WCS Board Work Session 2026-01-15

001Okay, sorry about that. We will begin the January 15th, 2026 Williamson County Board of Education work session. Uh good to see everyone. Um before we start, I'm going to refer you to this uh piece of paper that Lydia left in front of all of our seats. Um that's get has some important reminders. Uh the probably most important of which is that the statement of disclosure interest that each of us has to complete with the Tennessee Ethics Commission is due by January 31st. So please remind yourselves to complete that. And then there's some other important dates, district events and training that you can read for yourselves. So just uh be mindful of those. Um all right, we will move well we'll start with the consent agenda. Are there any items that anyone wishes to discuss specifically

002on the consent agenda? Okay. hearing none, then we're going to vote Monday, sorry, Tuesday night um to approve all of those items on consent. And just do note that there are two board policies on second reading that um are in the consent agenda. Okay. Um we'll move to the superintendent report. Mr. Golden. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, board members. Uh you all see on our agenda those three items that I have in the superintendent report. I will say based on the voting items, I suspect that's going to consume the bulk of our meeting time. Um, but I did have a couple of questions related to two other items I'm going to treat as a preface uh to those three presentations. We're actually going to have uh Dr. Qualls uh speak on the

003innovation center. Then uh we will give you some more information that we've been giving you over these last few um monthly meetings related to the textbook adoption process and our screen time committee update. But for the preface items, uh, one is is relatively short and then one has the potential to be a little bit longer. Number one, I've been asked about flu season and, uh, and if I'm not mistaken, a district or two is actually closed for the flu. So to give you all an idea in case you get questions related to it, we look at our attendance. Of course, our nurses are involved, but we look at our attendance and if any one particular school drops below 90% or so, we start asking questions about why and how and have some conversations if if

004needed. I will tell you that this week our student attendance has been uh 96% and above. Uh so we have not felt it at the at the student attendance level. uh the I think the lowest enu the lowest attendance we had was in the high 92s and then up into up into 99% from school to school. So just in case that question comes up, I thought there was some value in you hearing that. Uh second, I was asked to give you all an update on uh the board vote from November related to our cell phone policy and what we've done in in preparing for that work that was included in the language uh for the board policy for this coming school year. Just as a reminder, you all voted not to have any changes to

005this year's board policy, but next year's board policy uh substantively for student use is essentially the same as this current year, but we made a commitment to to do some study on securing uh cell phones. So, what we've been working on is setting a schedule for us to do some experiments. Uh and I'm going to give you a little bit of detail of that. Number one, uh we we've looked to a number of our high schools to run to run a a study on comparing the Faraday pouches to uh to other methodologies that we've been using over time, including backpacks, including the shoe the the shoe racks that are that some of our teachers have had uh uh etc. So, here's the detail of what what we're we're shooting for. Uh we're planning on doing

006a a pilotexperiment for a quarter that starts at the second half of this quarter and ends at the halfway point of the fourth quarter. In other words, a quarter's length of time that covers the last half of this quarter, first half of the fourth quarter. And this is what we're going to basically do at Independence High School. We plan on doing a 50/50 experiment where half of our students have those Faraday packs and the other half of the students are limited and restricted to keeping their cell phones exclusively in their backpack. In other words, the experiment we're going to run is none of our teachers at Independence High School are going to have the shoe racks. We're going to all have them in one setting or the other. Uh that's uh Independence High School has

007uh somewhere around 2600 or so students. So it's that 5050 split. So our control group is going to be the backpacks. Our experimental group is going to be the Faraday packs. Uh and we will gather quantitative and qualitative data related to that. The quantitative will be referrals, discipline referrals, comparing those. Uh and I know Dr. a patent at Independence has already told her students that they're going to be participating in that experiment. I think they're excited about it uh in in in participating in that. Uh so we'll go through that process. The qualitative uh data that we're going to be working on and we're still working on creating this is uh questionnaires for our students and our teachers uh related to issues like what's been your experience with this? have you been less tempted to

008to look if you know if it's a fair day pack has it has it has it has it been a difference? We also intend to ask teachers uh questions related to classroom management. Has have they seen a difference in those in those two items? On top of that because we know that many of our teachers have at least at the high school level have done those shoe racks. We are adding uh some experimental settings at some of our other high schools where we will be comparing backpacks to to to those shoe racks and tracking that same data in those same context. I know uh we had some debate back and forth about do we conduct an experiment um at the middle school level uh and we kind of went back and forth over that. uh

009what we have heard generally speaking from the from anecdotal information of course you all know that we have the same exact expectations for all our middle schools but we've heard some you know stories about well you know I've heard a story about a child who didn't you know who maybe it wasn't enforced as much at a particular middle school versus otherwise uh and what what we've talked about is number one we have we believe that the data that we gather at the high school level is going to inform the uh what will be an appropriate intervention at the middle school level. Second, uh Dr. Webb and her team have talked about reinforcing at the middle school level consistency among everyone and and referrals uh and and to make sure that during the this semester that

010there's consistency and application of that. That's a thumbnail. Uh Dr. Webb, if you would can you speak to that? fill in some gaps I might have had with that. Uh, and if you would speak to the middle school especially because I know that that was a that was a key question that that we've debated. >> Thank you, Mr. Golden. That was a great summary. Um, we are working to finalize in the next week and a half the qualitative aspects as well as our data collection method for the quantitative pieces. What we want to make sure that we are collecting is um not only the infractions that make their way to the office, such as like second offense in a classroom, but anytime that a student gets correction for having their phone or touching their phone

011or having it out in the hallway or in the classroom, ensuring that we're capturing all of that data. So, we we will make sure that not only at independence, but also at the other high schools that are participating in the other methods that Mr. Golden mentioned that we're we're collecting that same that same specific data. Additionally, even though we are going to continue our emphasis at the middle school level of consistent implementation, we're also going to ask two middle schools to participate with us in doing the same exact method of collecting data that we're doing at our pilot high schools. So, as an example, all of our middle schools, as you know from our policy, that the cell phones for middle school students are away and their backpacks are lockers, oftentimes both, in their backpack,

012in their locker. Um, so we want to collect the same quantitative and qualitative aspects of um of the study that we're doing at the high school with those middle schools. as an example, maybe as a classroom teacher, I correct a student who is somehow um has a second device or has a or is in their hallway as an example during class change and I see them a pass by and maybe they're trying to sneak their phone that we're collecting all of that data in the same exact method as we are during the high school pilot. So, we can kind of see it all side by side. So, we're putting the the final touches on all those pieces and working collaboratively with our school leaders on putting that together. uh and we look forward to bringing

013you the results of that um later on in the fourth quarter. >> Certainly open any questions you all may have about that process. >> All right. Thank you for that. U um thank you Dr. Webb. Uh Dr. Allen uh I know that Dr. Quzs Oh, I see him. Dr. Qualls is here. uh and we felt like it was an appropriate time to share some more detail about the exciting news related to the opening of our innovation center. Dr. CWS, I may steal a bit of your thunder. You all have gotten used to the phrase uh uh entrepreneurship and innovation center or EIC. Uh I'm going to use a a marketing term. We are rebranding. We are going to have an entrepreneurship center and an innovation center on our um on our innovation campus and Dr.

014Qualls is going to share some detail with you uh with his team. Chris Schneider is also standing uh she is actually our director of our innovation center. She is going to be running all of those college and career technical programs that um are getting off the ground here at our at our innovation center. I'm going to give you two reasons why this is timely. number one and most important this is the time where students are signing up for classes for next year uh and uh um Schneider and Dr. Qualls are going through school by school at the high schools and even at the middle schools recruiting students for those programs. They've got some detail about some exciting information related to some of those programs. Uh and historically, college and career technical programs succeed in part

015and maybe in large part based on the force of personality of the teacher uh in in maintaining that the interest of the students uh is is is maintained. I think we're off to a great start related to that. You'll see some you'll see some hints of that. The second big reason is the innovation center building the structure itself is finished. Uh they're going through punch list right now. We haven't gotten the furnishings uh for it yet, but the uh the construction uh schedule that the team put put forth was ahead of schedule. Uh and I will tell you um where is is Eric here? Eric, I want to thank you specifically uh for uh for for driving that home. Uh any of you who've been involved in in construction know that things get finished ahead

016of schedule because somebody is pushing it and it and it takes that. So Eric, thank you for your work uh in in leading that. Dr. Calls, if I'm not mistaken, uh it's you will schedule some tours of the facility if if >> that is correct. >> Uh I think the hard hat time the window is closed. don't have to wear a hard hat, which is extra good for me because I can't foot through the doors with a with a hard hat on. Uh, with that, I will turn it over to Dr. Calls to share with you where we are. >> Thank you, Mr. Gum. Thank you, board. I am super excited to be here, but let me start with this. I've been explicitly instructed by some folks over on that area over there that I've

017got 15 minutes. So, Lydia, I'm going to watch you and you're going to wave your hand at 10 minutes. Okay. All right. We got a lot of information. And I'm going to throw a lot of things at you. I want to kind of walk down the timeline of how we got to this point um and build upon the success of of the the foundation of CTE that Dr. Ory and Dr. Allen had already put in place in that blueprint of innovation with our current EIC uh that we uh are going to move like Mr. Golden said to the the campus model. As you know, our our current entrepreneurship center is down here in the annex uh located at the end of uh Franklin High School and obviously our new location of our innovation center. Uh

018I want to talk about real quick about the entrepreneurship center and where it started and where we are now. It started with 72 kids in year one. We are now in year eight. We have a tripledigit weight list to get in and we're max capacity of 280 students. We are the back-to-back national reigning champions in the pitch contest. The EIC currently is a national brand that when we walk in, everybody knows exactly who we are. I've lost count on how many groups have come in across the country. There are 500 plus locations with entrepreneurship centers in the 912 realm that try to compete for this money. We're back to back and we're hoping that we're going to be back to backto back uh at the end of this year. So, we're super excited about that.

