001e check check check check e for e e e good evening welcome to the January 13th 2022 Williamson County School Board work session thank you uh we apologize we were running a little bit late with the previous meeting um first of all items on the consent agenda Mr Golden do you want to speak to any of these I don't have anything specific on uh on this consent is certainly open to any questions board members any questions I should mention that we have one board member who is attending via phone Mr Haw uh and Mr Haw uh please let me know if you have any questions as well well do thank you thank you I see no questions about the consent agenda then we will move to our superintendent's report Mr golden thank you madam chair
002and uh again I want to Echo your thanks to uh to those who are watching this for their patience as we finished an earlier meeting um I am going to hit as the as the agenda describes some general updates for the board and then I will turn this over to miss OS Brooks and um and two of our Librarians to give you an update and a description of uh of our process uh for library books selection and standards first I did want to give you an update on where we are with covid 19 uh as you all know the positive case numbers in our community grew while we were on break uh during during the winter break and we are impacted by the community and I wanted you all to know that on a daily
003basis we are monitoring our positive case numbers both with our faculty and staff and with our students and we provided information to our families about the process we go through and evaluating that and I want to make sure that we articulate that at uh tonight as well uh we do not have the ability to just go remote uh we if if there is a staffing issue or a student Number issue that renders it to the point where we determine we can't stay on campus we do have the authority to make a request of the commissioner of Education there's actually a form that we fill out explain the specifics and the details to her of our staffing issues or our student issues related to co and make that request based on individual schools or programs we
004have done that twice in this school year uh both of those for programs within a school not even the entire School uh some of these days are touching go uh since we returned last week I want to thank Gary Anderson and his staff for evaluating this on a daily basis and especially thank our principals our administrators and our teachers uh for filling in those gaps uh when when uh when someone is absent I know you all are getting that that data as well um related to that some of you may have heard and we've gotten a couple of questions about some news reports the last day or two of test kits being provided to schools one one secondary news report I saw last night was that there was announce an announcement that 10 million covid
005test kits were going to be distributed to schools per month uh at this stage we have heard nothing from the state about how that might affect Williamson County Schools if and when we receive any information related to uh test kids provided to schools will let you know uh for now uh for those of those folks in our community who are looking for for that uh the health department is uh is is doing test of course certainly consult with your doctor uh phes those issues Williamson County Schools is not uh providing those test kits I to make sure everybody heard that specifically um finally I wanted to let you know that what we traditionally have gone through this time of year for decades perhaps as long as Williamson County schools has been in existence is weather
006uh weather is governed by the calendar that you voted on last year we have 10 inclement weather days actually called stockpile days that we have to use uh last week we had some pretty heavy snow one of the easiest and most clear decisions we had ever made because it we knew it was coming coming so heavy we've used two of our 10 inclement weather days uh we know that there reports projecting uh a little bit unclear that there will likely be some snow in the area over the weekend uh we do not have the authority or Power to Go Remote as the result of weather um there's been discussions the last year and a half about that possibility now that we have that tool in our toolbox to have remote in instruction that's not going
007to happen this year we will honor the inclement weather day the stockpile days if that happens we do not have the authority to go remote longterm might if might there we have some Authority if there's a a long ice storm that we tend to have once a decade we have gotten no indication one way or the other from the state about questions like that uh second I want to mention uh the ACT back on December 15th the state released ACT test results we published uh an article about this we are number one Statewide in school districts percentage of students scoring 21 or higher on the ACT and I just have to mention it at a at a public meeting uh we had 77% of our students uh score 21 or higher that is the highest
008of any District in the state as as I mentioned the next closest was if I'm not mistaken 71% and then 66% both of those school districts are single high schools in Suburban areas uh Germantown and cville the reason in my mind and I think it's very apparent from our work that we are pushing that line and leading the state is because you all set that as a board goal and we have intentionally addressed it with people at each School uh and for me that is one of those key Benchmark evidences of the value of a strategic plan and putting your money where your mouth is was with strategic plan and I'm so proud of our students I'm so proud of our teachers for that what was our percentage again 77 now we set if you
009all recall what I've described in that article we published a very lofty goal of 90% uh Tennessee requires all students to take the ACT actually for that particular cohort they were not required as Juniors because of covid but 96% of students in Tennessee even that year took the ACT 100% for us so we continue to push towards that goal uh because it continues to be a goal for us um next I want to mention uh at our last board meeting which was actually a retreat in early December we talked about our strategic IC plan we're in the fifth year of a seven-year strategic plan and we talked about actually moving that timetable up a little bit because so much has changed in those 5 years I want to let you know that we'll be working
010on that over the next six months related to that one of my goals uh that the board set for me this year is to develop goals and action steps to improve student student sense of safety at school uh we've talked about this in the past but I want to make sure I reiterate those action steps that we're going through right now uh to prepare knowing that strategically there will be additional items uh coming first uh we are working on standardizing student and teacher handbooks uh with a goal towards standardizing disciplin practices for bullying and harassment issues uh we have talked uh at the beginning of this school year to our teachers about this being a point of emphasis to make sure your administrators know when an instance like that happens in your classroom don't treat
011it as a classroom management issue treat it as an item that needs to be reported to your administrators so so that we can improve how we serve students to increase their sense of safety at school uh We've initiated some student engagement conversations with some of our student leaders uh we actually did the front end of what uh what we know as a SWAT analysis with our high school with with high school students uh in a really good engagement process to start getting that feedback from students about how we are growing especially in that context and we're going to continue that the rest of this year uh and and final thing I want to mention uh before we uh send you all to the library staff is you may have heard a lot of discussion about
012the state funding model uh there we are at the state level at a public feedback uh timeline and I think those emails been sent out where the state is working on a proposal to create a student-based funding model to replace the be funding model uh the state released just a couple of days ago some basic formatting information uh for for their plan we don't have any numbers yet but I wanted to emphasize to you all that that's something that we need to continue to keep an eye on and have conversations with our state leaders as I anticipate there will likely be some proposed legisl for this year that likely will start taking effect the next year uh based upon u based upon the votes of the legislature in this session if I'm not mistaken the
013legislative session started just a couple of days ago as well uh um I'm trying to remember the exact date uh it has not yet started Tuesday Tuesday thank you Tuesday it's starting this coming Tuesday this past two okay I was right it was it was two days ago thank you uh and uh and so that is something to be looking for as well there's actually one item on the agenda related to uh to legislative issues tonight so I know that we we uh Madam chair we had a couple of hands raised before I address the uh the library presentation okay and I don't think I caught those hands who had their hands up Mr galberth anyone else Mr Wimberly okay Madam chair and Jason is there um are there have we had discussions with the
014with our legislators about having a having a Saturday morning um seems like we got a little a couple of big education topics on the uh on the agenda and that's always really good to to get in touch with them but I don't know if we've I don't we didn't do it last year during Co but we're going to hear from our legislative committee during the board chair report so sounds great let's ask that then and then Mr Wimberly I actually had questions on two totally different topics um the let me go to the be first the um this concept of it being student-based I mean it first pass does that look like something that would favor us or or hurt us because we obviously have um uh some significant challenges with the way be for
015uh funding affect Williamson County my first thought on that is the numbers are key uh it's it's about what actually comes to us I don't have any Clarity on how that formula could impact us the draft that we've seen with elements includes a core amount for students and then additions based upon particular issues as an example special education economically disadvantaged students Etc um what we as superintendents have heard from the commissioner is in her experience Nationwide in their research these changes work when additional funding is put into the total fund um so it's it's hard to say it until we actually see some numbers I don't know that I can answer your question okay thanks uh the other one is uh you said you've been meeting with students uh and doing a SWAT analysis with
016them what can you tell us about what you've learned from them in the initial meetings student interaction and relationships are a key component of what creates student happiness in their building I'll just give you that as a threshold I saw a common theme you know we we talked about strength and and weaknesses um those items in a student's day where they're brought together not physically necessarily we brought together because of some loyalty issue Etc are are are are key uh relationships with teachers are key uh it's it's it's about people um there my what I know is that trust is a tenous thing and building that trust is a daily effort and and our teachers are doing that in those schools did you share with them those that list of things that we're doing and
017what was their reaction we haven't at this stage shared that list uh um what we've done to this point is heard from them rather than share that is on my list to discuss as we proceed okay thanks I don't see any other questions Mr Goldman all right thank you madam chair uh the next item on the agenda is the discussion of library books uh and you all know that in at the November meeting a number of our citizens read excerpts from from some books and uh in included language that we of course uh all heard and I want to let you know that there are likely dozens or even hundreds of books in libraries where if an excerpt is read it has the potential to be shocking those books that were read may not be
018the only books in our libraries uh because that's the nature often of libraries and this is something that comes up from time to time from place to place from generation to generation uh across the country and there's a long history of school boards working through issues related to library books and because of that we have a board policy in place uh that describes the process for that uh and we as the school administration have that obligation to follow that board policy uh as it's structured I can't overemphasize enough the importance of this issue it's a issue that communities often struggle with uh and it will continue to be a strugle in our community because we're humans uh and it's and it's something that that that communities do work through uh so I let you know
019that we' share information on this with you at this work session uh and Dana osbrook and uh two of our Librarians who we've asked to actually lead their grade band teams we'll share with you um what I think of as the legal and practical parameters and standards for how we go about doing what we do with libraries uh and so with that I would like to turn it over to miss osbrook uh and then as when the time comes she'll introduce uh our professionals as well miss OS Brooks thank you superintendent golden and good evening board members I know y'all are excited to hear about library books I gave you a little bit um of a preview during our policy meeting and here we go so I'm going to briefly talk about roles and duties
020of the boards of education not because I think that y'all need a reminder but I do know that we um have people who are watching who are watching live or who will watch um at a later date and I want to remind them as we are talking about this what that is and board members as you all know um you are um the policy making legislative body um what are the duties of the Board of Education and board members you are that corporate body that Authority um outside of a board meeting there is none member does not have any Authority and additionally the board is the policy making body as you all know you speak through those policies and the school board makes the policies the superintendent carries out those policies I am going to
021touch on a few pieces of our current policy 4.43 reconsideration of instructional materials and textbooks this policy was updated in 2019 um and these are excerpts from that policy one of the things um and and the reason I'm showing you these now is that we will I will then be talking about some case law and we will see how well our policy follows what the Court's guidance is so uh the Board of Education specifically Williamson County Board of Education supports principles of intellectual Freedom inherent in that First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States we also recognize just like the case law does students have a right of free access to many different types of materials and the board also recognizes the right of teachers and administrators to select that instructional material and to
022make those materials available in our schools another portion of 4.43 censorship of instructional materials will be discouraged in order to maintain the school's responsibility to provide information and Enlightenment and the last slide regarding our policy 4.43 it does and I'm not going to read through this but this outlines on this slide what are policy is dealing with complaints for um instructional materials this also would be dealing with any complaints regarding library books so now that we've looked at the role and now that we have looked at our current Williamson County Board policy let's talk about the case law specifically what are the students First Amendment rights in public schools so school boards must operate obviously within the bounds of the First Amendment I'm going to talk about a couple of cases the first one is
023West Virginia Board of Education versus Barnett that is a US Supreme Court case from 1943 and in this particular case the West Virginia state board of education they adopted a resolution ordering that saluting the flag become a regular part of the program of activities in their public schools and that teachers and pupes shall be required to participate in the salute of the flag honoring the nation and refusal to salute um would be an act of insubordination and in fact the student could be suspended and the parent could be fined up to $50 if their student did not um participate and salute the flag so there was a parent um of a child attending West Virginia school who um sued because he and his child were Jehovah's Witnesses and based upon um they their religion considered
024that the flag is a Graven image within the meaning of the biblical second commandment and for that reason they in fact refused to salute it the student refused and the parent refused to pay the fine why am I telling you about a case regarding a flag and saluting because this is the first holding with our US Supreme Court regarding schools remember this is 1943 where they found that saluting the flag was a form of utterance that could not be compelled by the government without offending Free Speech Clause of the first amend Amendment the board said that this was important because it was fostering National unity and the court said fostering National Unity was an improper justification for infringing on constitutionally protected rights of the students the next case I want to bring to your attention
