting
052in that chair it doesn't matter what principles in her building that is something I hear over and over and over that there is fear to come speak because someone's going to be punished and I and I think that's scary and sad and I think as you talk about culture that's something that's got to change because apparently it's historically been a problem it doesn't sound like it's gotten any better and that troubles me the only thing I will say before we vote is I'm sure we're going to do a roll call vote and what everybody needs to know is it takes five affirmatives and so now we only have eight votes so it will take five folks to move this forward so thank you thank you I just want to agree with I had a contact
053from a person in the school district who says that the teachers in her school are afraid to come to the meeting not even to speak to us just to come and sit in the meeting so I think that's absolutely something that needs to be addressed and it didn't start yesterday it didn't start eight years ago it has been ongoing for a very very long time okay was there anything else been sowing your lot was doing okay I see I would just like to kind of summarize some of the things that I've heard it probably isn't going to change any minds but the one of the first things that was brought to us about the Leadership Academy and the reason that we needed to revamp and relook at it was because the contract that we currently
054had was not legitimate in the law department recommended that we that we make that change and and the board did that and I certainly I did support that move since that time and even before that time I have looked closely at every or everything brought to me as far as the good and the bad about the Leadership Academy and whether it should continue or not continue in the interest of full disclosure I think most of you know that I retired from the school system I was a part of the system when the Leadership Academy began I I know many people that good people that applied and were denied and I I couldn't understand why because their credentialing was was excellent I saw I saw the the attitude that began because of this and and really
055seemed to continue for several years and and I understood it I understood it because I saw it happen so when I began this process I I was skewed I was very skewed in it I started making a list of all of the positives and the negatives things that kept being brought to us over this Academy and whether to continue or not continue it the contract being the first one which the sport has taken care of but that's the second huge one was the cost involved I was alarmed that we were spending almost a million dollars a year for the Academy I did feel like that might be money certainly well spent elsewhere and we and our superintendent and at the request of the board came up with an alternate proposal that virtually eliminated the cost
056to Knox County Schools so that was certainly a barrier that faced us that that that was addressed and it sounds like has been remedied then this board decided to assign a committee to look at the pros and cons of Leadership Academy if it were to continue could it continue with with a revamping I and the work that they that the committee did I know that Messala name is Horne worked long and hard to look specifically at many many of these issues my feeling was that the proposal that was brought to us for the most part addressed many of the concerns that had been brought to us by by teachers and and even some administrators and and and people that had been very against the Academy there was the concern about transparency I will be first
057to admit and I saw that transparency was horrible it was not good in essence the a decision-making was pretty well narrowed to one or two people that was not right that should not have happened but but that was then and this is now it did happen our committee in its wisdom brought to us a very transparent process that if this were to continue that it it would be it would be open there would be communication from beginning to end with any candidates that that decided to apply and that the decision-making would be not one person or even two people but it would be upon the recommendation about from Knox County Schools of a committee put together by our superintendent also the communication that would go every step of the way to all applicants which I
058totally see as a step up as a growth type of exercise if you will for any of our men and women that are wanting to go into leadership so the issue about transparency and how it occurred and who picked in all the committee brought us the solution that that addressed that the the issue with the non-disclosure of beauty financials to us the spending the difficulty that we had getting the curriculums I didn't like any of that III didn't I didn't think that was that was good for anyone I still don't know why we've not been able to get that information but I do know that as the committee addressed this that one of the fixes so to speak was for us to have a person a leadership director or whoever this person is going to
059be which I understand is going to be recommended to us regardless of whether the Academy continues or not that this person would be front and center in working hand-in-hand with UT and that this transparency in fact would occur you know none of us can change what's happened but but we do have a chance to fix things and move forward so I do feel like even though that was a real blackballing issue in the past that there is a very real potential from this point forward to to address that concern the committee also brought us a multiple pathways solution which is marvelous one of the real complaints about the Leadership Academy was that if you weren't a part of it then you would not go into administration that may be true or not true but the
060fact of the matter is it is no longer if the Academy continues the way that it is there have been multiple pathways that have been introduced so that people that do not get into the Academy will not feel blackballed will not feel excluded and will still have a way to grow and develop and and become leaders in our school I heard that we were spending all this money to train all of these people that and then we were losing them the statistics show thanks to recent numbers I got from miss Drummond that we currently have 81 leadership academy graduates in our system we have lost five now that's a pretty reasonable retention rate no matter how you look at it plus the fact that one of the committee recommendations which I office so thought was
061outstanding that anyone that goes into the Academy will have to pay a penalty if you will if they do not fulfill a contract for X number of years that they that they will have a payback in that so even though that retention was not the problem that it was initially presented to be as I just said if it is in fact an issue in the future it has been addressed I still even after all that kind of kind of struggled because I we all know that elephant in the room and that is who's who is leading the Academy and and the really horrendous time that our school system has had in the last few years because of some of the decisions that were made and part of relating to the Academy so of these 81
062graduates that are still with us I had personally talked to 16 of them so that's not quite 20 percent that I made the effort to go in and speak to many of them I knew personally from years past some of them they were brand new to me and asked them what was good about this what was bad about this the biggest negative that I heard from years past was the extremely competitive nature that they felt like that they walked into that they were going to have to it was made very clear that they were competing with the people they were looking at and and that was kind of a new concept many times that competitiveness which is very real in the business world is sometimes not quite so obvious or dealt with and in the
063school setting but they they did find that disturbing they did share though that in spite of that that the camaraderie that they felt with their other cohorts and the fact that everyone was looking toward common goals was a very positive thing that they were able to grow through each other and that was one of the benefits of being able to come together one day a week they all indicated they appreciated the ability to have the classroom time they appreciated the fact that there were other districts involved because we are not an island and we do not need to allow ourselves to become an island just because other theories are presented when you are in a graduate program other methods of doing things are presented does not mean that it automatically becomes you and who you