019>> I want to interrupt with just one little bit. We have had >> That doesn't count, Lydia. >> We have had We have had many co We have had many colleges and universities come to to figure out what we're doing at the EIC. >> He he is correct on that. Two SEC SEC schools, as a matter of fact, Old Miss and UT have spent multiple days with us, and on the way out the door, they looked at me and they said, "We can't touch what you're doing." And that's kind of a lit test for us about where we're floating. We have over 150 mentors that make that place very magical. We have our unbelievable partnership with uh Williamson Inc. and Matt Largeon and his team at at the chamber and it's just it's really remarkable

020what happens. So then we started thinking what's next? But he mentioned the teachers and our facilitators at the EC are unbelievable. They're so flexible. But Paula Chilton and her team, if you've never met Paula, I cannot encourage you enough to go meet Paula. And I I wouldn't be standing here right now without my team. And I don't want to go uh overshadow anything before I get to my team. Chris Schneider, who's now going to run the innovation center, has been with me on the hip on this for the last five years. This this project has lasted us five years and lots of caffeine and lots of sleepless nights of where do we go from the entrepreneurship center to 2.0 utilizing the uh innovative school models grant. Uh Chris Cooper is now with us on our

021team by way of Chetm County. He was the CTE director over there and he is supporting all of our 140 teachers across the 10 high schools in our 34 programs of study and uh and all our other staff. Sean Carter will be working with Chris and he is the career coach. He is helping these kids get the right schedules and get into these programs that is not exactly easy and it's a jigsaw puzzle. So, um, how did we get here? The ISM grant, we happen to be sitting in the right place at the right time is what this is. This was a onetime shot by Governor Lee that allocated $500 million uh for the state of Tennessee specific for career and technical education. And the recipe was the million dollars per high school and 500,000

022per middle school. So once they were explaining this, I was sitting beside Chris in a meeting and I heard two words. You can pull the money if you're a multi-school district and you can build. And I just looked at her and I said, we're fixing to build. But then they followed it up with you can only build with 10% of the overall allocation. So I was thinking, man, you can't do much for that amount of money. So we started thinking and and kind of mulling it over and and coming up with a plan. And then we reached out to our TDO folks and uh got the commissioners on line and said, "Hey, I want to give me 10 minutes. I just want to kind of throw something at you." And by the time we finished,

023they had given us the approval to say 100% of that allocation go could go to bricks and mortar uh building. So, we were very appreciative of them to be able to do that. Matter of fact, it pretty much changed the game. They opened it up for the other system to do uh as such. There have been a couple that have come on late that have used a a high portion, but I think we were the first and the only at 100% allocated towards uh uh building a new building. And we thought that if we went and spent it elsewhere on equipment and on technology that as you all know that have shelf life. So what was the best way we could use this money, be good stewards of this money and after we're all in

024this room are gone and retired and done that this money is still being used. uh in that building. So uh reimagining in time, space, learning and uh and partners were the uh kind of the criteria that you had to do uh to get the money. So I'm going to explain that very briefly of how we're going to do that or actually Chris will do that in a minute. I wanted you to look at some uh trends that are happening around the world uh today, specifically nationally uh about some things that are shifting. 30 years ago when I was in high school, you had a choice. you're either going to work or you're going to college. We didn't try to blend the two, right? That was one thing that we discussed that every single program that

025we were going to build in this building had every single exit route known to man. So, in other words, a kid could go to work, a kid could get a technical certificate, a kid could go to two-year college and get an associates degree or a four-year. It's not our job to pick the exit ramps, it's our job to build them. So, that's what we built in to each of those. But you could see the pendulum has shifted from one end to the other. Now for every five skil trade worker walking out of the profession and retiring only one is entering. So we thought okay we have to have a skil trade piece. Right? Then we started looking at our local government and local chamber and local needs of workforce development. Where are the shortages? who

026are the partners we can approach and say, "Hey, we want you a part of this. If you need entry level uh employees, tell us what that looks like and how can we build a program?" We got told no quite a bit because we were coming off the tales of COVID and there was a lot of uncertainty at that time about employee and and whether they're anything going to be in the office most of the time or what things were going to happen. And uh we started looking we started looking at TSBA uh data and said all right let's make a list and then we sent that list out to uh our rising 7th through uh 11th graders at the time and we we outlined about 10 to 15 different ones that we thought we could

027pull off uh regionally and locally. We got an unbelievable amount of survey information back from parents. Matter of fact, it was in the 7,000 range. And we started ranking those programs accordingly, right? Okay, this is a good one. This is a regional need. This is a local need. Now, let's go find those partners. So, that was kind of the criteria and the methodology of how we selected our programs. And without further ado, I'm going to let uh Miss Schneider discuss these programs with you uh that's going to be offered in the building. So of the five programs we're going to start next year and we will start offering advanced power and machinery and we go into it a little bit in the next slide but advanced power and machinery aviation cyber security and artificial intelligence

028hospitality tourism and culinary and fire management and all of these are offered with like Dr. Qual said different exit ramps. So, in our aviation pathway for a senior who comes to us and they are like, "Hey, I've already done some flight school. I've already gotten my private pilots's license. What can I do?" We've talked with MTSU about dual enrolling them. So, the students will be in our building dual- enrolled through MTSU's aviation program. We also will get to where we'll offer the private pilots license. Parents will have to do an outside agreement with a flight school to actually get that done because I can only do so much on the flight simulators. We can't do actual flying unless you're okay with it. >> Um, but the cool part is all of our flight simulators that

029we are working on purchasing are FAA approved for loggable flight hours. So if our teacher has a CFI, which is a certified flight instructor, they're able to give the kids the loggable hours. So now instead of the students going off to a flight school and paying $170 or $150 an hour, they're going to do it in class with our teacher, who's hopefully a CFI, and then they can log the hours. Um, you skipped one of them. Sorry. Um, our cyber security and AI program. This was built 100% with dual enrollment through Columbia State. The students come to us as juniors and seniors. They can walk out with a cyber security certificate. So, with that cyber security certificate, they could go straight to work. They could go to Columbia State to finish their associates or they

030could go off to a four-year and work more in that field. We don't know what cyber security is going to look like in six months. So, working with the colleges is a huge benefit for us. Advanced Power and Machinery. This will be the very first TCAT location in Williamson County. TCAT Dixon is where we have been sending our kids. That's a drive if you're from Nolanville. If you're from anywhere, that's a drive to go and commit. This program, they actually rewrote the curriculum for two different programs. The electrical power assistant and then the off-road diesel assistant. So, both of those will be offered next year for June, really for freshman through seniors as it fits in their schedule. uh hospitality, tourism, and culinary. We're adding the and culinary because only three of our high schools

031have culinary, and that is a need. Hospitality and tourism is huge in Franklin. This is also a technical certificate through Columbia State Community College. The goal is to get internships that are local, and then if they decide to go off to school, they can go to MTSU and work in a hotel. The building is unique that we have a mock hotel room and a mock hotel lobby to where kids can be our ambassadors of the innovation center. And then finally, our fire management program. Um, this was built with the city of Franklin. We're actually piloting it this year. Uh, the goal is that the students walk out with firefighter one, basic EMT, CPR, and possibly EMT if they do enroll through Columbia State. So, if you don't know, to get firefighter one, you have to

032complete a live burn. So, the city of Franklin, the legal teams, all the legal teams love me. Um, we've gotten it all approved and hopefully we'll have our first cohort of 12 seniors that will be eligible to roll into the city of Franklin's intern program. I know what you're going to say. Go ahead. >> No, finish. Finish. >> And earlier this week, we talked with the Department of Labor about setting up an apprenticeship program so that the apprenticeship program is at the city of Franklin Fire Department. our students would become pre-apprentice which is pretty cool >> which would be our first time for that but I I do want to look at the advanced power caterpillar is our first partner on this project that was the first yes yes that we got and you you

033asked the question why think about local workforce if you've been past uh south of 840 past Independence Caterpillar's building their brand new uh center down there it's the largest tech center that they're they've built yet our kids will be able to hopefully we'll kick them out of the nest and go directly to work for Caterpillar uh south of Independence down there. So, that's just one uh example of how uh locally this will this will impact our workforce. If you look at our enrollment data, we do have a max capacity at the innovation center of 525 based on the current schedule we have. If you look on the left, these are our high schools. And I would like to point out that we have not visited Paige High School or Vanguard yet. Paige High School was

034supposed to be December 5th. they were at the state tournament and they said there's not going to be a ton of kids. We're going there tomorrow. Actually every time that we go to a school the next night the numbers go up. So that will happen. Advanced power machinery as you can see we have 71 applicants for 40 spots. TCAT sets that number as 20 per program. Um aviation we have a max capacity of 225 because FSD has actually been offering aviation for the last two years. So we will have students who are rising sophomores ready to roll into level three aviation. >> Franklin Special used their innovative schools models grant to get that program started knowing that we were going to be setting up a program to allow them to metriculate up to us. >>

035So we really we set a goal in the first year too to have that 50% potential capacity. We've already gone past that with I would say by close of business tomorrow we'll be over 300 applications. >> Yeah. So I so if you look at all of the programs they are growing I think after tomorrow after Paige we'll have yeah like you said we'll be over 300 >> with a max capacity of 525 plus the entrepreneurship uh center at 280 we're looking at potential enrollment of 805 on that campus which is which is large and we're super excited about that. Like like I told you earlier the entrepreneurship center already has a pretty lengthy wait list to even get in and um we're super excited. We think that this is going to reach its potential 100%

036capacity by by the third year, if not before. And uh I'm not sure we're we need it in year one because there going to be a lot of kinks to work out. But uh we're super excited about the opportunities uh that we're going to provide for the kids. Here are some renderings of what the inside looks like. I do want to say uh Mr. Golden mentioned it. Uh Bell and Associates uh got the contract and been unbelievable partners on this process. uh client Sweeney also captured the thought process and with Eric and Oversight, this has been a great project. I don't know that I've been a great client for them and they probably have some gray hairs because of me and I I warned them on the front that I was going to be uh

037not a good client, but they've been so good to work with. And you have to remember we broke ground on December 4th. The building had not even been knocked down, the old animal control building on December 4th. 13 months later, this thing is is all but completely finished. So they have they have done a great job. >> By the way, county government was good to us. Uh they they they gave us that space uh so that we could actually build because this this particular piece of land was actually officially county government progress. >> So this is looking from the very top into the grab-and-go area. This part's important because the one thing that we feel like we're missing in some of these is transition students. Our goal is to have the transition students come and

038help create the menus and run through and build our uh innovation uh grab-and-go area >> as part of our CTE strategic plan. Uh there was a portion of helping that particular population that I felt like as a team we we we talked about it and we really want to ramp that up and we've already started the innovation cafe at the EIC. It's super successful right now. uh uh and now we're just going to expand that even further for those students and work-based learning students as a whole. >> In nut nutshell, just as a reminder, transition students are students with disabilities who are on a special education uh diploma track. >> This is looking into the Thompson Caterpillar TCAT space, if you will, uh where we're going to be do advanced power machinery and electrical power

039generation. Mhm. >> And this was the original, it's not the original room. This is about number five revision. Uh we kind of talked to them about what the interior of the entrepreneurship center looks like, the collaboration, the openness, the the feeling of innovation in that. How do we capture that vision and make it an external facade? And I think they captured it pretty well. So there's the final product. We do have on the lefth hand side since this picture was taken, it actually has the name of the building in that wood area that look makes it look even better. Um, but we are like Mr. Golden said, we are setting dates for you guys to come through and tour it and uh we can't wait to get those dates done and we were going to