025is probably one that you have heard often quoted um Tinker versus De Moine Independent Community School District that is a 1969 case of the um US Supreme Court and in December of 69 of 65 a group of students in De Moine held a meeting at one of the students homes and they planned during that meeting um so this is off school grounds a public showing of their support for a truce in the Vietnam War they decided that they were going to wear black armbands throughout the holiday season and they were in fact also going to fast the principal of the school heard about this particular meeting and he met on December 14th to create a policy that stated any student wearing an armband would be asked to remove it refusal to do so would result
026in suspension two days later Mary Beth tinker and Christopher eard wore their armbands to school and they were suspended and sent home the next day John Tinker did the exact same thing the um parents the students through their parents sued the district for violating the students right of expression and so the question became that prohibition against wearing an armband in public school as a form of symbolic protest does that violate the students freedom of speech and the answer is yes the reason I am telling you about the black armband during the 1960s and protest of the Vietnam War is that this case has the classic holding and the classic line that students do not lose their first amendment rights to freedom of speech when they step onto school property in order to justify the suppression
027of speech school officials must be able to prove that the conduct in question would materially and substantially interfere with the operation of the school and in this particular case the school's actions in the school district's actions stemmed from a fear of possible disruption rather than an actual interference the last case that we are going to spend a few minutes on is the Board of Education Island Trees Union School District versus Pico this is a case so let's talk a little bit about Pico and why it's important this deals directly with um September 1975 they three school board members who attend a conference sponsored by parents of New York United a politic politically conservative organization of parents concerned about education legislation in the state of New York at the conference these three school board members obtain
028lists of books described as objectionable and one of the school board members states that they are improper fair f for school students it is later determined from this list that the high school library had nine of the listed books and that another listed book was in the junior high school library so that's in 75 when they attend the conference then in n in February a year later 76 at a meeting with the superintendent of schools and the principes for the high school and the junior high school the board gave an unofficial direction that the listed books be removed from the library shelves and delivered to the board's office so that the board members could read them when this directive was carried out it became public and the board issued a press release justifying its actions
029it characterized the the removal of the books as anti-American anti-christian anti-semitic and just plain filthy and concluded that it was the board's Duty moral obligation to protect the children in our schools from this moral danger as surely as from physical and medical dangers so short time after that the board appoints a book Review Committee consisting of four island tree parents four members of the island tree School staff they they are tasked with reading the listed books and making a recommendation to the board whether the book should be retained and that they should take into account the book's educational suitability good taste relevance and appropriateness to age and grade level in July the committee made its final report to the board they recommended that five of the listed books be retained two other books be removed
030from the school libraries as for the four remaining books the committee could not reach a conclusion they couldn't agree so they took no position on one recommended that one other book be made to students only with parental approval the board rejected the committee's report deciding that only one book should be returned to the high school library without restriction uh the remaining nine books should be removed from elementary and secondary libraries and from use in the curriculum the board during their meeting gave no reasons for rejecting the recommendations of the committee that it had in fact appointed I do want to tell you a little bit about those books two of those books were pet Sur Prize winners many of those books were approved and even Hil by the teachers Librarians and other professional Educators for
031confronting social ills and highlighting marginalized groups in society all right so the issue of this case became can a school board remove books from a school library in promoting moral social and political values and be consistent with the First Amendment of the Constitution in this particular case it was a 54 decision not a majority a plor I'm not going to get this word out um declaring that the Board of Education cannot simply remove books because of ideas values and opinions expressed in them they did say that the rights of students to receive ideas and the right to learn is a uh right of free speech and press and the US Supreme Court affirmed the right of students to receive information um they also gave support to students right to learn from Material readily available and
032it lends approval to these educational goals as encouraging individual autonomy and the appreciation of diverse points of views they did allow the court did allow books to be removed by Boards of education for sound educational reasons and for legitimate purposes of limiting exposure to obscenity or and the board's uh reason for removal of the library books must be based on educational grounds that if challenged would stand up under Court review so the court looks at the intent of the board as behind why a book is in is removed okay so I just told you that the US Supreme Court does allow books to be removed for obscenity what is obscene the um there is a case US Supreme Court case from 1973 Miller versus California and it in fact creates the Miller test that case
033is the primary legal test for determining whether an expression constitutes obscenity in that case Melvin Miller mailed five unsolicited brochures to the manager of a restaurant and his mother containing explicit pictures and drawings of men and women engaged in a variety of sexual activities he Mr Miller was prosecuted for violating a California law that made it a misdemeanor to knowingly distribute obscene material from that case you get that three-part test about the criteria when we're looking at Works to be considered if something is obscene or vulgar then it would not be protected by the First Amendment so number one average person applying contemporary Community standards would find that the work taken as a whole appeals to the prent interest whether the work depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual content specifically defined by
034the applic applicable state law so that would be our Tennessee state law and whether the work taken as a whole lacks literary artistic political or scientific value yes so by the standard is it of the or it all oh so that's a great question Mr Welch asked is it any of the three or is it all three so when we are looking at that um it is there's three different prongs so you're going to need to evaluate all three but if something fails the test of of one item but passes for the other two does it meet the Miller test standard to be considered obscene buer uh material no if I understood your question correctly so you're going to need to look at ask me again Eric I may have misunderstood you sure so [Music]
035so so what you're telling us is the Supreme Court has established a a standard for a test and it's the Miller test which showing us right here and then as part of that test there's three criteria to be used in the evaluation these are the three items right here so what I'm asking is these three criteria items in order for it to to be defined as obscene border by by the test is it just if it meets any one of these three or does it have to meet all three of them so it could meet any of the three because you would not have and I'm sorry I think I completely misunderstood your question um because you there could be times that something violates applicable state law that has nothing to do with number one
036or number three so yes it it's it's going to be fact specific but um often times you will find they may meet more than one but they do not have to does that make sense because this we're looking at this depending the it could be a painting it could you know it could be any wouldn't have to be a book for this test but yeah Dana Mr Cash has a question sure yes Dana this these three criteria if if I'm reading them correctly and understanding correctly um it it's explaining what vulgar uh means to people correct yes sir okay what we heard at our meeting in November how many people or constituents or parents or just people in a h as a whole would think that those uh uh eports weren't vulgar so vulgar enough
037to mute them of course it went all over the Internet anyhow but vulgar enough to mute them so that children and other people could not hear them so does this meet the test of vulgar so that's a great question and the Court decides that question because the facts are so similar in the Pico test so in the Pico case we had um they had books um I told you there they they read um that in defense of removing the books school officials and parents only use excerpts of the books particularly those containing in quotes bad words what the court in the Miller test has done and what the court Pico ultimately had held was that taking a portion of the book is not going to be enough you've got to look at the work taken
038as a whole so not just a paragraph not just a page not just a chapter when you take the work as a whole does it lack literacy literary artistic political or scientific value that's that third prong so you're looking at the work as a whole not just a piece of it the last slide that I have is revisiting our board policy 4.43 wait a minute wait I we've got the complaint procedure I'm sorry I'm sorry I believe Mr Cash is indicating he has a followup I'm kind of still on this uh Dana if you will sure um the Pico case if I've read it you know of course I'm not a lawyer but um wasn't that push down to a lower cord yes they remanded that case back to the lower court correct for trial
039and did you look that up did anything ever happen when it was sent back to Circuit back to the lower courts I couldn't find anything on it hold on Dana do you want to address that as a followup I can um I'm GNA have to I've got the case I've just got to find it okay so D before we jump on were you if I understand correctly what you're saying then is that Pico it's it's an excerpt alone is not the standard looking at it it's the whole material so um the naked and the dead or uh Huckleberry F which has some language certainly offensive out of context but that alone is not it has to be looked at a whole of the work of Mark that would be under the Miller test yes to
040determine whether that and I skipped ahead um but yes to determine whether that was obscene or vulgar you would look at the work as a whole not just a portion of the [Applause] book so oh the last slide that I want to talk about is board policy 4.43 Revisited we've got a lesson from the Pico case that school boards can enact certain guidelines around removal of books to prevent a First Amendment Challenge from occurring that's exactly what yall have done with your board policy that is the reason that we have that procedure so that there is a complaint procedure and if it is followed that can curtail um and fight off a first amendment protection and here's why I say that the court in Pico said you must develop a policy and then board school
041board members you must follow it this caused a great deal of trouble because in the Pico case they did not follow their own policy it became evident to the court that the board violated its own policy by rejecting the appointed committee's recommendation one of the justices went so far as to suggest that the outcome of the case might have been different in other words they wouldn't not have been held to be in violation of violating students First Amendment rights had the school board sought the opinion of librarian and other professionals and in fact heeded their advice Mr Cash to your question I will um let me look at that while the Librarians are speaking I don't think I have my and Pa up here with me before they speak we have a question for Mr
042Brown Mr Cash and Mr galberth okay is this on so a couple of questions and I know we're going to get into this a little more but um you know I raised this point at the policy committee meeting the other day about this the policy itself and that I felt like we there's significant room for us to consider some changes to that policy based on real life practice of what's Happening um the the feedback we're getting from the community when I think about Community standards which is kind of what this case this Miller case was based on right it kind of set the it set the set forth the idea of community standards right um that um there is such a thing as Community standards correct there is such a thing as Community standards and
043I feel like that our job is to listen to what the community is saying about some of these things as particularly parents um who have the most to to say about their children's what their children are exposed to um and that's to me what community standards are all about is listening to what the consensus is and then taking action based on that so I'm just going to put it out there that when we get past this review that we're in right now that I'm going to push for some changes to this policy that more accurately reflect Community standards and that still fall within the guidelines of what con what's constitutional um the other question I would have is can a locality for local government for example um put restrictions on let's say adult bookstores or
044other adult establishments in its Community can it regulate whether or not those kind of establishments can be in their Community they can but I will tell you um that is often times and what I'm thinking about is Metro because that's the one that hit the news several years ago it's often um fraught with Peril but yes there can be um but I will tell you and what I what I can think of with a Metro code ordinance because obviously I didn't anticipate your question so since I'm talking about library books um it's been a minute since I've looked at that law but I know that they spent oh countless number of hours and money um defending and if I remember correctly most of those establishments are still open um yeah I guess I guess the
045larger question is I know this that's not related to library books I'm I'm but my point is to is to say that a local I believe the courts have held that local governments local entities have the ability to regulate what is considered obscenity and develop Community standards around that um and I would wonder why that wouldn't apply again being thoughtful about it and not you know going too far but do what we're trying to do here with the question of library books now I get I get that we've got processes in place and I get that we've got a tradition of how we do it but I'm I'm of the opinion that some of these books that we saw the the other day or the other night at our board meeting and others that we've
046been hearing about are just not appropriate to be in schools and I think the majority of people would agree that at face value they're not appropriate to be in schools so we have to find a way in my opinion to deal with that within the confines of what's constitutional agreed and so that is why um I spent the beginning of the slide going through what is actually our process that the board adopted um again last time that it was revised was in 2019 since that time we have not had a request for reconsideration um until recently but following that process um is what will keep you as board members um and give us ammunition to fight against a potential First Amendment lawsuit if I may Madam chair respond uh to to Mr Brown's um comments
047um I think there's some wisdom in what you're saying to evaluate this the scope within which um we as a as a whole um have discretion within that so Dana as I understand it I'm nut shelling it in my mind this is how I process it in my mind um first amendment applies to library books based on the Pico case correct if you are going if if you are making decisions with respect to removing library books based on their content were obligated to have a process in place that is also correct in the if the per if the reason for considering removing the book is obscenity you then apply the Miller test in this case well in your description The Entity that's been designated by board policy applies the Miller test correct and if it
048determined to be obscene we have an obligation to remove it correct because if it is determined to be obscene there is no first amendment protection right and that Miller test act this speaks to three things the average person would find the work to be of peran interest the work describes or depicts explicit conduct is against the applicable state or Regional laws and the work lacks political artistic scientific or literary literary value am I correct that in using the third prong specifically the work lacks political artistic scientific or literary value is that if it doesn't meet that prong alone does that make something obscene and I guess what I'm asking is don't you have to establish all three prongs for something to be defined as obscene for the purpose of removing I think that was that