064are and what time of a leader you're going to become so contrary to some of the negative I heard from the graduates I did hear that this was a more of a positive thing with these 80 leadership folks that we have in the system right now we have certainly ones that are stronger than others we have that no matter what your educational background might be it's there we have probably as many different leadership styles in those 81 people as as we as exist in any other system the the fear the talked about about the broad way the broad Academy which is a big elephant in the room did not appear to infiltrate our system the way that that that it was presented and especially now that we have new leadership we are two years out
065from this and I am not seeing that that this one particular way of doing things has become the end-all be-all in fact if anything I from these folks that I talked with they recognized much of the downfall in that particular methodology and chose not to adopt it y'all we can't we can't run from this type of thing we've got to embrace what's out there and learn from it and see what's good what's bad you know what's working what's not working and to to run from that quite frankly I don't feel like his growth producing we need to be open we need to know what's out there knowledge is power and just because you have the knowledge does not mean that you have to use what's been given you still have the ability to make your
066own own decisions and I do think many of our graduates have done that I have even heard which troubles me greatly that several of these graduates feel are really almost insulted by the attitude that the others have shown the fact that because they went through this Academy that that that they are tainted I would challenge every board member sitting here to to look at the Leadership Academy and graduates in their district and might there be a few that you don't agree with I would say that number would be the same with those that did not go to the Academy who still are going to have disagreements but I do know that some of our finest principal leaders are graduates of the Academy I think we mean need to be very cautious whatever the decision is
067tonight that that we don't allow that stigma to be there which has clearly been out there and indicated by by several people on this board and also in our schools and probably the last thing that I have heard and I really am trying to address every issue that has been sent to me through emails was that it's not fair that 10 people get you know scholarship for graduate program and and everyone else had to go and pay their own way just because we cannot put Chinese or Arabic in every high school just because we cannot have an Ellen in stem program going on in every high school does not mean that we should deny the few students that we can give it to because we can't give it to everyone and I feel like that
068same thought process is following up with this LA and with the Leadership Academy program would we all love to have our graduate graduate work paid for absolutely we would I mean that that would have I did my graduate work at UT and and I'm telling you it was a tough row to hoe I get that but to deny the few that we can give this to because we can't do it for everyone again I apply it to what we're doing in our schools we don't deny all students benefit because we can only give it to a few I did hear a couple of very touching stories from one current participant and one that graduated about two years ago and it was not the gentleman that addressed us several months ago about how life-changing this has
069been for them because they had graduate degrees they were not in administration they had no shot at getting into administrative roles because they had young families they heavily in debt the graduate school was not an option and this has been a path for them I just I just do not agree that if this is something we can do even for 10 of our our folks in our school system that that is a benefit that quite frankly I just think would be a mistake to take away and again this is you know this is Terry Hill speaking so I sail that to say I think we have been given a chance for a do-over to fix everything that was wrong and clearly whether you agree with the methodology or not it has not infiltrated our system
070and and I would not have any reason to think that that is going to change because in fact the men and women that are chosen for this Academy do have minds of their own can decide what works for them and that's the leadership that they can bring to our system so I hate to deny any kind of a benefit even if it's just for a few of our employees so having said that as much as I know and I understand and I hear all of the heartache that has occurred in this system over these last year's and some of it being blamed on Leadership Academy I think the time has come for us to move forward and not just destroy a program that in fact is is a benefit to several individuals and to our
071system as a whole that is in fact a partnership I personally think bodes well for Knox County Schools to have this type of affiliation with a flagship university so that's that's the reason I will support this not because of what's happened in the past but because I feel confident of what can happen in the future if we allow this to continue okay thank you madam chair Terry pretty much put it out there because my thing is the task force worked very hard I'm sitting on a lot of those sessions and they didn't agree on everything but they did come together and and came up with a proposal that we asked him to go research put together work with UT and bring it to us they may not agree but once you once you're on the
072committee or a task force when you finally make a decision I would say that you support that decision when you present it that's just me that's not that's how I am I'm a we lose the battle but I'm gonna support the decision and I think that if they brought us a proposal back and we asked them to do what we asked them to do and we can live with it and it is something that has been a benefit at least I know to bringing in minorities and more women and putting them in I know it's gonna benefit to my district because we got one at Hostin green vine Austin East they all came through the Leadership Academy and and they all have talked I've talked to all of them and they have told me what
073benefit they have gotten from this experience and I would hate to think that we're gonna let some something that is going to keep us from looking at the future as Terry is something that's gonna move this system and our children forward and what we're trying to do as far as teachers leadership administrators making them stronger and making them and we should brace the opportunity in order to for not for for what can be but what should be I think a lot of things that the task force brought back is good things that if we adopt these and move forward if I only make the system better but I don't believe in cutting off the nose despite the face and that's what we're doing if we don't really really look at the Leadership Academy and what
074it can do for our system not because of what is is included sometimes you have to just look over that get over it and move on I'm unlike miss Hill we can't keep dwelling on the past we gotta think about what can be what should be and what will be if we continue I don't want enough to cut off relationship with UT because that's where most of our teachers administrators come from why would we not want to continue that support with each other with that collaborative effort with each other I mean it's just we have to open up our minds to what can be what should be and if we cut it off now and then next thing you know the individual that you don't like least and we've already given away this opportunity because
075of one individual that one individual does not make a break this program whether we like it or not they do not just there's more to this program than that and we need to just go look beyond that get over it more so than and move on I'm grieving this hill there's time when we have to just go ahead and do the right thing for the school system the superintendent is willing and ready to work on all the issues willing to do whatever we need to do to make it better and like and if you have a part we've got there's teachers that's not great so you're not gonna have administrators there oh great there's gonna be some things that come through that we're not gonna be our top choice it's just life I mean that's