040wait uh midFebruary. Eric's right when we're looking at furniture package being delivered. So, we don't we kind of want to have it staged for you to show you what it really looks like and uh we can't wait for that. Lydia, did we come in under 10 minutes? You fell asleep on me. >> Okay. >> And I I want to mention a couple other little pieces related to that. We will be scheduling a ribbon cutting probably in the very very early fall in the in the heat of the summer, probably uh for the ribbon cutting as as our once our students have committed. Second, uh um Mr. Brown, you and I have have had these discussions over the years in this context. You've often asked when you have a grant, are we committing to funds long-term

041with a grant? Uh we made sure with this facility. Now, I will tell you the intent of the of the state was yes. They're trying to prime the pump so that so that school districts will commit additional funding to career tech. uh this this was 100% uh built with that grant money, but we will be including teachers in our budget. Last thing I want to tell you that Chris and I have been all over the country looking at innovation centers, CTE centers if you will. Uh the most impressive one mi Mr. Gold and I actually got to see was in Arizona at East Valley Institute Technology. And it's not uncommon to see CTE centers across the country. It's not uncommon to see entrepreneurship centers. Here's what I think is going to be the magic sauce

042for WCS that sets us apart from everybody. Everywhere we went, it was an either or. Ours are going to work together. We're going to teach kids how to do a skill trade, if you will, uh on their passions, and then we're going to teach them how to open their own business and business plans. That to me is we've yet to find it. And I think that we are breaking the mold when it comes to that on innovation here in Williamson County, not just statewide, but nationally. And we have made a lot of trips to see a lot of places. So, we're super excited about that. >> Um, I also want to specifically thank Drs. Allen and Webb. Uh, they have put in countless hours and thought in helping us get this pro these programs off

043the ground. So, thank you both uh for your for your additional work on this. >> Eric, you have a question? >> Yeah, thank you. So, so go back to the uh uh sessions that we offer that slide >> the programming. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. Forward one or two more. There we go. That's fine. Either one. One more. So, I'm gonna I'm going to ask a question I already know the answer to here. Uh, so Jeremy gave me a pre-our of the of the the thing. I twisted his arm a bit. It wasn't that hard to get him to show off his baby. Um, if if you haven't seen the EIC, let let me stop at this. And and when I say IC, I mean mean the legacy version of it, the entrepreneurial innovation

044center. You should get over there. It is it's it's just one of the crown jewels of Williamson County Schools. I think there's an argument to be made that it's it's the best thing that that we do. Um, you know, you can make that argument even, uh, you know, back-to-back national champs. Just be able to have one is incredible to say, here's a program that we had where the the student entrepreneur of the year came out of our program and we had it back to back. It's it's amazing stuff. And now with we're splitting them up, turning it into the campus, you've got the entrepreneurship side, you've got the innovation side. It it's not even a doubling of it. It's more it's it's going to more than double it because you're going to have the synergies

045of the two. Uh so when it does open up the ribbon cutting, I just really encourage everyone to go see it. Uh I was on the uh initial startup board for it. My wife's a a mentor on it. I've been involved and so yeah, this is good. It's the next add-on and I went over to see it. I just even with all that and the great expectations and everything else, I was blown away by it. So, I I can't speak highly enough it enough and I just want to do that because Jeremy's such a low energy guy. Chris has always got to push him out there to talk to people that that someone had to hype it up, you know. Um, but so the firefighter program, we're going to come right out and they're going

046to have jobs right out of that. What are those jobs going to pay? So, the starting salary for a student who comes out with firefighter one EMT at the city of Franklin is $71,500 a year >> with a with a college reimbursement program in if they choose to go to college. >> So, over $71,000 a year at 18 years of age. >> Correct. >> No college debt. Correct. >> Correct. And hopefully they've done EMT and firefighter one using the dual enrollment grant. So, they've had no cost to them just yet. >> And they can get the college >> college paid for at day one. Yes. >> Okay. I had four years of college and I wasn't making that much money and I did that when I came out with my first job. U significantly the

047uh uh advanced power machinery. How many technical hours are they going to come out with? >> They will come out with each certification is 528 technical hours. So, as a junior, you could take electrical power assistant and that's 528 logable hours as a certificate and then off-road diesel is also 500 and when 528 and when I mentioned that TCAT rewrote that the dual enrollment grant covers, 1296 hours of instruction for students. So, that was why they rewrote it to give our kids the opportunity to do both certificates. And the impactful thing about that is on that trend data slide that I showed you, >> most of these companies like Caterpillar as an example, >> yeah, >> are kind of cutting the legs out from under some of these technical colleges because what they're finding out

048is they're having to reskill and real retool once they get on their boots on the ground. >> So he's like, "Hey, let's take the bull by the horns. Let's get with TCAT. Let's get on the front end of this and let's develop it like we do internally." And I I love it that TCAT and uh uh Caterpillar both came to the table and like, "Hey, let's do this. Let's make this happen." So, it's really so efficient, so fast, so lame that they get in those in those jobs, get a truck, and those jobs pay between 70 and $100,000. >> 70 and $100,000. >> That's correct. >> 18 years old. >> As 18 years old, no debt. >> Now, obviously, there's there's steps, but sure, they they could get to the 100,000 pretty quick. And so

0491,300 hours certification, 700,000 of the >> Now that's that's a little strategic and we didn't have enough time because Lydia cut us off. But but I'm I'm going to say this, >> there's three-hour blocks. So there some of this programming is not for a traditional student that has an hour block to to be able to go burn. Like for this program, you have to strategically frontload your schedule, right? And then senior year, junior, senior year, we're looking at three-hour chunks of time that they're sitting in there getting that certifi certification hours uh in in the facility. >> And if if I don't want to if I do want to go to college, you know, if I want to be a civil engineer or something like that, how does this benefit? >> This is stackable. That's

050the beautiful thing about it. If I want to be electrical engineer or mechanical engineer, I cannot I cannot tell the kids enough to go take this program to see if this is really what you want to do. And if you do want to do it, it even adds more value to resume and applications. A lot of these programs were built off conversations with post-secaries. I can remember when we were building out the cyber security AI program uh talking to the provost at Belmont and they get roughly 25,000 applications a year and every one of the applications look like kids from Williamson County all across the country. So I said, "What what is different? How do you get, you know, how do you get in?" And they said, "Well, once you get past the threshold of

051whatever our minimal ACT score is and all the things that we have, once you get past that, we start looking at portfolios." I said, "Beautiful. What does that what does that include?" And they was talking about how many CTE classes to do, what have they done, have they built a business, have they basically talking about what we were building? And and I was like, "This is this is proof right here." So, if a kid wants to go further, they're building an unbelievable resume where they can go in and say, "Hey, I got a technical certificate in high school in mechanical uh diesel engines and I want to become a mechanical engineer and it's going to be just they're just building unbelievable resumes to get in." >> So, Lydia told me to keep it short, too,

052but I told her I'm not going to. I don't care. So, tell the story about the young lady who wanted to major in entrepreneurship and was going to go to uh Lyola. >> Yes. spraying >> the short version. >> Good luck. Yep. See, they turn you. >> I know. >> There's no such thing as a short version, but I'll give my best. All right, we'll get out of here. >> Um, one of our allst stars, Patrick Whitlock's daughter, Rya Whitlock, uh, was one of our entrepreneurial students and she's just remarkable. She goes to Loyal Chicago to be, uh, on a dance scholarship and to be an entrepreneur. She gets into the entrepreneurship center and and has her uh entrance interview with the director. She sits down and she unrolls her her her resume which includes

053OTL. If you don't want OTL, that's a whole another story. Uh the EIC and everything that she has done up and to date. And the guy looked at her when she finished, he goes, "Uh yeah, you need to go change majors. There's nothing here that I can offer you, but I do want you to be a mentor." She's the first 18-year-old mentor, I think, in the history of loyal Chicago. uh entrepreneurial center. So that is also proof in the pudding and and the the the amount of scholarships that those kids are getting and the and the dream schools get into. Our reigning national champion is won $76,000 to date in pitch contest. She got into South by Southwest, which is no easy feat. >> Yeah. >> And she's still a senior in high school, by

054the way. She's selling anywhere between $500 and $1,500 a week in product. and she got into the Wharton business school at Penn and she will tell you if she was standing here right now without the EIC she would not be in that and she's also having a meeting in two weeks for potential somebody buying her company and she's not even 18 yet so I gave an extra story in there Eric I'm out I'm done I'm cutting it off >> one quick question okay am I I think from info >> well here let me let me wrap up with this and I'll turn it over to you with this one so It's just to say again, go see it because it's the renderings are cool, but you go into the building, you smell the fresh paint,

055you see everything. It's it's just a cool facility to be around. It's it's got an energy vibe to it where you just walk into some of those things. Like when you walk into a Coil restaurant, you go, "Oh, I like it here." That's what the building is like. And you know, everyone here, I think, has a chance to be associated with. And I say associated because, you know, we just need just get the hell out of their way. Let them run. They got great people. Sean Carter, what an amazing hire over there as well. Uh, but you, you know, we all all got the chance to really be associated with something uh nationally recognized here. And I imagine at some point you're going to come and you're going to ask you for a few things

056and whatever you need. I'm already on board. >> So, that's all I want to say. Thank you. >> In the spirit of that, y'all have an open house later this month, right? >> The open house is for the entrepreneurship center, right? it. We're not taking people over to the innovation center just yet. We're going to wait until we get furniture and it's set up. >> Okay. And then for families that are interested, tell me the timeline again just for the open house and applications for those uh for the entrepreneurship center. >> Okay. So, entrepreneurship center and innovation center applications have the same timeline. Applications opened December 3rd. They will close February 13th. by spring break is our internal goal to let all of the students know if they made it into the program so that

057by from spring break through summer we can work on scheduling and transportation and all of that. >> So spring break is the goal. >> So if parents are interested after their students have heard your presentation they can come to the open house later this month for the entrepreneur >> for the entrepreneurship center. We will be putting out another date for a nighttime zoom for parents because we did three parent meetings in December for the innovation center. Okay. >> And we have gotten a lot of requests recently uh about doing just getting more information. >> Everybody take your phones out. >> Oh, there you go. >> The best way to do it, you can keep an update only. >> Okay. >> I forgot how you put that in. >> That's why I asked you if that

058was the last slide. >> Yeah. Help spread the word. Tell them about the pens. >> So, the pens on your desk that are the the red innovation center pens. If your phone is unlocked and you hold it up, it's got an NFC chip in it. that will take you directly to the WCS website and the innovation center information. So, we're working on keeping that updated and full of information. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I do I do have a question on the go back to the slide if you don't mind where it lists the five programs and the slots >> for the applications. >> That one, what's the cap on? You said advanced power and machinery and aviation, but what are the other three uh capacity? >> Cyber security and AI right