049was essentially Eric's question and then but I guess if I could ask it just a little bit differently if it if it meets the definition of of vulgar obscene under the first two does the fact that it has artistic value and there other things too but artistic value does that Trump the other two and therefore like so where those two those those three things seem to be um seem to be at odds with one another and I think I'm we're going back to is it an and on all three of those and if it doesn't meet yes so it isn't an and it's it's an and let me pull it back up the verbage from the test from the case there is an and between two and three there's not an and there's not an
050or there's not an either on one but there is an and between two and three missed so so as I understand it in this context remember we're talking about the process and then the question of obscenity obscenity might not be the only reason a librarian removes a book but if it's on the basis of obscenity the Miller test talks about all three as as as being necessary for that definition of obscenity that's one criteria for Li Librarians or in this case school boards removing removing books but again to Nutshell you have to you have to have a process in place to review it if the purpose if the reason for considering removal is obscenity this is what we look like you must review that test correct um so board members let me call on you
051please because we've got some people in the queue here um so next is Dan uh yes I I've done a little research on this and er Eric asked a good question um he was he was talking about to Kill a Mocking Bird and Huck Fin and Of Mice and Men and some others in September member of 2020 B Burbank univer uh Unified School District in California removed them from uh required reading for racial um and obscene language and whatnot that's just one um getting back to this Miller test it doesn't sound like we know um for sure how that's going to work out this test and how it's going to be done my thing with this this whole situation is we do have the uh 4.43 uh which we've seen it's 7 and a half
052months since we started that on another case still isn't complete um Jason you mentioned there's books you know so many books in the libraries we don't know you know for sure what we're going to find or what's there or what isn't what do we do about this in the time being if we're going to go through this whole process are we going to leave those books in there for for students to take out well number one our board policy requires us if somebody makes a request for reconsideration to number one speak to the principles or Librarians and if they submit a request not to remove the book The Policy does require us not to remove the book now I think the more complete answer to your question will be addressed when our Librarians speak to
053the process they actually go through in selecting library books cycling library books and removing library books there's there are some elements in there with within within their discretion that I think are most appropriately answered by them um but as the as the policy stands we I you all do not have the authority to remove a book because it's been challenged let me finish have have has anyone applied for a reconsideration on this for these library books that were that were for which an excerpt was read no we have not received any request for reconsideration to this you sent all those folks emails with every board policy on it that I see if that is correct either principles communicated directly with those individuals who had children or or um we S I sent a message to
054those who spoke who did not have children to give them that opportunity yes sir so if we if we don't get someone to apply for a a reconsideration this is dead and they stay in the schools this is a decision ultimately if if we don't have the reconsideration which ultimately rolls to you all being the final decision maker the Prof professional decisions of our librarian controls so the policy is structured so that our professional Librarians do their work but it gives the opportunity for members of the community to challenge that and create a separate committee to review make a decision and then ultimately go to the board uh so that's that's if if no one asks for that to happen no citizen anybody in the county the way this policy reach could ask for that
055to for that committee to be established to review okay so there was just to make sure the way the policy reads any citizen of the county can make a request for any work to be reviewed okay you know in emails because we've been conversing um could the Librarians have pulled those books yes you said there was no consensus yes that's right Librarians professionally have that discretion and that's again what they're going to speak to the parameters that they have uh to review Dana established the basic case law addressing this and I think of it in the terms of a flowchart right um you know with with with evaluating that so they do then that's why the policy says go to your librarian or your principal if you haven't gotten an answer to your satisfaction you
056can submit truthfully you don't even have to get that you can anyone can submit a request for reconsideration all right so can I submit a a request yes sir so is that what has to happen here or how I mean what what is the grace period to for a person to apply for this there's no grace period that this is available to anyone at any time and those books stay in there all the time under board policy we have that obligation if they haven't been removed from the professionals we we have that obligation to to keep them there isn't that a lot to leave on Librarians ultimately the board is the decision maker on this through that process so ultimately the burden is on you all they have their professional responsibility which they're going to
057speak to if Miss OS Brooks is done with her that is their professional their professional responsibility is to stock and address and address books in their Library yes but the whole policy is structured so that this burden ultimately falls on you well I I requested that we look at the policy also I agree with Josh on that so so as it stands right now this because I think that's the outrage of most people mhm it's why why are those books still in there yeah well and a policy anticipates this the policy addresses that if something is brought to the board or me then we are to refer them to the principal and librarian for their for their review the the policy anticipated without the specifics that a question could come to you so that's Our
058obligation this policy was created largely because of the case law addressing protecting the first amendment in the context of school libraries so that's where we're at I understand completely where we're at I've been studying it myself but my thing is is is there anything that we can do MH to at least get those books off the shelf I can answer a superintendent there might some legal advice from Dana to add to this you can anyone can submit a request for reconsideration that will trigger the review process but that that's going to that's going to go just like the one we've got going now the policy you know the Committees and you know the whole bottle bottle wax right there it's going to include all this and this can go on for months that is one
059of the challenges that school boards face and that was an examp example of what went on in that Pico case that school districts across the country have developed policies to to address because of how the Supreme Court addresses Free Speech my best suggestion at this stage is that Dana if if you've completed your presentation if not finished uh and allow the Librarians to walk through their process I think it will give you all a a a bigger picture a more complete picture of that but the short answer to your question is under board policy based on that's been created based on the First Amendment we don't have the authority we you and I don't have the authority to immediately remove a book and and I agree with that I do think we've got our three
060Librarians here and I am going to tell you who they are um Dana Dana excuse me we have one question and then I I would like to uh make a couple of context comments Mr Brown so you referred a few few times to the fact that the having a process is what makes the removal of the books ultimately constitutional so is there anything in that case law about that prescribes what that process has to be or what it has to look like or do we have the discretion as long as we have a process that is invol it involves authority figures in the school district we have latitude as to what that process can be so that's a very Broad question some and I can answer that you will have some discretion um and I'm
061I'm going to say again I think it would be helpful with a lot of these questions if the Librarians get a chance to speak because they are also going to talk to you about their role as well as their ethical obligations and I think some of those pieces will help you in understanding this whole process um because like I mentioned Monday night up until recently that was not what their work and their processes were not something that we have talked about generally as a board um so yes to answer your question there is not a specific stepbystep process that has to be followed in the Pico case however there are guidelines in that Pico case as well as cases that come behind it and there are um also best practices from the national associations of
062libraries best practices that are recommended by school attorneys including the attorneys at tsba um and best practices because of the ethical obligations of our Librarians so it may not be in case law but you will hear um and and at this point I know that y'all want to to change the policy but I'm not yet certain how you want to so when we have those discussions in policy meetings I think we can answer the question of yes that is something you can change for instance we have specific people mentioned in the policy who serve on the committee there's nothing in case law regarding who that should be there is however strong um support in in case law for the piece of the policy where the books are not removed um so it's going to depend
063on what you want to change as to what that advice would be hopefully that helps yeah it helps and I and I think I probably speak for everybody on the board when I say that I don't think any of us are questioning the Librarians professionalism or their um their experience or ability to do their jobs right I think we'd all agree with that so let's let's get that on the record I think this is more about being responsive to the general public um and and looking at what is realistic and what what are you know what's doable within the framework of the Constitution and um just trying to understand that better so um I think we all appreciate the job they [Music] do any anyone else questions or y'all ready for me to turn it
064over I had I had one thing I just wanted to say context wise the books that we're talking about are any of these required books um are the books that have been the books that one um to my knowledge and I'm getting a yes one book has been used as required reading in some of our English classes okay the rest of them to my knowledge are libr are just library books okay and I'm getting a thumbs up okay and is there currently a process for community in this in this time is there a process if a parent doesn't want and that may be something that you're going to address in your okay you're going to address it okay so there is a process right now if parents don't want students to read certain books to
065let thank you and then finally regarding Josh's comments about the review of policy you know I just want to make sure that everybody in this room knows that this board has a very robust policy review process and some of those reviews come up because of changes in state and federal law but a lot of them come bubble up at a time like this you know they don't necessarily always result in changes but they always re result in Spirited discussion and sometimes changes that is a Hallmark of this board and we get professional input from the Tennessee School Board Association also about changes to these policies so I can let me just throw out one that I think will be familiar to everybody the school naming policy we've looked at that a significant number of times
066over the past couple of years so you know Josh and I had this discussion you know this is how this is how these things Bubble Up in the community and this is when they get looked at so that's all okay Jay wanted to say something Jay want speak to the to the to the policy itself and I'm looking at in in the 4.43 it it talks about instruction instructional materials um but in instructional materials is not very well defined even in the instructional materials um policies for and that it's early in the four four so 4.41 and2 I believe but um so where does it where is where is it clear clearly state that that library books are are in fact instructional materials I would I don't think there's any doubt that anything used in
067a classroom would be an instructional material but but where where do we where do we Define library books and how do they fit anywhere I don't think that we do Define library books how we know um is by asking the questions is is this because there are books that are both places they're in the library and they are instructional books so until I'm not aware of anywhere um I think we all recognize what a library book is I think the question is is it also sometimes instructional material and in this particular case yes one book it would also be considered instructional material because it is required agreed but but what if what if you have a library book that's not instruction can can a library book not be instructional material okay then no well I
068just want to ask the question so if a library book is not instructional material then the only things that are subject to review under 4.43 are instructional material I will give you my reading of it um board policy 4.42 selection of instructional materials has starts with a paragraph that you know talks about a wide range of instructional on all levels of difficulty Etc diversity of appeal on down and start and then it breaks that into sections objectives of selection responsibility for material selection and selection criteria and procedures for school media centers the way that policy reads is um uh library books are a subset of instructional materials with more specific information related to library books okay so it so it's not possible for a library book not to be considered instruction that's the okay I
069I think and there that may be that may be true that's the only it's really the only reference the the school media centers it talks about the that the Librarians are um are certainly one of the people that are responsible respons who are responsible for material selection um but if that's the is so is that the is that's your interpretation of what we're of how we're defining reviewing library books under this 4.43 yes and then of course 4.43 specifically mentions principles or librar Ian makes making it clear to me that that's that that that policy is covering library books well I I don't we might argue on how clear that makes it but um we we can but that's our job is to is to make the is potentially to review these and make the
070policies more clear so thank [Music] you okay I'm going to try one more time all right so we have with us um I'm going to turn it over to them we've got media Peach um who is the libr elementary librarian at Creekside Laura cleman Sunset Middle and Tiffany Tucker at Ravenwood Tiffany and Laura are going to be presenting Dia is here in case you have any questions regarding Elementary books I'm going to say one more thing and brag on them because they won't brag on themselves all of our WCS Librarians have a master's degree and are licensed by the state with a teaching license as a library media specialist um all of those University programs certifying our school librarians include rigorous as well as practical coursework um in children's young adult literature collection development for
071school libraries organization of information and as y'all probably do know our Librarians are some of our long-term employees they are some of the employees who have been with WCS the longest I love that's probably my favorite fact about y'all so um Brian is get is getting your piece did somebody have a question yes yes going to be a good conversation last for a while so before we get started because we came out of can we take like a two minute break real it's all up to her I want to miss it my eyeball five minutes 5 it right thank you e e e I think we're ready board members will continue our meeting now and we'll hear a presentation from our Librarians okay thank you um as she said I'm Laura Clayman librarian at Sunset