076part of it don't throw away the baby and with the water because everybody's not gonna be great that's just part of it so I'm going to support it but I am because uh it has been an avenue for a lot of my principles that's doing a great job with my students and my district and I was going to continue to support that effort and I want to make sure that this is not the beginning of tying up some things that has been a beneficial to what we trying to do in Knox County we so and I think is this the last slide I want to clarify the committee's work was not to make a decision or to make a recommendation the committee did not come to an agreement that this was the best plan out
077there the committee's work was to come up with the best plan we could within the parameters we had to work with so that's limited before we even started so I I want to be sure that everyone understands that this is not a recommendation of the community the committee made no recommendation the committee worked to negotiate the best plan we could make within the parameters that we had that is not a recommendation I would also like to point out that we are not destroying a program the program is there it's been made very clear to us over and over that they don't need us when this program was created it was created because the superintendent at the time had the money and the desire and the power to create it he is in a different place
078now and he still has the money and the power and the desire to continue the program with or without us he doesn't need us something that I brought up to the committee and probably should have brought to the whole board a while back is a concern about it's exactly what mrs. Hill said that some of our graduates are concerned that they are not well thought of and I would say that's very valid because there are some very rude things that they are called and if you look at state law and the definition of incompetence one of the parts of that definition is the inability to command respect from subordinates or to secure cooperation of those with whom the teacher must work so if we are putting our folks in a situation choosing just these elite
079view in putting them in a situation to set them up for that I think I need to ask myself if I'm setting them up for failure and I think it's very I think the concerns both ways are very valid from their perspective and from those who are working with them we need to really consider our place in that and the very last thing I want to point out are just some numbers on October 30th when this was presented to it when the findings were presented to us clinton Sattler clarified the findings and he said that the finding is not that the district would benefit from the leadership academy per se but from some kind of principle development some kind of principle development there is a lot that we can do in-house for a lot more
080people for a lot less money without having them go get another degree or put them in a situation where they feel that they have to do something they don't have to be pressured to feel like they have to apply between the time that we voted to end that MOU until today I have not had a single contact from anyone supporting the program not one I have had 25 contacts in writing from people who strongly oppose any kind of leadership Academy I did not track those that I spoke with in person or things that I read on social media but they were numerous and they were also all in opposition I go all the way back to the weeks prior to our December vote and count those also I've had about 45 written contacts that were
081strongly opposed to the Leadership Academy and five in favor who contacted me in writing and also I didn't track those I spoke with in person but the opposition was far greater than the support the numbers are not the only thing that's important here but because beyond the simple numbers there's another distinction in those groups of people with the notable exception of Reverend Butler and I wanted to talk to him before I put his name out there but he is the exception so I think that's that will be okay with him with the notable exception of Reverend Butler every other person who has contacted me in support of the Leadership Academy also has a pecuniary interest in the Leadership Academy so we need to decide whether we are voting through the financial interests of a few
082like Calvin question I think miss period hit it on the head when she said that we pretty well know now where we're gonna vote you know their rights own you know when my turn comes I could speak for 15 minutes it's not going to change anything this agreement is for one year I believe our conversation the other night was that this agreement that we if if passed would be for one year I just want to make sure that that that is what we talked about because we talked about there could be opportunity to revisit it that's all I wanted no I'm not voting on a one-year thank you mr. McMillan has called for the vote I'm sorry I thought I was making a statement but I would like some nodding of heads thank you madam
083chair Thank You mr. Egan yes it's my understanding that from the discussion the other night and and from the committee discussion that that if approved that this would be for one year and that would be what what our department and the UT general counsel would put in writing as well okay so with that I'm gonna ask this code need to take a roll call vote starting with district 1 and a vote of yes will be to an affirmative to continue the Leadership Academy and a vote of no will be to in that so Miss coutny meets death courage I'm gonna vote but I'm gonna say this it's very unfair for Mike the called a question before the other member of the task would have the opportunity to speak but I'm going to vote but it's
084unfair no I'm not gonna vote for this yes miss Edwin no mr. Norman no mr. Fugate miss Horne no miss he'll yeah mr. McMillan no miss bounds no that's five no votes in three yes votes so the motion fails item 10 age approved request of gifts middle school to engage in an agreement with the Valor Academy in Nashville Tennessee to implement the compass model of social and emotional success skills with their students I'll make a motion in favor of this if they're questions that members have I believe miss Jackson will address those questions all right there thank you my question just so out for everyone to understand I assume this is being brought to us because it is time-sensitive and it did not make the agenda which goes to my bigger question of we have
085got to do better about schools getting things in time for the agenda setting meeting I'm not opposed to this but I think it happens from time to time that I don't know how it happens but we just really I don't want to punish students because an administrator or somebody didn't get it on time but people we've got to do better yes I can address that thank you madam chair thanks miss if you get I can say that that that the system has has gotten better about deadlines and and issues coming before our office I can also say in in this particular instance it is my understanding that that this is time since and that and that that this is time-sensitive on the other end and it was not within the control of of the Gibbs
086middle school administration so I understand we had snow ice and flu I get that I'm just saying in general our office agrees with your sentiment that that if we can avoid these these emergencies we would like to yes thank you madam chair um because we did just have this in front of us and we walked into the meeting I did just a brief some brief research and for those of you that don't know valor Academy is a charter school that's in Nashville and so my concern is when I flip through this the last paragraph and I don't see miss white here she probably couldn't be here this evening I'm to address the cell address at tea miss Jackson she says and I quote I'm committed to the work of integrating social and emotional learning and
087competencies into our academic competencies in school culture I think those things are all well fine and good except for from what I have seen from the Valor Academy I'm not sold that they have the experience and pedagogy to say that they're the experts in this area so if you would please address that for myself and the board so miss white and I had a chance to go and observe the work and have some conversation and we would be able to establish our own pedagogy it's the structure and the support and putting the structures in place that we would be working with with compass in order to get the support there this is actually something that would be built and designed by the teachers along with miss white thank you madam - I just wanted to