059now would cap at 100. Hospitality, tourism, and culinary would cap at 100. Fire management as of right now caps at 12. That is only one cohort of students because the city of Franklin has a team of firefighters that come in and teach that one time a day. So, Chief has asked if there was a need for another group and I think with 18 we could say yes. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you guys. >> I wanted to thank you guys. This is amazing. I'm so excited about this. I love everything about it. I love how you guys focused on building the building and then relying on the the partnerships to step in. Um, so just for a little I'm curious just as a former teacher, how does the scheduling work? Do do kids

060come five days a week or do you every day? >> I'll let it go. You guys microphone. >> Oh, no. >> It is built into their daily schedule. So think of it as travel time is like built into their study hall. So the kids the students do have to give up part of their study hall. Um or it's during lunch periods. >> So you kind of frame it towards the end of the day or lunch periods >> or the beginning of the day to where we we're going to start about 20 minutes earlier >> to get around some of the Franklin High traffic. We can start 20 minutes earlier. They can have study hall as their first period and show up about 15 minutes late after class. >> Okay. >> Does that make sense? >>

061Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Oh yes. So that was part of being on the same campus is that we already have bus transportation from every high school for the entrepreneurship center. So we'll double it for the innovation center. So it won't add buses and hopefully not a headache, but we're trying. Uh >> but we but you allow kids who are drivers to drive. Yes. So that's I'm so excited about this. >> Statistically speaking, how how how many students are driving themselves versus buses >> currently at the EC? Yeah, >> it's probably about 50/50 depending on the time because the very early morning obviously we don't have buses and the very afternoon we don't have buses. The middle of the day we have four cohorts that we provide transportation from every school. >> So our bus drivers

062who who drive for the um entrepreneurship center will run a regular route and then they'll you know they might finish up at Mil Creek and then they'll head over to >> you know head over to Nolanville High School and pick up a route and take them. Well, I just I can't thank you enough for jumping on this and you you did bravo. >> It's a team effort. >> Yeah. And everybody Yeah. Built so fast. >> Yeah. >> It's phenomenal. I'm so excited. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Golden. Can I add something to that? >> Sure. >> Another key collaboration for for CT has been with Vanguard High School. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but in that same annex adjoining the EIC, there's a classroom with an outside entrance that is

063kind of like the hub for Vanguard, our online school. And so one of the key collaborations with with them for this project with the the entrepreneurship center and the innovation hub is that occasionally there will be a student who wants to take multiple classes at one of these two locations, but it it's hard for them to get from Independence High School or Nolanville High School and and be there for an extended amount of time and or travel becomes an issue. So what Vanguard has done is that they're saving seats in their classes that are not filled by Vanguard students. they're holding those spots for the students who wish to attend the EIC or uh the innovation center or the entrepreneurship center so that they may take an asynchronous class or two uh to give themselves

064a little bit more breathing room in their schedule. So maybe they want to spend a little extra time after their class ends at one of these two locations and they want to meet with mentors after class or have some more lab time uh in that building. Having that partnership with Vanguard and it being right there on that same hub allows them the opportunity to do that, have flexibility in their schedule, spend a little bit extra time, and I don't know if you know this or not, but we also, even though it's an online school, there are a lot of students who come in face toface. They just from Vanguard, they need some face-to-face um tutoring or um just some direct instruction in person from time to time. And so, we do have teachers that do

065spend a lot of time in Vanguard. So, those students who are taking an online class, maybe uh they're struggling a little bit uh in that online class, they can just walk right over from one of these two locations and see a teacher and schedule a meeting with them face to face. So, I can't say enough about all of our leaders in Williamson County and how they collaborate together. And when there's a project that's taken place there, we really try to ensure there's no stone unturned and we're strategic about the partnerships and relationships within all of our programming. >> Thank you, Dr. Wel. And I think that adds another the versatility of the campus and the uniqueness of what we're being able to offer that we can get any kid in there. Any further questions? >>

066I I just have to make a statement as a to pile on to the the accolades. In my day job, we talk a lot about workforce development across Tennessee. And this is exactly the kind of thing that everybody's talking about that's starting to happen is that the customization of programming to meet the needs of employers. It's not the cookie cutter thing that used to be where this was the curriculum and you just took it or leap or left it. this is, you know, companies are are saying, "I need this type of worker." And then local education systems, whether it be K12 or or TCATs or community colleges, are adapting to that and saying, "We're going to create programming and curriculum and and certifications to meet those needs specifically." And this is exactly um I mean,

067I'm going to I'm going to go tell this story in my day job um proudly, but um this is exactly it. I mean, I was I was at a company in Clarksville. They're going to hire 400 people. They're building a facility right now. They're going to hire 400 people advanced manufacturing jobs and they're going to hire 350 of them by going down to the TCAT two miles down the street supplying the instructors who are employees of the company. They're going to supply the instructors and they're going to get space on the on the uh TCAT's class schedule. Um and then they're going to supply the students. People are going to enroll in the classes. They get the certification. They drive two miles down the street and they have a job paying 75 grand um working

068in that factory. I mean, it's this is exactly what we need. >> When we first started talking to companies, we kind of fell into that trap. I fell in that trap. And uh we didn't quite discover the ROI yet. And that's the ROI is how do we tailor made these programs towards workforce development for these companies to have skin in the game and say, "Yes, we will back you if we can get x amount of employees." So that's that's the return on investment. >> Thank you guys so much. >> I I want to Dr. Qu's horn in just just one other context. >> Bill is never going to ask us. And I may be over I may be overstating this or maybe understating this. >> TDOE still needs to catch up to some of those

069certifications. Um 100% >> and Dr. Calls has been making that argument to them. Uh they talk about EPSOS early postsecondary opportunities and then some of the certifications they have at the state level. Uh and it it takes it takes quick motion and change because technology changes so quickly in in in manufacturing. And so thank you for having those conversations with him as well. All right. Well done, guys. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh we're going to we're going to take a shift, maybe a 90° turn on our on our next one. You all know that we've been having regular conversations about our textbook adoption process. Ironically, uh much of the adoption this year are career and technical education programs, including some manufacturing. Uh so uh Jen Sauer is going to present our next iteration,

070our next month's report on where we are with our textbook adoption process. And this is the month where the proverbial rubber is hitting the road. So Jen, if you would. All right. I want to kind of uh take you back to the last time we were together. So, if you remember, the last time I was here speaking to you guys was at our November work session and we were hours away from our prediction that the state was going to pass the list of materials that have passed state betting for this year. So, I did wanted to update you that that list did pass as we expected back at the November meeting. So, the list that we looked at then is the list that did actually pass state vetting. The link is there to get to

071it if you would like to go and review that. Again, I also wanted to let you know that since then, the state has also released the summary of reviewer comments. So, every year the state kind of compiles after their state vetting process, what was the feedback that they got from their reviewer committees and then that is linked there on that state website as well. So, I wanted to make sure you had both of those things available. It's just kind of catch up on what's happened since the last time we were together at that state uh level. I also wanted to remind you that we had some courses that no materials passed for state vetting, our uh mechronics course of studies, which is that course that we offer out at Fairview High School that fits in

072that advanced manufacturing. There were no materials that passed state vetting for any of those courses. So, our CTE people, Chris Cooper, has been in a close contact with publishers, with the teachers to pull some materials that we think could potentially fit those courses. So, I just wanted to let you know that we do have some materials that we're going to be reviewing. I'll remind you just like I've been talking with the committee, they weren't materials that were went through the state vetting process. So those teachers are just going to be really carefully evaluating are these materials that really do fit the needs of the course um as they go through that process. We did have a meeting in December. So we pulled our textbook committee together on December 8th. They were able to look at

073that list of materials that had passed state vetting. We reviewed in detail our textbook adoption process to make really sure that they were very familiar with all the things that they were going to be doing and being able to communicate that back to teachers in their building. We finalized their draft that they did at their November meeting of those criteria checklists that the teachers and the committee will use to evaluate materials as we go through our adoption process. And then every committee member swore the oath that's required by TDOE that participants have not and will not be inappropriately influenced by publishers. I did want to make sure that you had access to what did those criteria checklists look like that ended up being that final draft form that came out of the committee. So they're

074here on the screen. I know it's kind of small, but I'll just kind of remind you if you want to go back and reference uh this slide later when you have access to the presentation. So we kind of grouped it as two different because if you remember our adoption is a little bit diverse this year. So we have health PE and high school lifetime wellness developed a set of criteria checklists and then our CTE teachers work to come up with a criteria checklist that fit the needs of their courses. You'll see that on both of them there's blank spaces because we encourage the committee and the teachers to continue conversations and consider this a living document. So, as other things come up as their review process, we encourage them to kind of add that to

075what they're looking at when they're reviewing materials. I also wanted to let you know that I talked to the committee about those updates to board policy 4.401, the one about textbooks and instructional materials. those updates were made I would not say in the middle but once we had already started the textbook adoption process but these two pieces of that were able to be implemented this year so I've updated the committee on that and I wanted to make sure that you guys knew too so that first one the textbook review will include whether textbooks have any data or studies showing better student outcomes with particular consideration given to any essay tier data. So, I talked to the committee about that in December and then I copy pasted right out of the policy, sent that to every

076single publisher and requested that they send us any information that they had regarding that particular part of the policy. As of now, we don't have anything from publishers that specifically speaks to that data or studies regarding student outcomes. If anything does come to light, of course, we'll make sure that the committee gets that, but so far we don't have anything from publishers. Um, there's also the statement that says the textbook adoption committee selections will be submitted to the board for approval along with written explanations. So, that's also been discussed with the committee. They've been asked to pass that on to teachers in their building. And when teachers submit that electronic form to indicate their selection, it's also going to include a section that requests for teachers to fill in that written explanation. This is a

077copy of that oath that is required as part of TDOE. So again, if you're interested in going back and looking at it, I wanted to make sure you had access to that in the slide. We also tomorrow right back here in this building at 8:00 in the morning we have our probably our most involved textbook committee meeting. So this is a meeting where we have the entire textbook committee here and the publishers come to meet with the committee and kind of introduce the committee to their materials. So the way the agenda works the committee is going to hear the presentations from the publishers. They have the opportunity to take notes and ask questions. We've invited, this sounds grand, the CTE teachers of course is up for adoption, but who are not on the committee. There