072Middle I'm also nationally board certified in school library Sciences um we're here to talk about school library collection development as we call it otherwise known know as how books are selected for the library the first thing you're going to do is you're going to look at the mission statement for your organization which of course this is the Williamson County mission statement which is that we exist to provide all students with a quality education that supports their intellectual physical emotional and Social Development so that's one of the things we keep in mind as we choose books the other thing we keep in mind is your board policy 4.42 which is considerations for all collections um it's important to note that this policy aligns perfectly with our professional organizations the American Library Association and the association American
073Association of school libraries um their policy statements and um code of ethics so it's to provide materials that will enrich and support the curriculum and personal needs of the students taking into consideration their varied interest abilities and learning styles to provide materials that will stimulate growth in factual knowledge literary appreciation aesthetic values and ethical standards to provide a background of information which will enable pupils to make intelligent judgments in their daily lives to provide material on opposing sides of controversial issues so that students May develop under Guidance the practice of critical analysis to provide materials that realistically represent our pluralistic society and reflect the contributions made by these groups and individuals to our American Heritage and to place principles above personal opinion and reason above Prejudice in the selection of materials of the highest quality
074in order to assure a comprehensive media collection appropriate for the users I'm going to turn it over to Tiffany to talk about the actual decision process hi everyone thank you Laura so I'm talking about the process of how books actually come into our library and what collection development really looks like on the ground so Librarians work closely with our classroom teachers and school to learn about the scope and sequence and the curriculum that we have we get to know our teachers really well that's one of my favorite parts of the job and we're interested in staff requests that meet curricular needs and student interests um and it's reciprocal we want the teachers to know what the library has available and then we want the staff to know that they can ask us if we have
075if we don't have something that they need whenever a student recommends a book we also take that really seriously because if one student is interested in reading a book it's very likely that another student is going to want to read that book too or hundreds of students so that's always exciting however we consider requested books through the same lens that we would put any book in our collection we have many ways to find out about books before we purchase them and we're always considering our specific School community and seeking a balance for our collections that meet the needs of all of our Learners finally we heavily consider books which have won or been nominated for National book awards for example the cicott new F Prince award stuff like that we also have a state book
076list that's published annually called the volunteer state book awards and that list um we try we always meet about it as a librarian group and we talk about those books together and we add a lot of the award-winning books to our collections every year and so we like to be able to talk about those with our library colleagues so this slide is essentially an introduction to our book selection team as we choose books for our libraries Librarians use many sources and people within their schools and districts for the important job of selecting Library materials School library Journal is the Premier publication for librarians and information Specialists who work with children in teens a source of quality journalism and reviews for more than 60 years School library Journal evaluates a broad range of resources from books
077to digital content and publishes over 6,000 reviews annually and this is one of the professional journals another professional Journal we look at is called kirkus reviews or kirkus media and it's an American book Review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia kirkus the magazine is published on the 1st and 15th of every month and it discusses books that have not yet been published so that we can think about them before we make purchases starred reviews from these Publications signify a book with particular merits um they are highly considered and something the professional journals take very seriously and Librarians consider heavily as we are selecting books as well there are many processes that the journals go through um to provide sound unbiased and good useful recommendations for librarians to use book jobbers is a librarian term you
078may not have ever heard of those but book jobbers are the businesses who get books ready to go on Library shelves so it has the spine label ready it has the barcode sometimes they're covered or they have special spines for multiple uses and um the book jobbers are really great because they frequently will provide the reviews from the professional journals directly on their site so when you're shopping for books the information that you need to determine stuff about that book is listed right there on their site from the professional journals um and it's very it is very helpful for librarians when we're selecting books finally in addition to suggestions from our school Community we spend time with our librarian colleagues collaborating And discussing books at professional development on a regular basis so this slide is
079basically um the basics of collection development each year budget get new books take out old books so like the previous slide Illustrated I like to think of librarians as like the conductors or planners of this whole process because we have to make sure within budget that various needs are met when purchasing Library materials but in actuality we're doing we're like overseeing the selection the requisition and purchase order process U making sure that we haven't forgotten books that somebody has requested of us keeping up with lists before we put them in a cart in addition to keeping the library organized and upkeeping the library collection Librarians often spend many many hours or even many days for the book selection process each year and we always kind of keep list going so that when we get more
080budget money we are prepared to make those purchases when we can uh my final slide is about deselection this slide um is talking about ways that we decide when books are ready to come out of the collection uh we sometimes call this process weeding weeding books is the librarian term as well there are methodical steps that we use to remove books from the collection involving running reports creating Excel documents and using our training to apply criteria to our collection many of us keep a rolling 5-year plan to make sure we're considering every dewy range on a rotating basis it's important to note that our collections are constantly adapting and everchanging due to a host of factors so it's really like a living organism our collection changes um from month to month or week to week
081or even day-to-day sometimes so the four main areas we consider when weeding books is relevance currency interest and condition relevance primarily relates to curriculum and the needs um of teachers in the school and what students need to have access to a good way to think about currency is to consider how outdated a book about technology might be after just a few years whereas a book on History might have relevance for a much longer time interests change and Trends in books shift just as our student population grows up up and changes and their interest shift because of those changes that are happening in their lives um when books are damaged we pull them out of the collection and they will be reordered if they still meet the current needs of the collection so now I'm going
082to turn it back over to Laura to finish out our presentation tonight thank you and so the main concern is about these controversial books so why do we have books with sensitive content I'd like to bring it back to that board policy 4.42 um which is providing a background to enable intelligent judgments in their daily lives to provide materials that realistically represent our pluralistic society and to place principles above personal opinion and reason above Prejudice so I want to talk about some of those things that books can do they can provide a safe format for parents parents to converse with their student about sensitive issues so when parents are trying to discuss some topics perhaps a teenage party that goes a little out of control things that happen scary things books allow parents to have
083that conversation with their student because they're talking about the character and because the student has read a story about this happening Suddenly It's Not Just parents making the Boogey me they're seeing it as something that is possible and real so it allows them to have a very difficult conversation in a non-confrontational way it allows students to vicariously experience situations and prepare them for the future so um we often refer to the Brentwood bubble I can speak personally you know when my daughter went to the University of Alabama she was exposed to a lot of things that she never experienced here fortunately she was a very Avid Reader and had an opportunity to have already vicariously experienced some of those things I did not have to have the conversation with her about protecting her drink because
084she already knew we need to do this because we had read some of those things that when you look at them they're a little bit shocking but she had experienced that and so she knew to be prepared for those things and importantly as a parent I was having those conversations they reflect the world and give students a safe appropriate way to Pro uh to process unfamiliar circumstances to uh maybe understand their friend who has a mother that has schizophrenia okay or maybe they're dealing with those circumstances themselves um I'd like U most of us are familiar with the outsiders Essie Hinton wrote it when she was 15 or started writing it when she was 15 and she wrote this she says I didn't just write The Outsiders I lived it looking back I realized how
085important it was to me to have another life at that time to be someone else to deal with the problems I had to face and to write my way to some sort of understanding and coping this is all in hindsight at the time I was mad about the social situation in my high school I desperately wanted something to read that dealt realistically with teenage life books allow students to develop empathy and understanding um a student wrote this to the author of front desk I live in a large house with two acres of land had a full-time nanny for 10 years and always had more than enough food for both snacks and meals honestly I thought everyone is this lucky or if not I at least assume they had enough for three meals in a good
086house this book really open my eyes to what the real world is like I learn that not everyone has it as easy as I do finally books help students develop resilience and they decrease those feelings of isolations at just about every single board meeting I have heard board members address just l so concerns about student mental health a student wrote this a few minutes ago I was crying journaling my miserable life thinking if I should end things today today is a good day to do it a reader wrote to hey kiddo author Jared kosa then I saw your book on my tiny shelf that book although it is extremely difficult to read his mother was a heroin addict he lived with his grandmother who curses like a sailor that gave another student who experiencing similar
087disparaging conditions hope that life can go on you can get through these terrible difficult situations and get to the other side it's important to remember that like Dana said as Librarians we apply the Miller test and we evaluate books as a whole and we do not exclude books because a few sentences or pages may contain offensive content oh so all of this libraries are places of voluntary inquiry that means the student and the parent decide what books are appropriate for that student to have so parents are encouraged to discuss their family standards in book selections I always tell my parents my I always tell my students are your parents okay with this and then I tell them because they're middle schoolers if I get a call from your parent I'm going to say you said
088this was okay because you know they're kids um so parents are encouraged to discuss their family standards with their students I welcome those students to say Hey you know if you're not sure about mom and dad with this book have them give me a call we'll talk about it before you take it home or take it home show it to Mom and Dad say hey Miss Clayman says I might want to take a look at this first um and parents are welcome to contact us to discuss any limiters you want put on the book our circulation systems function in such a way that if there were a limiter it would pop up and say hey Jason golden shouldn't have any books on law or storytelling um and in some form or other of course age
089appropriate from elementary through high school during orientation every librarian discusses this with their students reading is a joy a privilege and your right as you select the books you will read understand that every book is not the best choice for every student if a book is unappealing or offensive to you in any way please return it and select another you the student know better than we the library staff what reading materials best serve you and your standards and beliefs thank you thank you any questions board members I see no questions oh wait for somebody else to start okay Rick and then Jay Laur so um we talked about we talked about the Miller test and um and so and so you said you look at you look at the book as a whole like but
090it looks like the Miller test had had two had two parts it was basically does it meet the community standards and then does it have um vulgarity sexual content and waited by waited with the the look as a whole so it seems actually I'm going going to jump ahead here and if I may discuss one of the books that I have in my middle school that is on this objectionable list if you'll give me a moment I'm going to retrieve that the book the book that was objected to at the middle school level is the Berlin Boxing Club you will notice that there's a giant star on the book that was the award the seabird award given for excellence in Jewish literature when we chose this book this is two pages of starred reviews for
091that book let me read to you what school library Journal said about it this powerful and thought-provoking novel set in Berlin from 1934 to 19 38 dramatically Chronicles the impact of Hitler's rise to power through the eyes of Carl Stern after suffering a humiliating beating by some pro- Nazi bullies their 13-year-old happily accepts the chance to be coached by Max schmelling um maxing actually was a real boxer so this is historical fiction uh the champion boxer he meets at a reception in his father's Art Gallery boxing has never been one of Carl's interest but becomes his main focus prior to his hum ilation at school drawing cartoons was his passion and they are cleverly interspersed in the story he and his family are non-observant Jews and Carl even expresses anti-semitic attitudes early in the book
092he um but eventually politics and economics begin to overshadow everything in the boy's life much of the art at the stern gallery has to be sold secretly since the Nazis have B banned it as degenerate Carl's mother has periods of depression as entrenchment of fascism grows Things become even more confusing Carl admires schmelling greatly but becomes disillusioned by The Boxers association with Hitler and high-ranking Nazis the gallery is destroyed on crystal knck when roving bands of Nazis smash Windows of businesses owned by Jews Carl's father is wounded and Carl and his sister run to a customer who risks a great deal to help them ultimately it is schelling who saves the two young Sterns and pays for their passage to America this is an unusual story with well-drawn complex characters gripping history and intense emotion
093so the particular scenes that were highlighted when you look at page seven when you read the entirety of the passage and for the sake of sec I'm going to substitute the anatom comically correct term with private okay um so as it says he's been a non-observant Jew he has hidden his Jewish background from his classmates but some bullies have discovered who he is right so um so uh he says um I don't know what you're talking about I'm not Jewish I stammered oh no GR said then what are you I wasn't raised with any religion so you're a red Girt sneered that's even worse all the reds are Jews anyway aren't they France said communist Vine Julius said Jews are destroying our country dirty Pig but I'm not pull down his pants gers said before
094I could react Julius grabbed my arms I strained against his grassp but he easily held me firm France roughly unbuckled my belt and unbutton my trousers three buttons snapped off in the process and click down the stairs that I wished I had run down earlier descending with sharp little pings all that school year I had managed to guard my nakedness from my classmates Athletics were not stressed at our gymnasium so we had physical education only once a week and in the locker room I always managed to Shield my incriminating private behind a towel but now France pulled down my pants and underwear so they hung around my ankles and my private bobbed in front of them in all its circumcised Glory St my father had explained that the procedure had been done for health reasons