088say that you're right then this his wife is out of town I spoke with her a couple hours so before the meeting began and she could not be here and I believe that it only came to her attention she was blinding anybody but it only came to her attention yesterday I'm filling out the proper form so I agree with what mr. duper said I think we're doing better but I agree wholeheartedly with what miss Phoebe said I've been one of the biggest critics of not getting things in it might come down to the point where we have to we you know what superintendent has to at some point invoke some consequences if people continuously refuse to abide with Rose otherwise I just wanted to say that thank you Thank You mr. Nolan and I will
089say that I have been in conversation with the law department and mr. duplicate fits wrong and miss company it puts a real hardship on our staff central office staff and everybody else but I think we have in good faith made an attempt and or thing last but it we still have room for improvement miss Roundtree I'll yield to mr. and she hasn't I'm sorry miss Dandridge thank you madam chair I guess my question is this is to for the teachers that we don't have yet but they are when they go to their first training she is hoping to have her some of her teachers hired and so they will be able to launch well they may go to the first training in March but then they don't have to have any product in place until
090the summer so as they learn this process they will be taking teachers and that's been a very important component to miss white is that the teachers are involved in the development of this because this is not just about taking care of students social-emotional but it's also about taking care of teachers and so it includes them in that process so we talked about taking two teachers it's not gonna be a part of what we're already doing as far as positive emotional and whatever else is in here that's what we're so sure and emotionally training initiative is that not what we're trying to implement throughout Knox counties and we're partnering with with Missy Massey's office Rebecca Bittner has been working with us and the state has just released social-emotional standards as well and so look in that
091tie right in with PBIS the restorative practices so this will be an opportunity for them to make that part of the experience of teaching students that personal responsibility how they learn to solve problem solve conflict and is out there we will it will be part of their PBIS and they were sort of practices process okay and the school funding is coming from internal school funding for from general fund or from the funding that goes to school so I had an allocation that went to each middle school of well to each of our schools in the district for professional learning and this is how Miss White is choosing to use her funds both both Gibbs middle and Hardin Valley middles funds are having to sit in my account right now because they don't have school accounts
092but they're they have professional dollars just like the other schools do and this is this is how she's choosing to use them okay thank you thank you madam chair and I appreciate the information miss Jackson I just I have some concern and this is just speaks to our broader issue I emailed miss Thompson and Miss Jackson both that you know I don't know what the conversation is from the superintendent and our leadership team about the discussion and the thought process that goes into purchasing pre-made curricula whatever that may be because as much as we would all love a silver bullet there isn't one out there I mean there's no peer-reviewed research on I ready and the fact that it works and supports kids you know we need to be focusing on programs and pedagogy that
093are supported by a research that shows they actually work instead of whatever the shiny new thing that comes down the pike I mean that certainly isn't a critique on yuusha and I hope you know that that's just a general conversation I think that we need to think about as as a Bourdon and I will say it did concern me seeing that this was really a product of a charter school that has no ed folks in their background so I appreciate that the teachers are gonna have a hand and building whatever this program is I just hope there's some more thoughtful consideration in the future of how these limited funds are spent and sort of talking through those decisions thank you to the second paragraph the development of data sharing agreement that will enable our organization
094to share student level performance data with the camp that's concerning valor trance and we use such data in its management and evaluation of the compass camp program so though we're looking at not a huge amount of money and we're only looking at a few people we are also committing our student data to this charter school and I think that is concerning okay thank you miss Jackson did you would you like me to speak to that sure go ahead that is something that we talked about with our Rea Department and they would be able to mask that data so that it cannot be tracked to any particular student the theory of action here is that if we invest in our teachers and our students emotional social-emotional that we would see increases in student achievement as well
095okay yes mr. Davis Thank You Madame chair thank you miss Owen when I reviewed the contract today I was I saw that that that information in there miss Owen and and you'll note in the next paragraph it talks about FERPA which is what I was concerned with to make sure that that that privacy was honored and and that all parties would be complying with FERPA so so I do believe what what meant what miss Jackson is talking about is the case is that you know although some data would be shared privacy and confidentiality would be maintained that we are we are sharing our data with a charter organization that we have said that we don't support mr. Johnson could you give me a little bit of the history of how this began I mean we're
096here at this point tonight and I saw quickly reading through the notes that you provided us that you and two others from our district went down to attend to something in November but how did this come on the radar so to speak her so I became involved when Miss white asked me if I would go with her that she has been looking for a way to bring together student achievement and the culture of a building that PBIS restorative practices social-emotional learning needs to be paired with academic learning and that this was something that she would like for me to look at with her and so I went along with someone from Missy's Department and we talked about what would work in our context and what wouldn't and learns that we would have the flexibility to
097design the program in such a way that would meet with miss White's vision for Kip's middle and that would really provide coherence to the school around these are not initiatives that are at odds with each other these are initiatives that support each other so that was exciting to me because there's limited time to do development and putting your attention on the some of the social emotional well-being of our teachers and our students seemed like a something that we really needed to be able to try and to test to see if that was making that the changes that we thought it would I had one other question I noticed down here at the end of the bottom of the page under internal capacity commitments faculty circles 60 minutes one time a week with host at present
098is this in addition I mean what is that commitment for staff I mean and I already have a lot of meetings after school and faculty meeting would this take place during the faculty meeting or separate from the faculty meeting so that's a place where we've been very clear that it has to align with all our board of education policies so we will not be infringing on meeting time we also said that it would be within the confines of the school day so she's looking she's attached to schedule for the building so that where she is is structuring it so there will probably be a little flexibility around that full 60 minutes but they will have a faculty circle that is about them being able to get together and celebrate the things that are going well
099in their building and to bring to her the concerns and things that they feel like they need to address as a faculty or not but in topping them is wine briefly we talked a little bit about what she was attempting to do and I sort of from from what she said she talked in terms of bringing kids together and no matter what their backgrounds and letting them share their successes and that she believed from what she'd seen and read about these programs that it would be one of those things that would one would feed off the other there wasn't a negative to it it wasn't condemning anybody it was working at the ones that have been successful and trying to raise the level of the ones that that that have not as a result of