078are three of them. So, we invited them to come in and have the opportunity to be able to hear from the publishers as well since that meeting is happening. >> Jen, just as an aside, when social studies comes next year, that's not going to be possible. >> It is not going to be an option. You are right. >> We will have a few hundred. >> Correct. I actually if you go K to 12 it is uh it's probably close to a thousand. That would be my prediction. Yeah, it's a lot. Um the way the schedule's written, each publisher has approximately 50 minutes which is presentation and also any question and time with the committee and then the committee members are going to be encouraged to bring all that information back to the teachers that they

079work with in their building. As far as teacher reviews, here are the things that teachers are going to be doing between January and February. So teachers have access to print materials at those sitebased reviews. So those are the five different high schools and middle schools where materials have been sent from publishers. Those are available in January and February. Teachers also have access to digital access that was provided by the publishers. And then to Mr. Golden's point, the health, PE, and wellness teachers, there are a lot more of them than three. So, they're going to have an opportunity to meet with publishers on February 13th, which is our districtwide day. In midFebruary, so February 13th, we'll open up that electronic form that teachers will submit both their recommendation and their reasoning to the textbook committee. They

080have almost a week to fill that out. So, we keep it open the 13th through the 19th. That teacher reasoning and recommendation data is then captured. It's aggregated by school and then the committee will meet on February 24th. They receive all of that information that comes out of their building. So, teacher members receive the data that comes specific to their building. the uh community and parent members receive the full district data. While that's happening, we also have public reviews going on here at the PD Center. So, we have six different dates. There are a variety of days of the week and a variety of times of day to make sure we're meeting the needs of our diverse community and their schedules that they're keeping. We also have digital samples on the website and I'm going

081to put up the next slide that kind of goes into a little bit detail about that. So on our website, we've posted access to the publicly available digital access. So, just so you kind of know how that process works, as part of the state process, TDOE publicly posts digital access to all of the publisher materials that are submitted to the state. That's available on the state website. We could point members of the public directly to that. I would say that it's a little bit less user friendly because of two things. Number one, the material on the state site is grouped by publisher, not by course. So, as a parent or a community member, if I'm trying to go in and review materials, I'm not going to know which courses are under which publisher. The other

082thing is that the state is going to include everything that was submitted. Not all of those actually pass state vetting. So, that's also a little bit confusing if you go directly there. So, what we do instead is we just pull those links and we organize them by course rather than by publisher because we found that that's a little bit easier for people to navigate. So there's just a little snapshot there that you can look at. This is just one that I picked because it was close to the top. So if I'm interested in reviewing what's available for the course, Principles of Engineering and Technology, I'll look down below there and I'll see that I have two different resources from two different publishers. Here's the title and then here's the way I access it. If you

083as a member of the public choose to go to that on the website, you're also going to have access to the public comment form. So the public comment form if you come to a physical review we have paper copies of that available and we also have the QR code that goes directly to the electronic form. If you go to the website the website links directly to that public comment form and electronic form as we receive any public comments about the textbooks during the review process. We compile all of those. We make them available to you on the board and we also make it available to the textbook committee. Okay, I wanted to remind you again we're about halfway through. So tomorrow is that meeting on January 16th and then we only have one more textbook

084committee meeting. So February 24th is when the committee meeters meet uh excuse me committee members will come back together to cast that recommendation that that will then go to you all. wanted to kind of tell you about that because uh spring break is a little bit early this year. So that kind of throws the schedule a little bit off. So the committee is going to meet on February 24th. Their meeting is in the afternoon. So it's going to take a little bit of time. I don't really know what to tell you. It'll be a couple of days while we compile all of that information, but we're going to send out to you as soon as we have it together. Here are the results. After that February 24th committee meeting and then after spring break, our

085work session is on March 19th. So, we'll be here to present that to you at March 19th and then it's scheduled that you'll have your vote at that March 24 or excuse me, March 23rd board meeting. Okay. Do you guys have questions for me? >> I want to mention a couple things for you all. uh that meeting tomorrow, the publishers has some scheduled time, so they'll be taking turns presenting. So, if you drop in, you'll just happen upon a publisher uh based on whatever time you you show up. If I'm not mistaken, Jen, at the end of that day, your team will be spending some time talking about that day and in reviewing that. >> That's correct. Yes. The the final publisher presentation ends at 2:00. The committee will be here until about three and

086that'll be their time to kind of meet in small groups, kind of debrief and discuss, come up with uh what notes they have and then if they have any additional questions, what I'll do is be capturing that information and making sure that gets passed on to the publishers so that we can make sure that those questions that they have at the end of the day get captured, passed to the publisher and then get back to the committee so that they can then pass that on to the teacher. So that final hour is kind of that uh work session time if you will. >> And one one key value I would suggest to you all as board members in what's going on right now is to give you an idea of what's going to happen at

087with a much more involved social studies adoption next year. Uh so if you get a glimpse of the process, I think it's going to prepare you well for that much more involved uh a lot more content uh that you're going to see next year. Um, so you know, I asked how we might support you. So I did have a meeting with uh Jake Macauman and I forget her name. Dr. Linda, do you remember? No, Dr. Cash, who part of the adoption textbook on December 9th. Um, one of the things she shared, you know, she's like the timeline's kind of the timeline, but I thought it was interesting. One of the couple things she shared was that like the social studies standards were released, you know, last year. So, like they're being implemented now in her

088district. I don't know if that's what our district is doing. and they actually don't approve the textbook adoption till June because they say that they so they would take like this school year to start the transition to the standards. They vote on the books in June and then they kind of slowly work in switching the teachers to the new textbooks and they take a whole year to actually cuz I said, "Well, don't you want to start August with the textbooks?" She's like, "No, it's too much change at one time." So, we actually work with our teachers to because she's like, "You actually have a whole year to to work in the textbook." So, I don't know if that's something how you all do it or it's something you all considered doing. Do we have to

089vote? Because I know social studies is going to be a huge, you know, is that something where maybe instead of voting in March on it, we do give that extended time because that's what I kept telling her. I'm like, but we only have eight weeks. She's like, but not all districts vote in March. And I'm like, well, and then that's when she kind of to shared some of the process with me. So, I didn't I just wanted to share that. didn't know if that's something like I said I'm not as worried about this one because it's not as big but I know social studies is going to be >> um >> we've had >> and just wondering about our processes >> we have had some discussions related to that over the years uh to answer

090that first piece and Dr. Allen I I may call on you and maybe Dr. Weber or Dr. Royer with some details at the grade levels. We do set a goal of transitioning in that first year uh to because we do want to make sure our students have access to the to instruction on those standards. We have not set it up for that delay that she mentioned. That's been a a goal of ours. Dr. Allen, I may get you to speak to the the detail of of how we transition. Uh, one piece related to that is we do try to get a little ahead of the curve um, compared to our neighbors because you're getting in line for the actual textbooks. Uh, and so if you get in the mix, you may by default end up

091having to wait some if you're if you're making a purchase later. So, we do try to get ahead of the queue. And I do know that strategically different districts might do different things. Uh, Linda Cash is the superintendent in Bradley County, really good school district. uh in the northn norththeast of Chattanooga. She and I have had a number of conversations. Uh we found that that works well for us. Uh Dr. Allen, can you give some more details related to that? >> Well, first of all, Dr. Johnson, thank you for reaching out and trying to support us in that work because obviously yeah, we want to be on the the front end and and make decisions here um internally in our district as quickly as we can based on based on the responses that we get

092from the state. So, as it relates to the standards changing, we are aware of the adjustments that have been made to the standards and our curriculum specialists are going through and and preparing for those changes, but the current the old state standards are still in place. And so, the state standards are our roadmap. It's what we are required to support our students in learning from year to year. and it's what they're assessed on um at the end of every year through the through the state assessment. So, we can't make any adjustments until the new standards are in play and those new standards will be in play the year that we have uh the new materials. So, um so we make no adjustments. We're still using our current materials. um the new standards when they're in

093play, not next year, but the following year will will be the year that we start um uh we start our our scope and sequence documents and our pacing guides aligned to those standards. So, we we we do have a very short period of time to transition from old materials to new materials. So, it's the spring of uh of one year to the fall of the next year. And so, um, part of our textbook adoption process every single year is kind of really front-loading a lot of professional development over the summer, reinforcing that professional development during the year. We're doing that right now with our science. We're doing a gap analysis to see where we need to um, uh, refine our instructional materials. We do that same thing with everything. We'll do that same thing with

094with social studies. Um, but but it's a really good point. The time frame from the shifting from the old standards to the new standards is defined by the state and it is that 2728 school year. So that's when our alignment of our instructional materials will be in play with those new standards and students will be assessed on those new standards. >> I don't know, but I have a suspicion that part of the discussion and I'll probably catch Dr. cash at some point and ask her this is there are some districts who focus on essential standards uh you know and and maybe those standards that have that that that are still going to be in place the next year uh and then maybe make some transit you know transitions in their in their pacing on some

095of those standards that don't fit that definition. I I wonder if that's part part of what they may be doing uh because there is some continuity and focusing on that and maybe picking up those others. Uh that that's that's an interesting concept to me. >> Well, and I'll just add I mean like I said I'm 29 and a half years in this business. I've taught in three different states. >> Science middle school science standards which I taught have not changed. Yeah. In the 29 and now they might move like I at one time I was the sixth, seventh and eighth grade middle school teacher. So at one time I might teach a concept in sixth grade and eighth grade or seventh grade and like they might move them around. but the standards really aren't moving.