095and that lots of modern people were circumcising their children in Europe and the United States whatever the reason no matter how much the rest of me looked like a gentile I had a private that was undeniably Jewish so yes that does contain some offensive things but back to the point you don't have to check out the book If this offends you but some students would benefit and are curious about the Holocaust and would like to read it in a more realistic way does that answer your question I think it so let's let's say let's say that it does in context of of this of this book um but is there is there a situation where the the material in the book um given given the given the community standards if that's the if that's the
096criteria um would would outweigh the um the as a the as a whole um because it see the milary test seems to seems to do that but I just I want to I want to understand your take it's a it's a very slippery slope um you know it's it's something I believe I'm kind of looking at these guys as Tech guys um for uh my daughter took AP art history so of course she had to examine many many artworks including many nudes um you know you look at the cistin chapel any of the the great Renaissance painters um sorry I can only think of the Underpants painter that covered several of them in the cine Chapel um and so trying to find those pictures pretty much had to be done at home because the filters
097were such that they could not distinguish what would be considered a of art versus what be would be considered pornography um and it becomes a very kind of tenuous thing as Librarians and that's where we look rely so heavily on those type of reviews and things like that um are there times so in uh Elementary School when I had an elementary school library I had a student request a book um I was a little iffy on it because it was recommended for an older age range at also like to note on this book all of the age Rangers recommended were seven grade seven and up um so so that's why it lands in the Middle School collection uh and so I was very iffy about the book and so when I received the book it
098did have a a sexual situation in it I called the child's mother and said hey your child specifically asked for this title are you okay with it has this seen and the parents said yes I you know my daughter's curious about this I'm willing to have this conversation with her at that time so I did did not keep that book in the elementary collection um clearly sexual conduct doesn't you know doesn't fit with the elementary collection um but I chose to pull it on that standard thanks I'll let I'll let everybody else go Rick then Sheila then Josh then [Music] Dan um good job both of you thank you very much uh I really like to point about facilitating conversation with parents I guess I've seen it in action but I've never really you know
099applied it to the library so thanks for bringing that up do the Librarians reject many books because of what you or your team considers to be vulgarity or obscenity or you know it probably won't come as a surprise to any of you that Librarians are Avid readers so I'm reading I probably read about 30 books a year and I know some of my um Library friends read even more than that 50 60 books a year and um I was just telling somebody the other day like I'm always reading a book considering if it should be in my collection or not and we do talk about that amongst ourselves quite a bit too and a lot of times high school librarians will recommend or unrecombined millions of books published every year just in the United States
100and of those probably more like about 300,000 are like actually ones that we might even consider putting in a school library and most School libraries get about 200 new books a year so when you think about the scope of all of the things in the world that we have to choose from then what we actually decide to spend our very hard-earned budgets on um but yes there's I mean there's books that I read all the time and I do I read a lot of young adult books I read a lot of adult books and there are tons of adult books that are completely appropriate for a high school library and then some that aren't okay thank you may ask followup what's the best thing about being a librarian just curious you know the one so
101I was an English teacher before I became a librarian I went back and got my Master's Degree after i' had been teaching for about five years and I do miss being with kids all the time in that classroom setting because as y'all mentioned earlier building those relationships is tougher when you're in the role that I'm in but my favorite part is still working with the students and helping them find a book that's right for them or helping them with research stuff like that is my favorite part my favorite is engaging someone who's a non-reader and turning them into a reader thanks Sheila okay um thank you again I this is really enlightening purchasing books solely on do you purchase books solely on Rec recommendation or do you actually read each one that comes in because
102even though it has a very very good review and I know there are so many books you that come in do you actually read every single book and then therefore form an opinion of it and whether you want to pull it or not order on my math no that would be 250 books a year last time I checked Mr Golden was not happy when he saw me reading at my desk no she's making that up yeah I am making that up but but if you do that mathematic it's impossible that's what I thought yeah and if I may add something to that if I'm not mistaken Nolanville High School when it opened at 19,000 19,000 books is that right do I have the number right Dr Allen I thought it was about 16 okay 16,000
103I may have I may have flipped a flip the number so the Practical reality is one person can't read all that in that's what I kind of assumed however I will say especially for those Award winners which which I mentioned we all do um read all of the state Award winners and most or not all of them we have a committee and we make sure that a Williamson County Schools librarian has read every book on the list so somebody has read that book and we do that for a lot of the national award winners as well so there are we do like for the ones that we feel like are going to be very popular or going to be read by a lot of our students we make sure that one of us has read
104those and then when you have a situation where you have say a a load of books coming in and you possibly can't read them all but it's something you pretty much read read the recommendations or whatever on them once they're in the library and then it's brought to your attention that maybe it's not the greatest book to be in there do do you have the authority then just to say well maybe this wasn't right just to pull it off without any further discussion I mean we we do have that Authority but we also have an ethical obligation to look at those First Amendment rights so you still apply it to that the First Amendment writes the um the three the yeah right and another option we may do is just as we can flag um
105student Ju Just to kind of make a note that you know this book yeah I mean we turn sorry um we do we do have the authority to pull a book but most of the time what we're going to do is review it and then make a decision from there right in most cases um I've had a conversation with that student's parent to you know say Hey you know do you want me to flag this forear student and in some cases a parent actually just wanted to know hey you know let me know so I can have that conversation with my kid yeah I appreciate that too thank you so much Josh did you say me sorry sorry um how many times first of all I thank you for the presentation um how many times
106would you say in the course of your careers as Librarians that you have run across a book that you deem you personally deemed obscene enough for you to remove it from the library so you mean in our library collections from a school library that you oversaw how many times in your career would you say you've read something that you said was obscene enough for you to remove it that has never happened to me I think you have to look again at the levels of the book um I I in in preparing for this I joked with Dia and Tiffany um when I was at the elementary I was uh very excited about R doll books and I ordered his full collection and um one of them is a very cute book it's called U rotten
107Rhymes and other crimes and uh you know just came across the picture book recommended and one of my little boys brought it to me um said you know my mom says you know the English humor is different but you should be aware of this book and uh I looked at it it did it did have a rather inappropriate line for second grade in there and I I did choose to pull that book so one one in your case and zero in your case I think there probably have been more there have been more um at the lower levels yeah at at the lower levels and and sometimes it's when you inherit a collection and um you know when when as a middle school librarian when I could look at some of the titles that had
108been chosen and realize I'm the only one with these and some of the high schools don't even have these maybe it's time to move these on is for example the entire Stephen King collection so a great amazing writer quite intriguing but not exactly middle school appropriate and I have had multiple middle schools send me books that they thought weren't maybe right for middle school but they didn't just want the book to go to waste so they would send it up to a high school level but by the time you get to a high school level you've developed that maturity of reader and honestly you're hoping they're still reading one thing I I flag thank you for that by the way um one thing I flagged from I guess it was your last slide and I
109don't know if we still have it um the last U it had four I guess criteria you use or something for I don't know anywhere are you talking about the board policy no it was from something you had put up on the slide that was U kind of the are things that books can do yes okay so that last one there that that I just it kind of stood out to me um that you the student know better than we the librarian the staff what reading materials best serve you and your standard and beliefs right um it it just Dawns on me that that's if you're talking to elementary school middle school and even high school students really they don't I mean the parents do that's why I put on there that it's the student
110and the parent I think that's the okay I just see student there but okay right but if you notice it's student and parent the parents have that obligation um and as and I said you know it's just some version of this but but really they need to be having that conversation with their parents and I've had students you know um one boy in particular stands out to me he's he's a regular Library user and um you know he you know if there was a book with you know some more mature content and I would say Hey you know and he' be like oh yeah my parents would be okay with that you know because I have that conversation with them and and and I 100% support for every parent's right but I also know that
111you know this parent may be okay with certain content this parent may not and not even that in between two children you know you you every parent knows one child can handle a lot more things than another child so you know it's where it really comes into individuality yeah and I don't I don't mean really don't mean to nitpick over wording I I just it kind of underscores a point for me that I know my own children at the age that they are despite how mature or they may be or or educated or enlightened they may be they're not prepared to make the a determination about what's appropriate or not for them and maybe there's even times they don't even know what to look for to determine whether something is appropriate they don't have that
112that um capacity to make those kind of judgments so I think that's where some of the frustration probably comes in with parents and this whole thing we're dealing with now that um they feel like you know the kids are not in a position to make a decision about what's a book A book they should be checking out or not and then only when they get into the book do they realize that they've been exposed to something that they shouldn't have been exposed to right and and that's where I would encourage parents to develop a policy with their students of hey you know bring your library book home to me and let let's look at it together because as a parent like as pointing out you do have that Authority and that ability to say this
113isn't this isn't right let's choose something else thank you Dan yes thank you thank you for coming out and I appreciate the the book that you read and um that to me is absolutely fine that was discussing a topic it was not discussing a sexual sexually explicit there's no puran interest there pardon me there's no puran interest there right um so and and that's what I'm talking about and you know by no means am I blaming this on libr right but this is on one of that that list that is that it's you know I've never read that um and and I'm not a book burner type I I'm I've been reading a book uh that a parent gave me that I think it's absolutely fine you know and it's got some some things in
114it U sexually mature things but it doesn't go into detail like what I heard the other night or in November M and uh I was just wondering and curious do when you're choosing books do laws uh you know like 18 like the pornography stuff there's you know if you were to go on back to the book jobbers where we look for books um I don't even know that they have would would they have like 50 Shades of Gray on there oh I see I see the question um no so the book jobbers it depends on the specific book jobber most of the ones that we use are dictated toward schools so they are going to have some adult books but I would say that you are limited in um like it's not like the ocean
115it's like a river in terms of it is limited but i' I've never looked you're not to find the for some of those books well I'm I'm just saying and and you know like you've you've removed one book you you've never remove removed a book I don't know about the other Librarians um but when I and parents see and hear what what came out that to me is more of a a pornography issue in uh explaining the genitalia for instance or something and again I think you would have to look back in context and that's where you look at the entire book and that's where the that review process comes in because if you take out isolated lines um my favorite is to go back to the Bible there are some wonderfully explicit lines that
116that we could read but but obviously taken as a whole that's not the intent right but I'm talking about gra this was pretty graphic stuff I was at that board meeting you know I mean you you got to be 18 to buy a a porn pornographic magazine uh you have you got to be 18 to get into an x-rated movie you you've got to be uh I mean pornography is one of the largest addictions in our country today um you know and you just you often wonder you know how all this gets gets rolling and gets going and you've got to be 18 to do any of this stuff but yet in the schools and this is this is how I feel and this is many parents in a school we've got firewalls in all
117our computers so the kids can't get on this stuff but they can close that computer and go in the library and get some of these books I do and then if if the child if a child let's say a high schooler takes a book out and um you know apparent apparent objects to it it's damage is already done he's already read it you know is it my question was going to be is it kind of the norm for librarians to say man that's that's a pretty deep book there maybe you'd want your parent to is that pretty much Norm or well first I want to clarify something so y'all have said a couple of times that like I've never pulled a book and that's not entirely true because there's plenty of books that I haven't
118put in our collection so I do want to clarify that to answer your first question on the book jobbers um they do recommend the levels of the books so I don't I don't remember every book on the list that was was brought up in November but almost all of those books were labeled for young adults so they were either seventh grade and up or ninth grade and up recommended for those levels of books so those weren't even listed as adult books in our there may have been one or two I don't know all of them no that but on the book jobbers they are recommended as young adult books for middle school and or high school students right no you're absolutely right about it it was these books are listed young adults but I mean
119this this is the kind of thing that that that I'm looking at and and here's where I would go with that conversation um if a I I will just use my daughter as an example okay because I can speak more easily to personal without worrying about violating anybody's privacy um she read lots of ya to the point that her Librarians contacted me as a parent saying hey you know your kids's checking out all this stuff and I said yeah she is and we had a lot of conversations I had a very open policy that if you have any questions about things you come to me and I will answer them and there are some that I was like oh boy but I wanted her to get the information from me and not from a 12-year-old