100using these as sinner figures for thank you is the total cost is there no charge for the program that's correct so it's it's the travel it's the travel all right I'm also looking here in step two though and is this that you're asking for four additional days of teacher contract to be added to the budget that's not something that I'm prepared to speak on I'm sorry I don't it's a part of this compass camp application that that that the ask is for four additional days that that's a little bit concerning mr. Thomas because first you're asking him to come back in July four days earlier than the other teachers in the district and then it under contract time so added to the budget what is yes obviously they're cost involved in bringing people in four
101days put both schools and had asked for is an additional for one year an additional four days because again this is the first time the staff is coming together to work with the students and I think mr. Spencer and you correct me from wrong but I I believe in terms of the cost of course it's the budgetary matter the budget hadn't been approved yet but but I think what if I'm not incorrect about this that weren't the four days requested built do those cost that you presented to the board that was a request of each principle of each to the two schools as a follow-up if I may go ahead it also goes on to say we may also require that eight hours of the district required twelve hours of unscheduled in-service be dedicated to
102compass training so this would be an additional eight hours that we would be requiring of our teachers to attend that's not ours every everyone is required to earn twelve unscheduled in-service hours and so those hours would be towards the compass training and then the other four would be used for for other training but this this states that that will be a requirement of those teachers yes that they this is what they have to do with eight of their 12 hours he's participating in this training and then it also goes on and I think this was addressed about and I apologize but just seeing this I'm just [Music] on the job professional learning the second fourth Tuesday of every month so twice a month teacher plan it's going to be totally dedicated to this I don't
103think she's planning to do it as their entire plan I think and that's one of the reasons why she's doing twice a month is to break that time up so that they have the majority of their and play and period but they have some of it for their circle okay miss horn thank you madam chair um I'm concerned also about the time you know I think and as a couple of people have made the point about their the day already being full so I'm concerned about the ability to sustain those hour long weekly meetings for an entire staff together we have other programs that are similar to this then can been considered or did she just find this one and this is the one that she brought to me and that we looked at together
104I think when we witnessed it taking place the faculty had a tremendous amount of unity as a staff they understood the direction their students were headed and the supports that they needed they understood the supports that each other needed and they had some great strategies for looking at what was going on in their school and solving the problems in their school together and so that's what made this an exciting process to her okay thank you okay I don't see any other lights up this hill so because there's no faculty in place this is not anything that is has been run by the faculty this is this is a an independent decision by the administrator to commit all all this teacher time to this program I'm assuming if it passes that as she interviews she will
105make it very clear that this is the expectation that teachers her intent was to make sure that anybody who is applying knew that this was the direction that the school was going and that they would have full awareness of what they were of how this was going to operate she was uncomfortable with that too that you know she wanted the faculty to be able to be part of that buy-in and part of the process I think because they get to design it that is that's helpful in that cause and that they will have some some say in that structure around what the social emotional competencies are and how they how they go through that process the first training is in March okay hell if you're finished talking over to mr. Astaire in question so I'm
106just going to ask this now we have been told by miss miss Massey that there's going to be a lot of training on a lot of things we're implementing in the next couple of years and this is going to be on top of that and it's gonna be mandatory I'm trying to figure out how they don't get all this in I'm I'm just sitting here thinking about it and I don't know no I'm no sir principals decision and they're gonna if it worked it out but listen to all the things that we're trying to implement within the next couple years it's just seem like this is just gonna be mandatory and it's gonna be every two twice a week or twice a month or whatever I'm just trying to figure out how that's going to
107boards already come back so much demanding all the teachers I'm just trying to figure out is this going to cause a lot more of stress for a bit lack of a better word before they even get to the school I think the way that mr. white was seeing this was it brought coherence to the different initiatives so this is how they would get job in bedded PBIS and restorative practices training and we'd be working alongside the restorative practice trainers and the PBIS trainers so that it was that this is the training that they'll get they won't have to go anywhere else to get that training and to be implementing that practice and they'll have the time to work together and have the discussions around how it's going and to resolve the problems around that so
108this will look different and gives middle then it will other schools yes ma'am miss Roundtree madam chair um the only other thing that I wanted to I guess ask a question about um I'm Shannon I know you're having to field these since miss white is not here but um so on the internal capacity commitment it talks about specifically allocating time per week for the school leader implementation so I'm just wondering how because you all went to valor what that looks like and what the scholar circles look like and then I guess what's the best way to put this so I'm not sure so how is how is what you all saw there you know how can you attribute to that to a program working versus the fact that this is a charter school that plays
109by a whole other set of rules I guess that's the best way for me to put that I think to me what was exciting was seeing that the scholar circle we were able to witness a couple of them and to watch them engage and they had strategies for they were learning the language of how do you bring up a problem how do you talk about a problem how do you go back and forth on that problem it was advisory but in a way that was very structured for them to really build their ability to problem-solve they shared work there were students who brought works that they wanted to share in their circle and talk about what part of that work was a struggle for them and what part of that work was a success and
110what their next steps in in their learning was and that was something where what we saw with the students is a real sense of self-efficacy and ownership of their work and a confidence with with their ability to talk about where they wanted to progress in their learning okay thank you and then just as that I see someone else's loans I'll be quick just as a quick roll up to this so my other concern is mandating I think miss Hill was trying to get at this but I could be wrong mandating that the eight hours of their 12 hours of in-service is gonna go to this when you may have a teacher that is I'll use myself as an example so if I was in a kk5 classroom while I could be certified in that I
111really would need some PD and strengthening in math because that is not my strongest area of you know making sure that I'm communicating those skills well and so I guess I am worried too about it it's gonna limit really staff development to strengthen themselves in the area where they may have a weakness so I don't know if you can speak to that I was I was curious about that as well and that's one of the things I talked to the teachers about because they they're spending their PD time doing this and so we would have to we still have the district learning days we still have content supervisors doing the scheduled in-service time and then we have the four hours that they would be engaging in the learning coaches and other people who can go