096So, that's something I would like for you all to look at is maybe implementing that earlier. And then, um, you mentioned like the crosswalk and the scope and sequence. Are teacher or classroom teachers involved in the creation of those >> or is that mainly done at the central office level and the instructional coaches? >> Yes, thank you for the question. Yes, ma'am. They are involved in that process. Yes. So, our curriculum specialists bring together teams of teachers to work on that together. Yes, ma'am. >> And to your to your point, Dr. Johnson, about flipping years, if I'm not mistaken, Tennessee history is getting moved to a different grade level, is it not? >> Yeah. So, for whatever reason, right? >> Yeah. I can't remember off the top of the hit in my head where it's

097getting changed to. >> Yeah. I was a little surprised to hear actually we had a a meeting just earlier this week with our social studies curriculum specialist and the topic of social studies standards came up and he mentioned uh his wording was there are significant changes at the elementary level in terms of um social studies standards. So we've not dug into those yet but our team is digging into those and preparing for those. >> And I want to change tag just a little bit to get back to your comments uh um this hour about about this particular adoption. Chris Cooper is sitting here. I know his name was mentioned. Uh he was a a teacher at Independence High School years ago, left us uh had some um administrative leadership experience and thank you for coming

098back. Uh so it's it I have heard many many descriptions of the scope of Chris Cooper's knowledge with respect to career technical education. Uh it's really been a benefit to us as we as we do this work. Any other questions? All right. The final piece in my superintendent report is uh another item that we've been going through these last few months uh as our screen time committee has done their work. So Andy Davis is going to give us an update on our Oh, sorry. Jenny Lopez is going to give us an update on our on our screen time committee work. I do want to specifically uh thank again Melissa White and Tanya Hmer for participating in that screen time committee work. Uh uh I I I went in and sat and listened to them and

099then I actually had a Zoom meeting with some teachers. So I didn't get to hear the the whole the whole discussion at this most recent uh th this most recent meeting that happened earlier this week. But I did want to mention to you that from my perspective as the superintendent, one of the goals you all set for me, annual goals was to have some recommendations related to screen time. And so that will ultimately come in May. Uh so just from a timetables perspective, that that is on my mind and that's one of the goals that this team is working on. So if you would Jenny Lopez. >> Thank you, Mr. Golden. Um good evening board members. Um, as promised, um, at the onset of this committee's work, we would come back every month and fill

100you in and and get you, um, some bring you some updates on the progress of the committee's work. I want to first start by thanking our committee members. It is, um, just hard work and to get here at 4:00 in the afternoon to this room and be committed to to the learning we're doing and the hard work that we're asking them to do till 6:00 at night. And many of them stay beyond 6:00. It's just it's really incredible the commitment that our that our committee members have, teachers, parents, um instructional coaches, our board me or two board members that show up every time. So, thank you so much to to those committee members and to our board members for that. Um so before um this meeting that we had this this Tuesday, we met and

101we're changing the topic for this month and next month. Um the topic that we're focused on right now is the technology use guidance and identifying areas of focus that are going to be part of that guidance. So before this meeting, we shared several resources with the committee members so that they would use the learning uh to be prepared for kind of to prime them for the work that we um are asking them to do right now, which is really hard work. And I'm going to describe that in in detail for you so you know what we're asking of our committee members. But but so we asked two things of them. We asked them to come prepared um reviewing some of the resources. We did email a lot of resources, so I'm sure they had to

102be selective and review some and and read more deeply. Um, the the information, the knowledge that this committee needs in order to write this guidance really comes from whatever resources they're using themselves, whatever we're emailing them. And then, of course, all the learning that has taken place since we began our work several months ago. Because as you remember, we we met for the first time in May of 2025 and now it's January and we continue to meet and we continue to do lots of learning. Some of the comments I've heard at the end of the meetings is um how much they're learning and how much they're they're they're being exposed to. A lot of information that even I've learned um because it's really we've really gotten deep into the weeds of um instructional technology. So

103this is this describe this document here um we shared with the committee describes what technology use guidance document would do for our district. So basically the committee was tasked with creating this document. Um, this slide describes what that document involves. And really, it's about defining how we use technology, when we use it, and with the frequency that we should be utilizing technology, when it enhances student learning. And of course, we are very focused on um instructional technology is utilized, when it enhances student learning. And if it doesn't enhance student learning, then we we shouldn't be using instructional technology, but rather rather other um resources and um and other strategies. Um this document is going to define clear expectations, best practices and operational parameters not just for our students, not just for our teachers, but for

104families and for us um as leadership to really be able to um to then roll out whatever training we need to implement u the guidelines provided by this document. So this is how we started the work. I'm going to give you a brief description of what that was like. Um we asked our committee members um to to engage with us in um some um prior learning to kind of like bring forward everything we had learned. Again, we've learned so much. This graphic up here is kind of like an outline of what we have brought to them in the last few months. So Andy um did a fabulous job of taking us all the way back and just kind of describing each of these different topics. safety, privacy, operational procedures. We spent a lot of time

105on that and went into the weeds of what we do to keep our students safe. So, she reviewed all of those topics. Uh the curriculum access that we provide students, we we went deep into that and and what our requirements are. for example, our K12 Tennessee computer science standards. We we've looked at those, reviewed what those are uh and what different access students have to curriculum um through um digital resources. We looked at um instructional technology best practices and that's really the framework that we ask teachers to use when deciding whether um instructional technology should be considered. So we asked them to look at passive versus active use what that means. We asked them to use a tool that really looks at whether uh the use the integration of that technology is appropriate and is

106really meeting the outcome set. So this is all learning that we've done before and again we were just engaging and just activating prior knowledge. The last topic was usage and that is of course something that's already been shared with you. It's the number of minutes. um what what are the top apps uh kind of the frequency with which we are using technology um across different grade bands. As you know the work that we do is really in grade bands. So we have a K2 um subgroup in our committee. We have a 35 grades 35 grade 68 which is our middle school and then of course our high school group. So, in this first step, after Andy kind of brought back all of that learning, kind of activated that prior learning for the team, we asked

107them to take some time um to just reflect on that. So, we we gave them this graphic right here and they were asked to um to to really think about that that learning and identify like evaluate and identify what topics they really want to be part of this guidance. After after learning all of that, what is really important? What is really meaningful for us to really define in this guidance? In step two, we asked them to then after doing some self-reflection to start collaborating within their grade band groups. And so what they did with that activity was it was just a blank a big blank butcher paper that we posted on the wall for each group. And each of the groups was asked to engage um in conversations where they would list what each member

108of that team had identified as a focus topic that they wanted included in this guidance document. So they did that for a while. There was some really really deep conversation in all of our teams as they did that. Um and then after doing that we asked them to then start creating an outline looking at everything that everyone had had contributed start consolidating that and then start putting it in a document that looks like this where they actually identify an area of focus. Then they list the topics, the details, the information that they want under that area of focus. And then underneath that, we ask them to to provide some rationale for including that particular area of focus and any of the details underneath that. And just to be clear, I'm going to go back here

109a few slides. This is what we gave them and told them they could include all of that or none of that. if if that wasn't meaningful or important as part of the document, we can delete whatever we don't think is is important as part of that document. But if they think all of it is important and some teams actually just asked us to copy and paste some of these pieces and some of the pieces they actually excluded and then of course all teams um as they worked through that they added their own area of focus that wasn't listed in anything that we did and that came from their own understanding of what they had researched all the conversations they've had. So, it was really rich discussion and now comes the really hard part. After doing

110all of that work, we now have um lots of information that our team now is going to take to begin creating a draft. Um I will share that we um we have February 10th was is supposed to be the time that we bring back this guidance draft for the committee to review. Um, I was really honest with the committee when we met right at the beginning. I said, I I I think that's too lofty of a goal. I doubt that in February we're going to have a draft that we all say, "Yep, this is what we want." So, I'm thinking we need more time. We had a couple of groups that really just needed more time to talk through it. And in the two hours, we they actually had about an hour to work through

111this and the hour just wasn't sufficient. So, I am thinking that we're going to bring back the next time we meet in February, the plan is to bring back what they provided um in in a way that's in in written form for them to have further discussions. Um and for the groups that haven't finished yet, having those conversations and identifying their areas of focus to be able to have that time. Um I also want to make sure that we create enough time. The intention was for us to have time to actually share out from group to group. And of course, there just wasn't enough time. Again, there were groups that just weren't done yet having those discussions. So, we need to create time for that. I think it's really important for everyone in the room

112to hear what all the other groups are identifying as areas um of focus and those descriptions and especially the rationale for why it should be part of this really important document. This document isn't just a piece of paper with with a focus. This document is going to guide the work that we do in our district. It's going to guide all the professional development. It's going to guide how we train our teachers, what we train them on. It's going to inform parents on what we're doing and how we're utilizing technology and and when it's utilized, why it's utilized. So this is a really important document and some of the conversations we we had in the committee were, you know, about not rushing to get something done by February 10th, but making sure that when we have

113it, when we create that guidance, we feel really good about it. And so I rather slow this down a little bit, understanding fully that we must get to the family support and resources. So, I think we can still meet our our deadline, but maybe it's possible that we may not be at that stage of having everything ready until May instead of April, which was our original thought. But, but again, I don't want to rush us to get something done. I want the I want the product that this committee puts forth to be something that that we're all um proud of that we're that we all can get behind that we all uh believe is the right um is the right thing for students. Um so I look forward to the continued work and I I

114certainly look forward to um getting back with the committee and continuing to hear their thoughts and their ideas on on our areas of focus. If you don't have any questions, I'm going to pass it over to Andy because I want her to update you on um some of the some of the resources that she promised that she would um that she would have ready for you. So, I want her to talk a little bit about that. >> Thank you, Jenny. Good evening, board. Um last time we were together in November meeting, we talked about an additional request for student usage on that uh that screen time numbers. And so we've been working furiously on that for you all. And so I just shared um just actually just a few hours ago with Mr. Golden. So

115he does have it sitting in his email and he will get that information to you all. But I wanted to address three things that are going to be coming your way. The first one um was the request. Last time we were together in November, you got to see August and September data and you asked for additional data. So November and December is coming your way. It looks very similar. It's that K12 digital profile. And based on Mr. Galbreth's request, we have increased that from like I think we only showed like eight frequently apps used to 20. So you'll see the 20 for kinder, the 21st all the way down through our seniors. Um, additionally, um, it was another request of Mr. Gabitz that we provided a November December yearly comparison. So, what did um usage

116look like in November of December from 2024 to 2025? So, I do have that for kindergarten through fifth grade. Dr. Orier and I have been having screen time conversations for about three years now for our littles. Um, so I had that data readily available. I did reach out to class link to ask for the 612 data from 2024, but they've moved to a new data warehouse and so that 2024 data is not available, but they said they could get it to me, but it might take some time. So the 612 may be coming in the future, but we definitely have K5 um and I think you'll be able to clearly see some of the impacts of um reducing from one to one in the K1 area and some things like that and just some of

117the work and conversations that Dr. Andoer and I have had with our elementary principles and teachers and communication and things like that. And then finally, the last thing that we'll have for you is basically a November and December uh WCS K12 applications list. It's like your cheat sheet. We don't expect for you guys to know what all those 20 things are and what they're used for in the district on each one of those grade bands. So, we did create like a little cheat sheet for you. And that's just in alphabetical order. So, it's any application that's listed on that K12 um apps apps frequency list. and it's just listed in alphabetical order. >> Thank you, Andy. So, that that kind of gets you u gets us up to speed on what we've been doing. We've

118been doing a lot of work behind the scenes. We're we're working really hard um to make sure that you have what you need in terms of the information that you've requested and that our committee um and that we're spending a lot of time being very thoughtful about the work we do with the committee. Um so, that that's all the information I have. I wonder if um if our committee uh members that are that sit on the board, Melissa Wyatt and Tanya Hypn, if they have anything that they want to add um to this update. >> No, thank you for your great summary. >> Very any board member questions, >> Mr. Chair. With that, that's my report. >> That was a good one. >> I have a quick question. >> Sorry. Yeah. Um I'm curious about