120or a 15-year-old or a 16-year-old and to this day we have that very open conversation I'm extremely pleased with her progression as an adult um through college and through graduate school she maintained a 4.0 she's got all kinds of awards and recognitions so we're not talking about a child who read you know sexual content and suddenly went off the deep end and became a porn addict we're talking about someone who perhaps satisfied some curiosity or said what on Earth are they talking about and why are these characters making these choices because when she did of college she was able to recognize that some of those students were choosing to do drugs she kind of knew from those characters and our discussions where that ended not to get involved in that she knew not to get
121involved in extramarital sexual situations because those can lead to X Y and Z you know she has been able to make a very fully informed choice because she had that so so those books did not turn her into some kind of porn addict they answered that Curiosity you can you can get it outside you can get it outside the schools but PE you know people are taxpaying citizens they don't expect their kids to go to school and hear what I heard the other night I mean and I would encourage those parents to use that option and contact us as Librarians and say you know um Ellen Hopkins was one of the authors that had several of the books that were objected to hey I don't want my kid checking out Ellen Hopkins one more question
122have you ever thought about or or had discussion about a rating scale for book we have had discussions and we have varying beliefs among Library staff on that um where It ultimately comes down to um is the uh ala has issued a interpretation of the library Bill of Rights so um it it's a intensely hotly debated topic among Librarians But ultimately I'm going to fall back on our professional body um I'm not going to read you every single word of this I'm just going to talk about labeling systems like you're talking about um Library do not Advocate the ideas found in their collections or in resources accessible through the library the presence of books or other resources does not indicate endorsement of their contents labeling as an attempt to Prejudice attitudes is a sensor's tool
123the American Library Association opposes labeling as a means of predosing prisp sorry prosing thank you predisposing people's attitudes toward Library resources prejudicial labels are are designed to restrict access based on a value judgment that the content language or themes of the resource or the background reviews of the creator of the resource render it inappropriate or offensive for all or certain groups of users the prejudicial label is used to warn discourage or prohibit users or certain groups of users from accessing the resource such labels sometimes are used to place materials in restricted locations um these labeling systems assume that libraries have the institutional wisdom to determine what is appropriate or inappropriate for its users to access they presuppose that individuals must be directed in making up their minds about the ideas they examine the American Library
124Association opposes the use of prejudicial labeling systems and affirms the rights of individuals to form their own opinions about resources they choose to read view listen to or otherwise access Elliot [Music] thank you madam chair um I want to Echo everybody else's appreciation for you all taking the evening this tonight to come and uh come to our meeting and and be hammered with questions I appreciate that so it's my understanding that when you guys when you're when you're budgeting and you're buying a lot of times you buy in bundles is that c so if I want title A B and C it comes with d and f as well is that is that a true statement or not the only way I would say was true is if we're buying a series um you know
125the kids might want to finish out the series um and so sometimes um the series becomes more mature and it's more of a problem for Middle School it is for high school or perhaps buying like I said with r doll buying a whole author set I've only ever bought like two collections because most of the time you are buying them as they come out and they don't usually come out all at the same time but that could happen some when a school is opening so that sometimes happens although we're the library if you're buying 13,000 at a pop right then it's kind of hard to that's a lot so so Publishers I guess don't say okay if they have a really popular book they don't try to bundle it with something else that they're pushing
126I guess or this isn't the Senate okay all right very very well CU I was going to ask you what kind of process or methods you had to control the the secondary books that honest our budgets are so small and minuscule and underfunded seriously seriously underfunded that we are very very judicious about what titles we choose so so you guys have mentioned multiple times tonight that you have the meth that there are methods for parents uh to I I guess flag certain subject matter or books or authors uh so if their children wanted to check it out you guys would have to they'd have to get permission from the parents first am I understanding that correct when you talk about flagging uh something relative to okay so so so to the Ellen Hopkins example let's
127say I said um Miss Tucker I do not want Rachel reading any Ellen Hopkins books so Rachel comes to her with an Ellen's Hopkins book yeah so our library system is called fallet we sometimes refer to it as Destiny but it's our cataloging circulation program and so each student has their own account set up in the cloud and we um could then put a note on Rachel's account that says she doesn't mom doesn't want to read Ellen Hopkins and every time I pull up Rachel's account that note is going to flag immediately right there on the screen with that information for me to see so then I could say you know what you're not supposed to check this one out or if you really want it go talk to your mom but she you know
128this says no for you and that I mean again that's not going to happen as frequently at the high school level but it does happen more frequently at the elementary and middle school levels and so that's a that are there other methods besides that to I guess Li limit or review that parents have to review selections that their children um check out other than the flagging I guess are you're asking as a parent yeah yeah so so where where I'm at with this is what one person considers obscene or pornographic another person may not right and and so it gets down to what is the lowest common denominator of what we prohibit available to our students and and so one of my questions I was going to do the reverse question that Josh had that
129said have you ever had Parents claiming some book was obscene and you reviewed it and disagreed or to that point as opposed to you reading something and pulling it right versus or or another example of I had I had a couple of parents come in and say I want this book out of my school I'm a taxpayer this needs to go and you've got two other parents that come in and say you know I I find this content very en engaging and my teenager loved it this was or to your an example that you read my teenager helped work through some issues that they were struggling with because of this content so I've got parent a that says says get rid of this crap and I got parent B that says I don't I don't
130agree with what their position is what's the lowest common denominator and how do we how do we determine that so to back to my original question if parent a doesn't want their child reading this crap what are our methods what what do what tools do we as the district you as the Librarians have to enforce that parents wishes for their child oh that's where so for example more so I I don't want my kid to check out books with any profanity um that's when Tiffany can look at looking at the um you could look at the title review on the book the child so this so the flag would say yeah um Rachel is not to have any books with profanity so um when Tiffany gets it also within our systems we can look at
131a title review and again if that book is recommended grade seven and up chances are that it's probably going to have an offensive word okay at least one at least one probably not a ton but at least one um and you know parents can also well they don't ever hear it in the classroom and in the hallways I'm sure well yeah they they first time they see it is is in written word they don't know how to pronounce it so but but more realistically um you know again it comes down to that parent having that conversation with their child um a a review Source I sometimes go to and um I'll just shamelessly throw that out here what we've been begging for the district to pay for for middle school librarians is Common Sense Media
132they do not it's not exhaustive but they do a good review of uh popular upcoming titles and uh and that's particularly nice because they will flag sensitive areas like sexual situations or drug use or profanity and they they kind of tell you what specifically um is flagged in that and again you know High School is is different because you're dealing with a much more mature student yeah and to answer so I'll give two answers to that um that would also that could also start the review of selection materials process so if a parent if groups of parents come to me and say get this book out of here we love this book then we would ask them if they want to formally Challenge and we would take it through that review process and then at
133that point the committee gets to make that decision about whether the book stays or goes so that is part of the board policy for that and then um I forgotten the other thread of my thoughts well well my original question was above and beyond flagging what are the tools a parent has to to to to kind of keep their student from reading what the parent considers objectional right and so my other it's sort of similar to what Laura is saying my other comment was going to be um parents could read the same reviews as well they aren't um you read on Amazon yeah they aren't private reviews and especially like Common Sense Media and some of the others they if you have an account you don't it's not cost anything if you have an account
134you can see the reviews that are published about books that would tell the parents the content of the books within those reviews as well do do you all do you guys have ebooks as well or is it all yes we do have ebooks but we're very restrictive in that content because it's available across the district but we started the ebooks heavily last year when um we were in and out of school with Co right that makes sense that's makes perfect sense so from a high school I guess in Middle School to the maturity of a six-year-old's a whole lot different from the matur charity of an e sixth grader is different from the charity of an eighth grader ninth graders and and seniors right freshman and seniors and seniors are typically 18 by the time
135by the time they're getting into the second semester um so do you have so so from a 14year old I guess as a ninth grader versus an 18-year-old is a senior do you do you have different do you if a 14-year-old is coming and getting something that's probably more of a mature book like that a senior would be reading do you guys pick up on that and is that the type of thing again that's going to come down to individual children and and um and I actually do my my poor daughters I use them in my example my orientation every year my oldest child did not read ya until she was in college because her life is unicorn and rainbows and I still argue with her to this day she's 28 now about being safe
136and um you know as she was choosing an apartment I finally turned to her uh fiance at the time and said Edgar do you feel safe with Susan there and he said no ma'am I don't she's like what do you think someone's going to stuff me in the trunk I said as a matter of fact I do um she just blinders and my younger child you know when she was in third grade I had to buy her Hunger Games so um you know I wouldn't necessarily consider Hunger Games appropriate for most 8-year-olds but she just ran with it um and so to say that a ninth grader is not ready to read that mature material for me to just point blank make that judgment is not fair to the parent it's not fair to the
137student so in high schools we have a flex schedule so students aren't required to come to the library on any kind of set basis so my wonderful assistant and I have read lots of books and have a lot of knowledge about books even if we haven't read them and so we frequently have that moment to say to the kid this book is a little bit mature or this one's got some sad parts or just something to sort of give them a sense and I mean the students are taught from kindergarten how to read the back of the book how to read the front flap to figure out if that's going to be a book of interest to them but if we do have classes coming in they at the high school level have their teachers
138with them so they also have that third level of a teacher who knows the students helping them select books as well or you know telling them what's interesting or not and just one thing to know about a lot of high school students is they're looking for the thinnest book on the Shelf to complete that reading bet me and there's not like most of those thin books don't contain the really great depth that great literature has and so it's not as much of a concern when they're having to choose something for maybe an outside reading project at the high school level if I may I did want to give one local example Hillsboro School is a K8 and I do know that that that Library separates the elementary books from the Middle School books and that
139was kind of my question do you have a kind of a ninth grade Row versus a 12th grade row or a sixth grade Row versus an eighth grade row or it goes back to that labeling um and I I gave you the position statement person personally I do um just more so as a alert to the student hey this has somewhere mature content there there's no restriction but um again other Librarians are more in line with the Ala and saying no that's not fair to do that and my library does not do that and something you all may have figured out by now it's really hard to come to a specific consensus and the librarian group is the same way we have done surveys before and it'll be 33 33 33 of how people feel
140about things and so the Librarians try to get to know their school community and as Dana pointed out a lot of librarians stay in their communities for a really long time um longer than a lot of the teachers in our schools so we provide some of that continuity thank you again Eric it's on yeah closer true y yes okay um so like thank you for for being here this been great um uh I think we as a board need to think about having more of of these educational type sessions um because you know without anything going on just how this process and everything has been very enlightening and and uh fabulous so I I appreciate appreciate that um I mean I probably heard about too about the recent fire in the library at at Alabama
141uh you I don't know if you heard about that they lost like a thousand books and they lost more in the flood well in the the tragedies most of them weren't colored in uh yet at the University of Alabama quite yet yes there it is so I'm starting off a little levity yes it took a second roll tight Eric little is right yes but I want to start with some levity uh because I kind of want jump me some things that aren't his L with this and uh so I want to say I appreciate the point about you made about books allowing you to sort of experience other cultures and situations that is it not I didn't think it was I think it's working it's got a light that's right is that better that's better
142see that's the real reason I didn't get the laugh no that's not no it's not um and I think of you know my son graduating and 18 before going off to college and then going to work in South Florida doing a on a survey road crew and you know very different environment from Franklin Tennessee uh you know a little more blue collar and rough than he was used to and on his first day you know he met his re road crew and wife the the guy and said you know where did you go to college and he kind of looked at this young kid and you know turned to his friend and goes I can tell not a lot of crime or this boy come from which has been one of my favorite lines of
143all time uh and I tease him about a lot because sort of the same thing a little you know sheltered bubble that he's grown up in uh which is nice um so I I agree it is a way to to experience a lot of these uh different things but I also get uh where a lot of people are coming from that they read these uh you know they're Snippets granted they're not in contact but they read it and listen to a lot of things and uh probably all this kind of went ooh that is rough and that's tough and there's uh a lot to that and I think for a lot of parents I want to speak for everyone but I think for a lot there there that is the concern is is the child
144going to get access to something that I as a a parent or a guardian would not want them to unknowingly um and so I appreciate you kind of talking about that a little bit as well uh of those books that do contain uh what what some might find objectional content uh how familiar are you with with them in the library and being able to sort of flag and and that process I guess what I'm saying is what is the ability for something to to slip through if you will and certainly there you know nothing is guaranteed in life but you know how do we stop that from just being a regular occurrence do you understand kind of where I'm going with this I don't know if I I asked it very artfully I mean I