112and help them in the classrooms but what resonated with me was the camaraderie within the faculty they the teachers there especially the new ones did not feel alone or isolated because they had the circle structure they had people that they could immediately go to and get some support you know at the point of need rather than waiting for a PD opportunity to arise at a district level Thank You mr. Norman I thank you miss Jackson what's the composition kind of demographics on kids middle school what's it looking like racially culturally that is so she put a I actually I don't know the exact statistics for Gibbs middle school it's just let's just assume that it's a middle school and it's a normal middle school and I would think that social emotional stuff would be way
113up there on the list of making this middle school work and it's a brand-new middle school and this principal thinks it's very important good enough for me thank you okay so we have this before us and there's no other discussion so all in favor of this say aye aye all opposed motion passes item 10 aye discussion of cultural competency training we have this we have a speaker okay thank you madam chair mr. Norman so we have one speaker for this item demetrius jaegers good evening my name is Dmytro Jagger's i'm nash county and i speaking today as a parent of a first grader and a soon-to-be kindergarten and I want to just emphasize I think the importance of cultural competency training for all Knox County staff as well as I think it's important for our
114board members also there were a few things mentioned on Monday that bothered me as a parent and in the discussion around cultural competency and whether or not it was something that would be implemented correctly and I think this ties into some other issues too I think it's important that we do our best I encourage the board to do its best prioritizing attendance at the cultural competency and particularly making sure of board members are present because as board members you all make decisions that impact some of those things that happen in our school and sometimes they could be impacted by implicit bias also want to just raise a few examples on Monday evening when dr. Brittney Anderson and dr. Lawler water were both here mr. Norman after they were introduced both as doctors miss you referred
115to miss Anderson as miss Anderson instead of dr. Anderson and miss and dr. long Lauder as dr. Lauder and based on my own experience I have a background in diversity equity and inclusion to me that is a indication of implicit bias and so I think that it's important that we be proactive in how we address consider than the growing number of bilingual and immigrant refugee children in our schools as well as the increasing number of black and brown kids and have you been a parent of it of a kindergartner who experienced implicit bias in a classroom I was somewhat taken aback by the statement that in 30 years of being a teacher that there had been any incidents I've only been affiliated as a parent of a student for two years and I can talk
116about more than one incident of implicit bias and so I think is really imperative that this board takes that serious and that is that it's implemented as it needs to be I also think it's important that we do a good job of partnering with the resources in our community like the University of Tennessee and now that the University of Tennessee is bigger than one individual and that as a former employee of the universe Tennessee I have my own challenges and issues but I know that there are great people at the University of Tennessee doing great work and providing great resources to our community the last thing I wanted to talk about was some things related to legislative priorities and I know that you know this is the Board of Education and education issues are a
117pre supreme priority but I also think that there are other issues on a legislative level level both on the state as well as the local level that impact families and students mr. jaggers miss Cote me just brought it to my attention that right now we're discussing cultural competence a so if you want to save the remainder of your time and address it in public forum with our legislative parties that would be okay okay thank you thank you madam chair and thank you mr. John yourselfer for coming and speaking and indeed I caught myself right when I said dr. Lauder I really wanted to say mr. Lauder and say equally but I didn't maybe I am so indeed the thing that I wanted to bring before the the board is still a concern that at least
118we have some kind of method of evaluating how teachers feel about this and and certainly my my comments when I say when I said that in my 30 years in the classroom I had never experienced racism that an indeed that was true and and it applied to any faculty member any staff member and that was to a support in a suburban school in an inner-city school not one time that I ever have any even an inkling of racism expressed or evident in any way it's almost understood in the schools that I'm in you do not do that it is not acceptable and that doesn't apply to kids kids are still learning who they are but in the faculty and in the staff it is not done it's never acceptable so anyway just one to it
119just wanted to state that or clarify that now the the the situation on Monday is a little bit different from what I've heard at first it was three schools now I think it's four and as far as I know it's a seven hour day in terms of the presentation of this material and I hope it's good and I hope it's effective and I hope the faculty comes out of this these sessions and they say we really benefited from this we really think we need this this is gonna make us better this is going to make us better teachers that's what I hope so but but but I do think it's necessary for us to get some immediate feedback and so if the I think there's a normal sort of generic feedback loop that we have
120and so to miss Massey and to miss Jackson and thanks to tear to miss coutny for accommodating me today but I hope we've got that and we have some kind of way to get information back to the board so as soon as we can so I don't know whether I need to make a motion for that or maybe miss Massey can speak and let us know as was mentioned on Monday night we do have a process that was built into the contract to evaluate the program overall but based on your request we're looking at a way to kind of tailor the product that we contour the evaluation form that we currently use that tailors is a little bit more specifically to this training so can have something to provide you with some information okay so
121at the end of the day the teachers that go through the program will be able to comment and make make commentary about what they think about what they just experienced that's all I want thank you thank you miss Massey mr. Mullen thank you thank you my chair I think it's an excellent mr. Norman for us to possibly offer some some additional questions and whatever we're going to do that as much feedback as we can get you know we don't we don't want to detain the people taking you know time at the end of the day that they want to get out of there like everybody else I understand that so as long as it's short but it could prove to be really valuable if if it was structured to were we would see the things
122that they felt were positive and and if there was anything that they thought otherwise that that they didn't get as much as they'd hoped for or something like that should be identified as well the other thing I wanted to mention is since you mentioned it means seven hours I think it's important for us to become acquainted with it I'm sure we're gonna be talking to teachers between now and when we evaluate it it comes back to us on an annual basis that's what we agreed to but you know we can only talk to whoever you are you know the top of so many features I would like to see if if there would be a possibility that board members could have a video of it to look at it from time to time if you
123wanted to you know you might not want to sit and watch seven hours of it but but you might want to sit and watch might be an hour or 90 minutes of it and try to get some kind of and maybe at two or three different times try to get some kind of a feel of exactly what how it was going and the consistency and and whatnot that otherwise we probably wouldn't know which it just what some they told us these any possibility of doing that mr. doe sir miss Massey is that a question you can answer if these are going to be video sessions madam chair we are not planning to video the sessions I think there would be two concerns about that number one answer that from their perspective but this is a