119the elementary art throwdown that event and the format just we saw we have that on our calendar if you could tell us about that. >> I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Warrior to share. But I will tell you going in I think we're doing it in the gym again this year. >> I don't know but it's fun to it's fun to watch. >> Let me tell you it's the first time and I I might look at >> that's right we've done we've done it at secondary school. He's he is referencing the secondary experiences which I'm going to draw on my own experiences at secondary to to say it's going to be an incredible event. It's an inaugural event. It's happening at Hunters Bend. Um and the idea is that we just pull teams

120from our at different schools, the different elementary schools. I'm not 100% sure how many teams are engaging this year. Um and the idea is that they come together for the first time and on that day and they're given a topic, some type of um theme more than a particular outcome that they're working on with a variety of mediums and then they work together collaboratively. So imagine a group I'm not positive where it's going to be at Hunters Ben. The gym sounds like a great idea when I visualize it, but the art teachers have been doing this with Mark Ker, our um fine arts specialist. And so we're molding that day into a collaborative art experience for our youngest artists and are very very excited about it. So we encourage you all to be there. Um

121again, this has been kind of in the works. Mark and I have been saying, should we do this? Mr. Kinszer, should we be doing this? Is this a good idea? But we've seen such success at the secondary level for years and years. So we hope you're able to join us and see what our youngest artists have to offer. So it might vary a little bit but um just visualize uh those New York City chess players who are hitting that hitting that button. So sometimes they're the students are given given given a topic >> build something with the materials you have go and then there's a window of time for them to do it and then they present it to each other. Sometimes it's a to you to your talk about different media that there might

122be a there there might be a painting, a different visual art, a sculpture, uh etc. And so it it's it's a it's a really neat thing. >> If you don't have it on your calendars, just for clarity sake, it's January 21st from 9 to1 is the is that what you have, Melissa? You said you have it on your calendar. I >> think we have 10:00 a.m. >> Okay, that may be accurate. It's on ours because of the transportation and go with what you have officially. Mine's probably stretched out because we want to be there a little early. >> Okay. Thank you for the >> absolutely. Thank you for asking. Okay. Other questions? >> Okay. Um, we will move to operations report. Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, as Dr. Qu mentioned earlier, the innovation

123center is basically complete. The construction piece of it, uh, furniture and equipment, uh, will start being installed toward the end of this month. And once that's over, then we'll start doing tours and uh invite uh anybody that wants to come see it uh to check it out. Uh the renovations, Grassland Ele uh Grassland Middle in Hillsboro, we uh received some money last year for our 5-year capital. We're putting that out to bid January 29th um for both of those. And those will be three summer projects uh over the next three years to complete those. We were able to do a little bit over Christmas break. Uh Eric found some time and had some money that we received and we did some renovations on the sixth grade bathrooms at Grassland Middle over uh Christmas break. So

124that was really good. uh our maintenance IT security still working on phase two of our uh internal access control and uh alert systems. It's going great. Phase two will be finished this summer. Phase three, which will be the last phase that will finish all our schools uh will be complete 2728 school year and that's in this five-year capital. We're asking for phase three um in this year's um five-year capital plan. And let's see um oh yeah, later tonight's meeting we will be talking about um open zone schools. And I just want to take this time to everybody and I know a lot of people that have been in the district know Allison Nunley. the work she puts in uh for her projections to get us to where we can come up with these open zone

125numbers is fantastic. And um it's a lot of work between uh calling the municipalities to about permits and how many uh permits have been pulled in certain subdivisions and where they're zoned to. It It's painstaking. It's a lot of work, a lot of detail, and she does a great job. So, I want to thank Allison for that. And then finally, um, if Nick, you have it, we have I love doing this. This is our from December from our nursing uh team. We had six a little over 16,000 visits to the nurses clinic in December and 89% were able to return to class. Uh, so nurses doing fantastic job. And that is my report unless there are any questions from the board members. >> I have one question. Um I know that you had the Franklin

126High athletic the men's I know that was on the five-year plan. How are we coming along with that? Is that already underway or >> she's talking about from uh annual capital the uh >> the capital? Yeah, >> the annual capital last year for the Franklin High uh shower locker rooms. >> What's the timeline on that? >> Do you know when we're starting that, Adam? >> No, I don't. I can look it up. >> Yeah, we'll look that up and get that to you. Yes, other questions for Brian. >> All right. Uh don't have a board chair report. already shared the uh important dates earlier in the meeting. So, please make note of those. Uh we'll go on to new business. Um Miss Farmer, there's about four budget items. You want to walk us through those,

127please? >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do have uh three intent to funds that we're going to go ahead and bring in January. The rest of the items when you all approved the 5-year capital in November, um there were three that we want to go ahead and bring. Um and Mr. King talked about Grassland Middle and Hillsboro because the commission had partially funded them last year and so they are in process and so we want to go ahead and request those intent to funds now so we can continue with the work. Um and so the first item is an intent to fund related to the Hillsboro renovation. Uh and we would be asking the intent to fund is for an an additional 3.6 million but only asking for 1.8 in this year. And then similarly,

128the second one was for Grassland Middle where uh the intent to fund would be six million and we're requesting four million in this year. >> And just as a reminder, Brian mentioned this. This is a three-year summer project. So this funding would be not for this coming summer, but the next uh for planning purposes. Also, there's a little typo on the one one too many zeros. And we'll make sure that at the voting meeting that's that's there. >> Oops. Um the other item is related to field lighting. And so we're going ahead and asking for that as well. It was on the 5-year capital plan. The thought process behind it is that we are working um we need need to go ahead and put it out to bid to have an idea of what it's

129truly going to cost. And in order to be able to put it out to bid, we need the intent to fund in place. We're also currently working with TVA um maybe potentially them partnering with us and being able to help us um with some of that cost. But in order again to be able to file all of those requests, we need an actual bid and intent to fund to move forward with. So again, in that case, it's a $15 million project and we would be requesting 12 million in this year. >> So let me put a little bit more detail into that. TVA has some potential rebates and the windows open now. And so if you all approve this, I intend to take this to the county commission and tell them we got we have

130the potential to get this a little bit cheaper. Maybe as much uh Eric Gardner as maybe 10. Oh, I'm sorry, Adam is 10% or so potentially uh off with TVA support. >> So, those would be the three intent to funds. Um the other intent to funds we will bring as part of the budget process with the county commission, but again, these were projects that have already started or um we need to go ahead and do some work on in order to be able to proceed. Uh the last item is the property that we have at split log related to the middle school area. Uh we've had some work that needed to be done to the uh grading property itself. And in order to pay for that work, we would need um to go ahead and

131move some money out of contingency in order to be able to cover the full cost. And that would be $700,000 that we are requesting for you to move out of contingency. So in order to do that or if we were to do that, what that would then leave for us in contingency related to rural, which again that's K8 is right at 6.2 million and we still have three three and a half million in general. That's what that would be. >> Just to just to make it double or triple sure, this particular request is the first step in getting that middle school put uh put together and built that you all asked and we voted on. you all voted on uh at the last meeting to move it up one year from where we originally had

132it. So, this will do get that engineering work started. >> And the and the fir to be clear, the first three of those items require county commission approval. The fourth one does not. >> Correct. >> Yeah. >> And the county commission did approve the five-year capital pro the um plan on Monday night. They did approve that one. Any questions for Miss Farmer? >> Could you explain the split log again about the money? Where is it coming from? Again, >> we had some money that was already given to when we did the original Jordan Elementary split log. There was money designated for that property um to be able to do architectural design work and a few things. And so um we needed to be able to go ahead and do that and get it going assuming

133that we will be able to build even if we don't the work needed to be done. And so it came in that cross was 3.5 million and so we do not have enough money to actually cover the whole thing without pulling some money from contingency. >> So the contingency is rural contingency in essence leftover funding from some of our K through8 projects. Often we will do this for the engineering work. take the contingency because we we'll have contingency built into a large project and then hopefully we don't use it u because we haven't had change orders. That's where the funding will come from for the engineering work. I've had some discussions with Mayor Anderson over the years, especially for engineering work. The big ask he has is if you have contingency money left over and

134it's not one of those multi-million dollar projects, get get it started out of contingency so we can hit it when it's time. Any other questions? >> All right, we'll move on to the approval of the salary study contract. Mr. Golden. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, this salary study request that we have from you is based on a combination of two things. One is, uh, the goal, one of my superintendent goals that we've talked about, and two is there's a board policy that actually requires the board to approve any consultant contract in in excess of $10,000. So we we did an RFP for the salary study uh consultant and we are recommending the lowest uh proposal bid. Uh Vicky Hall has some details related to that and uh she has we we have actually in

135her memo LeanFrog Business Solutions Inc. uh came in at 44,500. That's pretty close to what we had what we had projected uh for the salary study. Uh from a timing perspective, I did want to mention to you that uh one of the things that they shared with us is I we talked about May as being my deadline, at least from my reports. They said, "We're going to get you the basics of that, but we may still be doing some work even past that based on their experience with these detailed salary studies." Uh Miss Hall is here if you have any additional questions related to that. I know there were other salary studies done within the district or within the county. Is this the same company or a different company? >> Different company. >> Okay. Thank

136you. I know I had mentioned Vicki, you and I had a little email correspondence about it that um I know that the RFP had said teacher only salaries and I had asked like while we're while we're doing it, is there a way to check on what it would look like for the incentive stuff for just any any faculty and staff? Is that something that can be included still or >> the study is actually for all employees? is for classified and for teachers. >> Gotcha. Awesome. Okay. Great. Thank you, >> Mr. Bosik. You and I actually had a brief discussion about that, too, and we recognize that we need to make sure we cover everything. >> All right. Any other qu any questions on that? Uh I know that uh you all may have noticed that

137our board chair just stepped out. He had to he had to leave at 7:45. >> Actually, I do have a quick question. >> Sorry. He said anarchy, but I do have a quick question. If we vote like where's the money for that going to come from? >> Thank you for that. Rachel, can you speak to that? >> Sure. So, we collectively there are different um groups. Mr. Golden has money that he um has within the budget to spend on different projects um that come throughout the year. And so, we know that there's some money there that we can pull. There's also other pots of other contracted services maybe in other departments. And so our goal at this point is that we will be able to combine those and not have to come back um with

138a request for a budget amendment. >> So it will be a combination. I can't remember the exact amount that the board has had in in in the portion that she describes as mine. I have traditionally used those for like a school has an immediate need and and and so there's some of that money. Uh, I don't think I spent. >> You haven't spent any? >> I haven't spent any this year. We haven't had a crisis that a school has had for me to spend. So, well, there you go. We're hitting one now. And so, that's that's what we'll do. >> All right. I'm going to offer the potential. Uh, Mr. Cash, would you like to finish or do you want me to finish? >> Go for it. >> Okay. Uh, next item on the agenda