145don't know exactly how to answer your question either but I feel like and I feel like our um National Organ ganizations support that we are really there for the students and so I understand that parents have a lot of impact and want to have a lot of influence over their students but our responsibility as Librarians is really to the students and to provide what the students need for their lives and um I mean to answer your question a little bit differently I select every book that comes into our library it doesn't get into our Library without somebody looking at it me and today I had a student very sweet brought a bunch of books in and said I have some books I'd like to donate and I said I would love to look at those
146that doesn't mean that I'm going to put all of them in my collection but I said did you read all of those through high school and she said yeah and so a lot of them I wind up putting in the collection but there is a lot of thought and processing and concern for making sure and that's one of the reasons that I haven't removed books because I'm very careful in the books that I put in my collection to begin with okay perfect so one thing kind of came up was talking about not having pornographic material in the library and so I guess first of all let's start talking about looking up here what the definition of pornography is here and it's um you know explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity intended to
147stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings uh and so I think that's that last part is is kind of the the key part of it there as well um you know you saw a book of Victorian nudes for example you know a lot of people would say well no that's not it's it's the nude form but it's not intended necessarily to to simulate or what have you I suppose we saw a spread with Miss October we probably go yeah that that's yes that is and that does not belong in there both involving the the naked human form but sort of different things and I guess I bring that up because as we're talking about this in Elliot sort of brought this to me I I think of one of the books that I really
148enjoyed in high school um a lot uh was Pillars of the Earth by Ken fallet are seem you're both familiar with the book um you know won a lot of awards Oprah's Book Club um and pulling it back up and I'm just going to kind of read a little Wikipedia thing here William taxs Elena and her brother Richard he mutilates the boy to course Elena into not resisting as he rapes her brutally this leaves Alina traumatized homeless and destitute um so obviously very sexual in in nature very hardcore very brutal uh scene but also defines the characters the uh the the shame that that they have the relationship between the brother and sister the the lifetime of of anger and revenge and everything else it sort of Central to the theme of the book If
149you you take that out and sanitizes it it it changes kind of the whole plot of a of an really excellent piece of literature uh which something which I would not have an issue with with my kids appropriately aged reading in school uh so as I think about this I get the point of wanting to protect students from you know getting material that's that's not a appropriate and restricting that but I also want to caution that there's censorship the other way in I as a parent not having the right for my children to be exposed to literature that is of very high quality that exposes them to different experiences to different thoughts everything else to think and even if it contains something that is Harsh the example that you read in in the uh the
150middle school book that I think that was a great example where you take in and out of you know it's it's a a boy being held and his pants being pulled down everything that's awful but then you read why you know and it's around the Holocaust and it's identifying as as Jewish and the all of that you kind of get that so wanting to sort of balance those two um another great book The Kite Runner again very brutal scene in it but also Central to the theme of the book and you really can't take it out and sanitizes and and it changes everything that way so as we we think about and talk about this and and do these things I think this is very important that we do want to protect kids from being
151exposed to things that are not age appropriate or everything else but I think we also want to balance that that we protect parents' rights to not decide on their behalf what their children should and shouldn't read and and limit them to access to uh material that would help them become lifetime you know readers and uh expand and experience different things in their lives and culture Jay thank you just a just a couple quick things when when we evaluate media music or or movies to watch in a classroom so they use the rating system and the rating it's not just the it's not just the PG and R and all that kind of stuff but there's all these um there's all these qualifiers with sexual content and I think that goes to the labeling that you
152that you talked about um do when you but there's so a parent could make a make a request to not have any sexual content but there's but there's no there's there's no mechanism necessarily to to flag it would just it's just subject to the subject to the person who's checking out the um checking the student out to to look up at the screen it's kind of a manual process is that is that how it works it does come down to the awareness um as Librarians we again as Dana pointed out we have a background in children's lit and in young adult lit typically they're two separate classes um and you're taught how to you know look at the you know look at all the reviewing sources you know there there's books and books and books
153on this stuff and so when I see what I would tell my assistant would be hey if you see this flag I need to check this book out um because even if I haven't um you know uh read the book personally sometimes just looking at the review like I said if it says grade seven and up sometimes that's when I would turn to a a resource like Common Sense Media or perhaps do a little bit more reviewing um I recently had a young man check out a a sports book and I was a little bit concerned about it and you know and so I mentioned to him I said hey you know this is a great se he didn't have a flag or anything on his file um but I think he might have been
154a sixth grader and I said you know please let me know I I think this is going to be okay but and so he had read it and he's like oh you had me so worried miss clayon it was nothing but um because it had been recommended for grade seven and up I was a little bit more concerned and so as Librarians in our training we you you just know those things kind of like the the officers that are here they are can very quickly and easily identify they they do just have those triggers who they really possibly need to watch in a crowd and he's nodding his head yes um you you just get that sense and because we have looked at read thousands and thousands of books over our careers you just kind
155of have that sense that okay you don't want your kid to read something sexual okay this book you know it got a more mature award you know it's not a cicott you know that tells me it's going to be a more you know like if I see a prince award on a book I know that's going to be a more aure award because that's awarded for young adults like more so high school books well and something I would do in that situation would be if I see a flag on a student's account and they bring up a book that I'm not sure about I would just say could you pick another book today or let me help you pick a book today because I'm not sure about this one and if you want to get
156it next time you come in then I'll have a chance to look at that before you come in again great well yeah that's that's fine I I appreciate the explanation and just one last thing is if a if a parent wants to know um how like what what books their what books their kids have have checked out is is there a way that they can go in there do they have to request a list from you guys or is that I don't think it's connected to Skyward any way or anything that we would have access to or is there something on their in in the child's account that the student can you like the mom can go on to their Chromebook or something so if a parent really wants to know um they can log
157in and look at their students's FID account and see what they have currently checked out so um just I I was just thinking about a history there's not a way for a parent to do it but a student's login could show it so a parent could see it through a student login so they would either have to ask the librarian or use their or go through the students account and fall it and the students would know how to do that or if they can't if they don't then we they haven't checked out any books yeah no it's fine no I just want that was just that was more for education for those still watching at 10 after 9 thank you thank you board members and thank you so much um to our dedicated Professionals for
158this presentation we're going to take another quick break here um so yes in in um yes let's take a f minute break be back at a quarter after thank you a e e e I'll do it next up is the operations report superintendent golden thank you madam chair Mark Samuels was scheduled to give you the operations report so because uh he had to step out to do a little bit of work uh my report will be a little bit shorter I I am aware of one specific item he was going to mentioned which was actually I believe one of his shorter items um uh like so many other uh process is we've struggled with some of our custodial Staffing over the first semester and uh Mark and his team actually changed the responsibility for some
159of the Southern buildings to the other contractor now just to give you a little bit of background we have two contractors do custodial work just to put it bluntly one has been handling their work and the other one has been struggling so I thought it was worth mentioning to you that there's been a little bit of shift on the responsibilities among those contractors um I will give you a little bit of other uh brief update related to the County Commission I had emailed you that the county budget committee had recommended a one month delay on the capital request that you all uh voted on at the November meeting uh those those uh those deferrals to February did pass uh and the the discussion at the County commission level was in essence about trying to get
160some specifics on what that would mean for debt funding uh on a regular basis with those request so with that uh oh one final thing I do want to mention the 5-year Capital plan uh was approved Mr galberth Jason we we talked about this but wanted to ask it publicly can can we have a community meeting to review and and let the let the brenwood community see the plans for the brenwood Middle School yes sir my my my my my specific request you can take your leave it I guess but would be to uh to have it before the um before the County Commission meets and votes on the um on that presuming that they're going to take that up in um in February thank you uh yeah that's a great idea uh to let
161everybody see what it looks like thank we'll do that you have a question oh sorry um next up a quick board chair report uh first of all you've received the as of this morning um an email detailing any new schools that you're affiliated with or any schools you're no longer affiliated with as a result of redistricting and Allison thank you very much for putting that together together for us um it's it is also that time of year where we need to file our statement of Interest filings to the to the state since we're elected officials and that's due January 31st and just for some inspiration it took me longer to reset my password than it did for me to file the report so if you're dreading it if you if you've already got got one
162out there don't dread it it's they've made it much easier to to complete um remember to complete your required um and required by law mandatory tsba trainings go ahead and be talking to tsba about that and see what you need to do for this year um I also um neglected to thank our deputies so Deputy hunt and Deputy mock were both with us tonight thank you so much and we appreciate your help as always um and then finally um it's it's legislative season and so I'd like to ask the legislative committee to give a quick report Sheila okay um pretty much the only thing right now that's being is actually being pushed through very rapidly right at the beginning is we're back at school vouchers uh and it's actually this one has actually going to
163go to the floor next week um it's Senate Bill 1674 and we all know what the school vouchers the um educational savings account pilot program but what's different about this is what they're adding is um options to which the student can meet the eligibility requirements additional and and this is basically going to take effect um September 1st 2022 through 2025 um during a three-year period immediately proceeding September 1st 2025 and what there the addition is um the exception is that the exceptions are did not offer students 180 days of in-person learning for a school year due to the covid-19 pandemic or imposed a mask mandate on students in response to the covid-19 pandemic and refused to exempt one or more students from the Lea's mask mandate in response to the Lea receiving written notification from
164the student parents or Guardian opting the student out of the Mask mandate so these Provisions will not apply to an um Lea that imposed a mask mandate basically due to an executive order so those are the two new things and that's kind of putting more constraints on what happens within our school district and leaves more open to school vouchers thank you Miss Cleveland and uh following up on Mr galer's Question at the top of the meeting related to a meeting with our legislative delegation has there been any talk of that meeting I actually um talked to Sam witson today and he asked if you know he's volunteered said if anytime we want to get together and so if there if everyone's in agreement we can it looks like like I said this one is getting
165pushed through really fast for reasons but um yeah I can definitely set it up and it's Saturday morning a good time for everybody okay I'll see get it done okay thank you okay next up uh we're moving on to new business um and these are approvals for 2021-22 Schoolboard budget amendments and resolutions and uh Rachel I'll just let you miss farmer I'll let you take those over thank you madam chair we have two amendments and then two resolutions to bring to you tonight the first is for disre personality if you'll remember back in November we had a similar resolution come forward that was with federal funds we received for Ida that has to be moved over 15% we're required to move over from federal to GP to go towards CCIS for disproportionality we also received
166ARP the American Rescue plan additional Ida funds and that rule applies to those funds as well so this particular Amendment moves 15% of the Ida funds we received through the ARP Grant over to general purpose and the total amount is $318,750 a school to be used within existing uh computer and some robotics classes that are at the middle school in order for students ideas to helpfully prepare them to possibly look at CTE careers before they enter high school we were able to or we were granted four of them for a total of $40,000 and so that's what this particular Grant would be for for us to be able to accept and spend that money any questions board members and board members if you've looked at the at the draft of the funding model um CTE
167is is clearly outlined as something that that is going to be important in that funding model you can go ahead okay moving on these are resolutions that will come before you and then ultimately the County Commission if you approve the first one is related to additional Staffing as a result of growth we are requesting 33.9 teaching positions and then 11 General aded teaching positions and 11 special ed teacher teaching positions to be added into the budget these are positions that we have grown through the year we didn't come every couple months we were kind of waiting to see this is where we feel good right now at the moment we may have to come back at the end of the year for more as we do continue to grow the idea here is the question
168has was broached to me we have unfilled positions why are we coming to fund balance to pull this now we need to put this within the budget if positions were filled this would be an expenditure and so we need to go ahead and add it within the budget uh at this point in time the total for that is $3,449 se1 Mr Pria has a question yes yeah you kind of touched on there go we kind of touched on what I was going to ask but um basically I'm just curious what the hiring pool is looking like like and how likely we are to fill these positions this year and if we can't um what are some options for what we can do with this fund balance this year I'm going to ask Miss Hall and
169with HR to be able to speak to that okay thanks for the question um we are making some hires currently we've got some that are that are going through the process right now um so we we are currently actively trying to make hires I mean realistically I think that you know it will be a struggle for us to be at 100% And honestly we're never at 100% just because we have in and out but I we are still maintaining those efforts and if I may we are currently at 98% Staffing for teachers but because of the number we have that means about 70 or so total positions um and our our Our concern is if we spend that money on something else we still need those funds for next year um because because we rely