124topic that is you know you have to have a high level of trust people have to feel like that they can have open dialogue if it's really going to be meaningful I'm not sure that if somebody's concerned about anything that's being said it's going to be something somebody can go back and watch over and over again but that we're really going to have the atmosphere where teachers can really feel like they can have open discussion and that's just me being completely honest so I understand what you're saying but is there any way that it could be limited that it could be videoed and limited access to the existing board members dis just so what I said could take place I mean you know we've got a contract with them we're using taxpayer funds to pay
125for the for the program and we're talking about a state taxpayer funded University so I can understand the copyright aspect of it but but but same token I think we were entitled to so I would address that to mr. Diller about whether or not I would most things once we make a recording can be at requested for public records so I don't know how that would be how we would click that or mr. duper well thank you madam chair I mean you know I obviously I'd have to i'd have to dig into the contract to do some research on it but but but as you stated mr. macmillan i mean you know it's my understanding that UT has you you know whether they call it copyrights or or you know whatever artistic you know properties
126they have I mean you know this is this is their intellectual property so you know I'm sure that we would need to to tiptoe around that oh yeah I'm sure we need to be skilled or not available thank you okay did you want to address anything else miss Massey thank you madam chair the effectiveness of this type of program is in the interactions between people not in a video recording of those interactions the way for the board to experience this would be to come to the session spend the day with us it's deep it's difficult work it can't be done by watching a 90-minute video if it could this would be a lot easier the RFP specifically forbid any bit of online training and that was wise because this work does not happen online or
127through videos in addition as we were as we are doing this work it would have an amazingly chilling effect if the teachers participating knew the board could be watching them participate in this activity so I have a question then because I would love to come sit in on the 7:00 hour training that I already committed to babysitting for two working moms on Monday and we'll be able to but if and I'm not challenging that I agree with what you said it just there's a little bit of disparity there between inviting board members to come and participate and then watching I mean do you feel like that it would be chilling also for a board member to sit in because I know that is something that has been expressed in Knox County a lot as I
128came on the board and tried to sit in on meetings so what is your feeling on that quite possibly yes okay so the question would it have a chilling effect yes it would if you want we could possibly add to the contractor training just for the board we can come we can do this just for you that's not part of the original contract we could work okay I guess that's something for us to consider mr. McMillan that I need to get to missing in his codes how she's gonna respond to what he said he just got through asking us inviting us and telling us we should sit through the seven hours and participate but then he says it's gonna have a chilling effect I mean we think would be effective to have board members there
129if you want us to do a training just for you if you want to sit through the training we could do that I think it would be very valuable we can break it up we don't have to do it's one three-hour session and two hour and a half sessions we could break those up do them over time you know obviously most of us don't have seven hours to say okay I think he's answered the question this doctor lunch so if I can go to missile one and then this couldn't send them miss Dandridge I think a lot of the questions that we're asking should have been asked a really long time ago should have been asked before the RFP was complete and also when when we discussed the second RFP long ago one of the
130discussions was that we would like to have the board trains we talked about doing that before it went to the staff and I think if that had happened we would not be having any of this conversation right now I would also say that the question of whether it would have a chilling effect on the staff depends a lot on our relationship with the staff there are schools in my district where it would not be a good idea at all there are schools in my district where it would be perfectly fine I think and I'd say that that's the case for all of us that there are some places where we feel very welcomed and where they feel that we welcome them so I think whether we are there or not we need to have that
131conversation with the principal and the trainers to determine that if that's something that we need to do I think there is I think there's some misunderstanding in language and if some of this had come to us as training sooner we wouldn't be confusing overt and implicit bias and I think that's really what's happening right now I don't think we are having an argument about implicit bias I think we are having an argument about overt bias and confusing it with implicit bias and that is because we needed some questions answered sooner thank you madam chair Thank You mr. Kent okay thank you I understand I mean I've been through something similar to this when I was working for another company and it is something that is really personal sometimes a conversation get very personal and it's
132something that I believe the teachers would like to know that they can have can conversations without the board been in in the in the room I mean I haven't been through that I know that is just me that's just the way it is and I do us I do remember us talking about having this before but we never made a decision we never we never decided to do it we had discussed it but we never said we were gonna have it prior to this disagreement with UT so that was on the board so they went on and did with it they were supposed to do what we asked them to do but if we want to I think that that's in the individuals that want to go through this on the board that's fine I've
133been through it I don't care to go through it again I understand the feeling of it it's not comfortable which you know which we heard from mr. Fugate it's not a comfortable conversation and I think the teachers need to have their time to be able to go through this without the board being involved Ben and let them do what they need to do we hire the job and if we want to like get some feedback on how effective is I agree with that but I don't think we need to be in the in the room I think we let them need to let them do their job and report back to us how effective it is that's just I would just like to express my support of cultural competency because not only does it affect
134the teachers it affects students directly this is about how to build relationships with students this is about training teachers to be able to effectively handle and develop relationships with people who have struggles everyday that I see every day going to an International Baccalaureate school I come in contact with people from all over this world and with all different experiences of life and walks of life and thankfully my program has prepared me to be able to appreciate those differences and to be able to recognize my own biases whenever evaluating different cultures I believe that that is something that has prepared me very well and that is invaluable to everybody and I think that this is an opera for you to be able to make a decision that allows every single teacher and employee to have the
135opportunity to be able to develop those skills and become more self-aware so here are three reasons I believe that it is a necessity to be able to allow this training to occur not only for teachers but for the future of this district this will impact students they will learn from the teachers they will then learn how to do this for themselves so number one I experience and see people be discriminated against and have bias against people every day we all do whether we are aware of it or not everybody you come in contact with has a bias of their own a perspective of their own which needs to be recognized that needs to be recognized that we each have our own personalized backgrounds and we have to interact with other people who have their own