139uh is is the the uh approval of open zone schools for 202627 school year. I'm listed as the speaker for that. Uh, as Brian mentioned in his report, Allison Nunley is here. She led us in that work. We have had multiple meetings related to that. We provided you with the documents with our recommendations. I did want to point out to you number one the school we have seven schools that we are not recommending for open zone seats this year. That is if I'm not mistaken Allison exactly the same schools as last year with I think the exception of Thompson Station Elementary because we looked at the enrollment numbers at Thompson Station Middle and determined that it was not wise to open that. So last year we had six schools that that No, I take that

140back. We might have had some high schools last year that were not open zone. >> Mr. Golden. So last year Thompson Station Elementary was not open zoned and this year it is. Okay. So sorry about that. I flipped it. So by and large what we've seen is this is very similar to last year. Uh certainly open to any questions that you may have related to that. But I wanted to add one additional piece because I've had multiple conversations with many of you related to this. We do project that we will probably need to do some resoning for the 2728 school year. Uh and you can identify those on on its face. The ones that are going to be apparent are the ones where we're not open where we have zero uh because we see an

141issue there. So open to any questions you may have. Go ahead, Mr. >> Welch. >> Well, I was just going to say one of the questions I had for tonight was about reszoning because we've talked about like if we could start on that here soon to get proposals for the fall to then do the 2728. So, I didn't is there a status on that or >> Thank you for that. We have done just administratively uh some uh information gathering on our current student numbers. We've done some for lack of a better phrase polygons as we describe them based on our software some projections. I will tell you what where we've started looking administratively is in the page middle community and in the Nolanville community. Those are our two prime areas. Uh and so we have

142started that. We have not yet put a timetable together. Uh what I will tell you is that we from a back scheduling perspective uh January of 2027 is our is our absolute deadline that we need to have something in place for the 2027 school year. So to back schedule that uh we will we will we we've traditionally had community meetings after we present proposals so that we could present those to our families. Uh we expect probably that we're going to have some community meetings in the September October timeline uh of this coming school year. Uh what we haven't talked about yet is when we start presenting some some to you. Our experience is that that that we're we're really going to start having some decent numbers to look at when we get the out of

143zone request closeouts for this spring and then our numbers will get better when the fall starts uh so that we can get a good grasp of it. Allison Brian, is there any other detail you want to share related to that question? >> Okay. So, I I want to also kind of ask about the zoning stuff. So, and that was one of my questions. Are we looking at So, that's good to know. Um, but it's this sort of relates to uh middle to high school for a school that's not even on our list. Um, or a couple schools because I want to talk about the uh FSSD kids that uh are coming to us. And I think a lot of times they're uh at least us here it's out of sight, out of mind because you

144know they're not our kids at at that point. That's another school district. But, you know, if we don't plan for them, they flip over and they become our kids instantly and we haven't maybe thought or given them the attention. I want to make sure I say it's the right way. We haven't given probably the attention that that they deserve at that point. You know, we being this board, I'm putting it on me and and us rather than than you uh or the staff with that because I think you do think about that. Uh if you look at um Freedom Middle, I believe that's got the the smallest split uh theater split of any school in Williamson County. It's it's like 9% of the kids. And I know um every year there's a a freedom table

145over at Franklin High School because you know they they get there and it's hard enough being freshman you know and you're the short of smallest kids in the school but now you're the short smallest kids in the school and you don't know anybody except the the few stragglers that uh have made it there while the rest head off to Centennial. And I think a lot of people probably think well that's an easy answer. It's just 9%. You just send them over to Centennial, send them all the way over. Except those neighborhoods that they're pulling from a lot of cases literally border Franklin High School or they're across the street from it. They're all within walking distance. In fact, there's a lot of schools, a lot of neighborhoods that are in walking distance of Franklin High

146School that are reszoned to Centennial High School on the other side of Franklin. So you could literally walk there maybe, you know, you look at the distance on Google Maps like it's a half mile or whatever it is. In some cases to get to Centennial, you've got to literally drive past Franklin High School to to get if you're taking 96 and going around. And you know, everybody's got their shop story in the district and moves. I understand that. But I think this really is a segment of of our kids that aren't here yet, but they are our kids and they're going to get there that we need to do a little bit more for and take care of them a little bit better. The the challenge has always been Centennials under um underfilled. So you're

147Robin Paul to to pay Peter and how do you get it from there? And Franklin High School has been on the higher side of it as well. uh overstock, but now that's evening out. We've got some open enrollment that's going to Franklin. If we can open enroll to Franklin, then I think we can put these kids in there. And then we also need to backfill Centennial to get them up um consistently. You look at the numbers and see where the kids are being pulled out of and everything else. Centennial is getting stripped every every time. And you know it's it's tough to win football games and different things like that and you well that's trivial but it's not. We all know that you know it's it's uh not just that but just everything you know

148funding your programs and the kids and getting your PTO support. So I think it's it's feeding each other. We need to we need to fill a centennial and I think that he talking about that and with that we need to take care of our FSSD kids so we don't has have that little slice. We need to get the ones that make sense geographically to go to Franklin all of them to be able to go over there so it's it's not just the you know the the few on their own that way. >> Thank you for that. You've shared an issue that's a real issue that uh if I'm not mistaken dates back maybe three superintendent worth of of staff members. There was a time where Franklin was overcrowded. >> Well, I can tell you it

149goes back at least 16 years. >> Okay, there you go. There you go. Uh there was a time where Franklin was overcrowded. Recently, we've been able to include some o open zoning for Franklin High School because some of those areas that Franklin serves, not a lot of houses have been sold, right? So, people have have grown out of that. One of the preliminary items that Allison had worked on that was in in response earlier to Dr. Johnson's question was that very issue of percentages of split zones. So, you're right. Uh I think that 9% is actually correct as well. Allison had actually given us a document in the last few days related to that. That is the most well the highest split the the the biggest gap. Uh Paige High School and Centennial are a

150feeder for Paige Middle and I think that may be 11 or 12% go to Centennial something like that. The next one is Heritage Middle is split uh between Independence and Summit and it might be 14 15%. Thank you. Uh so we've been looking at those as well. I do project that a likely scenario when we look to stabilize some of those is look at that feeder pattern. Uh and Mr. Welch, I think maybe you there have been some other board members over the years who have said look at it both directions from elementary going up and from high school going down as you set those zones. Uh so I do anticipate there's a real possibility that when we may make recommendations to cover those handful of schools that are overcrowded that we that we factor

151in that feeder pattern uh as well. Uh, so it could be a little bit broader than just those two regions where we've got those, you know, six or seven schools that are overcrowded, but try to find a way to create some um some balance in that feeder pattern. One item that that may not be on its face obvious, but if you drill into the numbers of the documents we gave you in the board packet is we are recommending open zoning some seats to every high school. Now, on paper, some of those are really close to being full, but we've come to the conclusion as a leadership team that that if we can give some choice to every high school, we should. So, if we make an adjustment when we look at resoning next year and

152factor in this basic concept of start with balance and then give choice as opposed to have some imbalance and some choice, we feel like that has a potential to be a better solution. I just want to say I completely agree with Eric on the the Franklin High zoning and uh Freedom Middle and all of that. I've always thought that that was such a a strange sort of zoning that's been there and um and it it is very true. There are a lot of kids who could walk to school and instead they have to get bust over to Centennial and it it just never made sense for from a community standpoint on that. So I I totally agree. >> Thank you for that. The geography is odd. If you look at the map, Centennial is the

153only school. It's the only high school that does not have a countyline border. It's completely surrounded by other by other high school zones. Uh and before we added the wings to Independence and uh Ravenwood at all, Centennial was our largest high school. Uh so it does have some capacity. I mean, largest capacity high school. Any other questions related to that? All right. Thank you, board. The the next and final item on our agenda is a resolution celebrating the USA's 250th anniversary. I want to thank Tanya Hidma for uh for putting this thought into our minds and and and uh Miss Hibma if I'm not mistaken somewhere around September October you broached this subject about the upcoming semisquisentennial uh and it's funny because we typed that in uh when we typed this in uh uh word

154check didn't even recognize that word but but it is semicesquistent I'm going to struggle with that 250th anniversary our of our nation and uh uh Dr. Webb and Dr. Royer and their teams have been working on helping the high schools, the middle schools, and the elementary schools develop some specific celebrations related to that. Uh in essence, I'm just going to say it this way, before the school year runs out. Uh because we know that most of the nation's celebrations are going to occur between Memorial Day and July 4th. Uh we want to make sure that we that every one of our schools gets our students prepared for that because they're not going to be with us when July 4th hits. I will tell you personally, I have a memory as a seven or eight year

155old of 1976 and what a big deal uh that was uh and how many things just colorful bunting everywhere. It was a really neat experience for me as that age child that still sticks with me. I want to make sure that we give that same experience to our students so that when the next 50 hits for them, they'll have that fond memory uh as a child. Uh one of the things that Dr. Webb and Dr. Oyer noticed as they started the work was it was very quiet until January 1 hit and now we're finding example after example of different organizations celebrating this year. So I project that we are going to have a celebration of some sort continue over the course of the year. Uh so our our proposal to you is a resolution celebrating

156that. Tanya and I had a a brief I guess email discussion about the concept of making I'm I'm wanting our schools to have that flexibility to to to broaden that and do that over time so that that isn't a yearly celebration. I also project that come Veterans Day next year, that's going to be a topic as well. As you know, many of our schools uh very thoughtfully celebrate our veterans on Veterans Day in November. Dr. Webb, Dr. Orier, can you share a little bit about uh some things your teams have have looked to looked at for uh for this spring? I'll emphasize um one piece of it is that we're not only looking at academics, we're looking at arts and athletics because there are u many facets of what we do um with students and

157the leadership that our students have and and in programming where we can recognize and celebrate history. So, we're still in the planning phase of all those aspects. We're working with uh Dr. Allen's department and our curriculum specialists to figure out where are the best ways to integrate into our curriculum. We're working with Patrick Whitlock in athletics, Mark Kendzer, uh, in the arts, um, and and how we can, uh, incorporate branding and recognition, performances, and spotlights in what we do. >> All right. All right, Miss Edler. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, this gets really exciting. So yeah, I just want to thank you guys all for that work and you guys are really uh taking it kind of where I was kind of picturing it too, just in all all aspects of the school district and

158just to Jason's point too. Um that was a memory for my childhood and so I I you know kind of the same thing just wanted our students to be able to have that opportunity to to celebrate and be part of that celebration. So thank you everyone. >> Uh I saw some movement over here. Mr. Welch from Dr. Johnson, did you have a comment or a question? >> All right. If there is nothing else uh by proxy I adjourn this meeting.