136personalized backgrounds and this training would allow that and so self awareness of these issues is essential to fixing the issues the problem has a risen multiple times over the course of my sitting on this board that the culture that is in the school system is flawed and there's distrust and there is issues in communication and this would allow maybe just one step to addressing those issues effectively and I believe that in doing this leads me to my second point that this is a gonna be a trickle-down effect for students whenever teachers are trained on how to be self aware of their biases these skills and this awareness will then be shown to students I can tell you right now that my teachers and their behaviors and how they address problems you can tell whether a
137person is aware of their own biases or not and I can assure you that teachers who are where their own biases develop stronger relationships with students and better relationships and are able to further the education and their well-being even more and so this allows the chance to address biases early in student's Mazzone adults it's too too late almost to be able to address these biases because they're so ingrained in who we are but with students if we're able to maybe make an impact on a couple of teachers throughout the district that will then shape the future and allow those students to realize early what their biases are and not allow them to continue the cycle of discrimination not allow them to continue to be be satisfied with not progressing the world socially or not progressing
138their own self-awareness so this training would allow that to provide a good example of leadership which then leads into my third point no matter how much Tom or effort this training requires positive social change is worth it if I had to sit through seven hours of a video that would show me how to develop deeper and stronger relationships with everyone I encountered it would not be a question whether or not I could carve out Tom in my day and not be a question whether or not I would partner with people who are willing and begging us to do that and so I believe that we really need or you all really need to keep in mind the future it is not about mistakes that have been made in the past there's many mistakes that's what
139makes us human but it's about what we can do in the future to prevent those from being so detrimental and it's about what we can do in the future to help others not make those same mistakes and so by allowing this training to occur you are setting an example of leadership for students to then become leaders themselves this isn't about how our own experience is now or in the past have affected us this is about allowing the opportunity for people to not have the negative experiences or not or be able to cope with them better in the future and so I believe that it's absolutely essential for the progression of the school district to allow this to be a positive use of like eliciting soliciting self-awareness of teachers and then therefore it will impact the
140students and that's what we're here for we're here to make a change in this world we're here to make a change in students lives and developing personal relationships by eliminating these vices and educating our teachers that's how you do it that's how you make change and so I'd like to thank you all for your time thank you Miss good do I hear a motion to thank you miss Roundtree okay so we have two folks left to finish up their time so when you come up I'm going to call your name and tell you how much time is left and we're gonna make sure the clock is that right for you so Candace Bannister and you have three and a half minutes left again good evening madam chair school board members Candace Bannister Knox County resident
141usually on Valentine's Day I'm rushing home from school to start making banana pudding with my son wheel for my husband mark it's his favorite dessert this evening I will share you with you will starts from February 10th 2017 we found this in Wills room after his death and I think it's important for you all to hear his words my feelings February 10th 2017 today has been a really good day I woke up this morning around 8 or 8:30 because the girls were coming to clean the house most mornings I wake up and feel sad I'm not asleep anymore but this morning I woke up feeling rested and good I went downstairs had pop-tarts and watched a movie I felt entertained and happy rather than the normal feeling of laziness all day I had McDonald's for
142lunch with my brother and then I took a nap when I woke up my family was home and I talked to them at this point I was already having a good day because everything has gone well and I haven't any bad thoughts most times I wake up and feel gloomy because every morning I wake up is a reminder of my greatest failure I never wake up early to go to school because I'm kicked out I always have to face this every day when I wake up and it has been building up for a while now however recently my mom has been home in the daytime and she has kept me happy also everyone else is out of school so I don't feel like an outcast today or really since school has been called off since
143Monday afternoon for the flu all of this aside the biggest and best part of my day had not happened yet this occurred when I woke up from my nap and walked the dog with my mom and dad as we were walking my dad told me that my attorney had called and that I could go back to school mr. Witte was working with the deputy law director who knew my case was being treated unfairly the deputy law director talked to the superintendent then buzz Thomas and got me West days and I had been given this is the best news I had heard in a long time I'm so excited that I get to go back to be fair to Farragut and be in a normal school I like the alternative school but it puts a label
144on me that I'm a bad person and then I'm one of the losers who isn't even good enough to go to a regular school now none of that matters I'm going back to Farragut and I'm going to be like everyone else I know hearing this was the best news I could have heard things only got better as then I got to go see a movie with my brother and Brandon it was a pretty good movie all of this is until now when it's about eleven o'clock and I'm writing this overall today was a great day and maybe things are beginning to look up I feel happy now like I matter as you can imagine I was broken by my son's words night school is a problem while my son woke up every morning to face
145his greatest failure alone I was in my classroom at West Hill school meeting the needs of my students my older son was home some days with will but my husband and I were at work did you hear the part about my mom was home with me and she kept me happy who thinks that night school is an acceptable option we only saw will in the 30 minutes it took to take him to night school and after we picked him up at 7:30 at night where was the care for my son where was there even access to a guidance counselor why worth wasn't there a guidance counselor in the Disciplinary meeting for a long-term suspension why did administration overreach in length of the suspension why didn't administer a she never address the seller of the supplement
146my son possessed why wasn't a director from the weapon deputy law director followed by Farragut high school why did the appeals officer uphold that suspension why did it take the law director to clean up their mistakes consider these questions as a board member but please consider them as a parent I think you would have questions too Will's words I feel happy now like I matter thank you our next speaker is Demetrius traders and you have a minute and a half left of your time thank you so my my last point of emphasis was just related to legislative priorities and looking at the legislative priorities that have been proposed to me is a little concerning to see nothing related to the way that immigration policy both on the state and local level with the 287g is
147currently impacting families and students in Knox County Schools there are families who are preparing at this moment making concessions in the Indian event that they're deported and there are teachers ERL teachers to ESL teachers who are actually taking upon themselves to become a power of attorney for some of these kids and there are teachers who don't feel like they have the support needed in order to cope with their students losing family members or being fearful about being arrested and so I think this should be a point of emphasis as it relates to legislative policy for Knox County school board thank you madam chair that concludes the public forum move adjourn Zeca mr. norman seconded all in favor aye meeting adjourned