170on a combination of sources for next year's funding so we we have to make sure when we're making decisions not to spend money knowing that there's going to be a need um in the future and that need fundamentally is going to be for those teachers thank you Mr galberth then Mr Mitchell can you I just want to make sure that I understand when you when you say that so we we get this we get this on the record the the County Commission approves it as part of an a revised budget and therefore it is it's then so regardless of where the funds come from necessarily uh it's it's then a part of our Baseline for for next year's budget right that's correct okay that was my concern okay so it's not it's not it's not
171who funds it it comes out of it's technically coming out of fund balance whether we use the funds or not um because my well I want I want you to talk about the next one first because it all it all comes it all comes down to to the projections and and I but I don't want to get ahead of myself on then were there no other questions on that particular Mr Mitchell thank you um so we have 70 open teacher positions um where we've got a um funding resolution to hire an additional 39 and a half I guess or 33 and a half right um what is our total number of openings across our payroll um for all positions um so Miss Hall I have the teachers off the top of my head if I'm
172if I'm not mistaken it was 71 at the end of the semester that's that's generally correct the actual classroom teachers are primary there there are about 43 so we have that's certificated positions um are around 70 right so I was trying to take steps towards it um and and so so that's that's certified I don't know the classified total classified number off the top of my the classified total [Music] is we have approximately 200 vacancies for classified and if I'm not mistaken that would include food service special education teachers assistance bus drivers and and those are the three largest contributors to that that's that's correct so so there was some discussion about um I guess a lot of retirement or resignations between semesters did we see a large number of resignations if you would speak
173to that Miss Hall we did have an increased uh number of resignations this year we actually saw a lot of resignations like around October whenever we kind of had that surge with Co again it just you know we that's when we had the greatest number of separations but we did have an increase in uh December as well do you have a number of how many how many how many resignations we had between semesters if you include the resignations that occurred I guess before the end of semester um well what I what I did for you and I do I can I can definitely get that for you here but what essentially happened is we track these from like the the calendar year from January through to December and for teachers we had 529 separations from
174January 1st 2021 to December 31st of 2021 which compared to this that same time period in 2019 we had separations so five what was the number for 21 yeah it was 529 29 and in 2020 it was how many in 2020 it was 30 and no that was 2019 it it was 388 in 2019 we were actually significantly lower in 2020 okay and so I guess what I I'd like and I can take this offline can can we maybe given the employment challenges in in the economy can we start getting maybe a monthly report on what our openings are and sure and and given that some longitudinal information as well because just as there are those those who've left we've hired more this year so I think getting a a complete picture of that certainly
175going to be important just to go along with that I um some some kind of descriptive information around around who those teachers are and and anything we know about their their tenure and grade level or like I mean anything that would show a resignations for people less than 12 month of service thank you for that we actually do have a lot of that data um and we've actually been researching that as part of my goals related to the long-term plan for for um recruiting and retention I will speak generally about that just a couple of nuggets for tonight largely what we see is from the zero to six years experience that is where we have the vast majority of our teachers leaving absent a traditional retirement you know after after a after a full career
176um in the in the teachers U the the U classified positions are a little bit more complicated and not that clear isn't that that's been pretty much the norm for years yes sir that part part of it has been the norm yes um just one one question do we do a a a thorough exit interview we do an exit interview and we have gathered quite a bit of data with that um and kind of as you would expect the reasons for leaving are across you know there there are a lot of things across the board and we do have a lot of people that just move out of the area we we are losing people to private schools and to other districts that's something we've taken a note of but it's it it is for
177various reasons and while we're on that subject sorry Rachel kind of kind of taking us a little bit on in a ditch what's our substitute um pool situation our pool is is nice and large but the yeses are are are not great we are varying between a 50 and a 70% fill rate over the course of the the semester we have a little we have a little over 300 Subs that work very frequently we have a we have a large pool we have close to a th000 but we just we have about 300 that are very responsive I will tell you in our in our uh data discussions uh I often ask at the end and we've met with every we meet with every single School uh what do you need from us and a
178a common answer this year has been don't take away our Super Subs they've been they've been saviors for us so that that program has has worked really well to fill in some of those gaps don't take away our Super Subs so the the the and and maybe this would be a better play there's is there a better place to have this conversation about Staffing and than in the in the operations report I guess or the financials of what we well if if you just have a quick comment go ahead and then Mr Brown after you so one of the something I read recently and I think we've talked about it too is that what other districts around the country are doing to try to address their Staffing challenges is that they're removing the limitations of
179on retirees in other words to come back to to work more than the limited number of hours they can work without impacting their pension is that a state law or or is that something that is it is a state law um they and it's on a graduated Scale based on the time you removed from retirement slowly the percentage of what you can work grows as the as you progress in years since your retirement um we do have the power to make a request a written request of the state for a for a need to fill somebody in immediately uh after retirement and I we do some of those with some of those folks who who uh who are who who say yes I'm willing to work longer okay thank you Mr Brown thank you um
180much like we just had a presentation about the the library um process which was I think very helpful could we maybe do at an upcoming work session a presentation that for some of the things Vicki was just talking about um in terms of the the data points that we've gathered on why people are leaving um some of that data I think that would be useful just in the context of the the conversations we're having a about teacher pay and Staffing challenges to just know that Environmental Landscape would be helpful yeah I think that's a great great suggestion we'll be happy to do that let's just let's just commit to do that in February at the next meeting also aligns with our strategic goals and performance goals as well uh if there aren't any other questions
181on this one we'll move to the next item the next item is twofold one you will be a vote on an increase to the pay charts 3% increase for the the going to say read it so I say it right salaried pay chart and then a dollar per hour increase for hourly pay charts and the total amount for that would be 3,914 269 and again we would be pulling for fund balance from for that and Madam chair if I may add some detail to that so mayor Anderson and I have been talking really for the last few months about the quickly changing Market environment uh and for us it really covers two two large areas one is classified employees basically our hourly staff and then two is our professional staff County government has been struggling
182for with Staffing in a lot of positions that really parallel our classified staff as well so mayor Anderson mentioned to the county budget committee last Monday that in February he intended to bring a dollar an hour pay increase proposal to County government for for their staff for all their staff uh and he encouraged us to do the same I am excited about that possibility because frankly this is UN precedented in my experience for a government to make such a significant step in the middle of a budget year to address quickly changing market conditions um the County government budget structure is a little different from ours in that our fund balance started at 3% and theirs is different our numbers are higher because we have more folks we have more issues related to growth where we
183need to make immediate changes as new students come uh and so there are lots of differences between us but we are similar in the fact that we're all short on staff and we have been losing uh staff members so as a result of that we looked at what we could do uh within our budget knowing that there's limitations on our funding for next year as well part of what we heard in that budget meeting from some County Commissioners was confirming with the mayor what we have already heard which is there's no intent to increase the property tax rate this coming year so that's going to require us to make decisions based on revenue from other sources plus the consistency of the property tax rate there's three main buckets for our funding one is County property
184tax two is sales tax and three is funding from the state with a be so we have a pretty good idea of what the property tax is going to look like based on what we've heard from the commission we've got sales tax numbers and then we don't know yet what we're going to get from the state so we went back through that and analyzed what we knew we could do within the funds we knew that we had up to this point and the result of that is that combination of a proposal for a dollar per hour for all our hourly staff plus a 3% for the salaried folks um and that's a product of our conversations with the WCA leadership um I do anticipate that we will be over the next couple of months working
185on what we can do with the coming budget starting July one but this proposal would be if you approve it if the County Commission does approve it in February for a pay increase effective February 1st but would not actually be paid until February 28th because of the schedule of the commission meetings Mr Wimberly well as Jason said this is extraordinary I think it's important to u to acknowledge that um I don't recall ever being in a position where in the middle of the year they said uh we will support a pay raise within this year it's important to to remember that this pay raise is for now immediately um in just a few days if it's approved and um but then we've got an opportunity to look at pay again for the next fiscal year
186and I assume that will depend on sales tax Collections and elections and a lot of other things correct yes and actually sales tax you you hit what we believe is the primary um um issue what we've gotten so far is July through October sales tax numbers to date Rachel correct me if I'm wrong the sales tax revenues that we are receiving are a little bit more than $7 million above what we had projected in our budget for this year on the revenue side that's four months worth of 12 months so largely these two items the the increase for growth teachers plus this proposed pay increase is based on that $7 million uh that that that's over and above our projected revenues this current year sales tax numbers have been really good so far we don't
187have November and December yet those two months are going to be very telling on what we have the capacity to do for the coming budget so then you know where uh this does um bring the fund balance into question so what is the anticipated impact on the fund balance and how do we mitigate that so Rachel if I may answer that question if you will sure so we have looked at we are strongly looking at fund balance yall know as we go through the budgeting cycle we always tell you we don't know yet we don't know yet because we don't exactly know where we're going to end up until the funds are actually in place we are very comfortable because of the way sales tax is trending even if there would be something that would
188slow down the the growth that we're seeing it's up substantially 20 to 30% within the months um from compared to the prior year and even higher than the year before that so we do believe it will continue to Trend that way and if that's the case we would have a great fund balance if it doesn't we are comfortable that we are still going to be able to give you a budget that would be one that we could definitely work with and stay within our parameters of keeping that 3% so just being The Devil's Advocate on sales tax say we have a bit of a drop because of uh of the U of Co but Co then releases and and people go out and spend money can we handle that drop if it does occur and
189then will it be made up by a rebound my answer to you would be yes that we can and that's where we landed that's how we ended up with what we're proposing now this was the break level of where we felt like that we could be able to handle that and and that's the risk we're taken if proverbially the bottom falls out of sales tax and it falls below our budgeted amount it has a potential to be a problem um but but every year we do base our you know base our our budget on projected sales tax we are sticking to at this moment our budgeted sales tax with this proposal we're just proposing that we in essence spend what we know has come in over and above well I hear grocery stores are doing
190good business when we call snow day so that's good Mr galber so Rachel from it's it's great that we're ahead of head of budget for the four months that we have um of the of the 12 right so we're we and we always we always end up our first budget that we get from you there's always this this big gap right between as as our as our confidence level of the okay is this going to is this trend going to continue or is it positive and um and we and we we gradually we're gradually able to to close that Gap or not and we need and we need some extra so couple of things and this is kind of getting ahead to to the budget so I I'm not worried about the 3.4 million I'm
191worried about the $8 million extra that we're going ahead and and committing ourselves to next year plus the plus the growth right and so it's so do you know I I did 8 million 3 and 1/2 3 and2 million at 512th is what that 3 and2 represents and then it's so it puts it at 8.1 but then we're going to have growth on top of that have you done the estimates on what this looks like for next fiscal year I have run so many spreadsheets even begin to tell you how many and yes that's what that again that's how we landed where we landed was to to feel like that we could confidently say we could manage the growth the growth there may not be a may not be able to come to you and
192say we're going to get everything that we want but as far as managing the growth yes so if I may I want to add a t a bit to that the mayor's proposal to the county is 4% of their expenditure plus 6% a 6% increase for the sharff department and Emergency Management we determined that based on our projections we couldn't recommend that much now so so so 3% now means 3.4 million now and 8 something for next fiscal year but what does that since we've never done this before we just talked about the the 3.9 for the additional Staffing is now added to the budget is this now added to the budget and so does that does it essentially because we're we're kind of in unchartered territory here right um in pre pre-baking of next
193year's raise into into this year and we don't not knowing what if there will be a raise for next year given the we'll we'll have we'll have months more at least four or five months more to no but so is will this too be built into our Basel become part of the Baseline and with Mr Golden what he has been requested to do from you HR and I have been working closely together before this was ever even mentioned of being able to set aside funds so that we felt like that we could address the pay charts already this gets us a little bit ahead of that so where we were looking and thinking of how much money it was actually going to cost if we did all of this in July this even though we're
194spending it now and yes it will cost more in the long run it is getting us so much closer to where we were wanting to be then so this has been the goal from the beginning of this year so just in as I'm processing this the um because it's different than what I it's different than what I had in my head um and it's different even than what we talked about this morning but um so in my mind this is approximately three pennies that's being that's going ahead and being added to to this year's budget plus three Pennies from the 3.4 million that or the 3.9 million for the extra Staffing so is that the is that am I thinking about that right that that our that our base level funding now is six pennies
195higher than it was which means that when we do our budget for for next fiscal year the Gap is going to be narrower because we've already got those additional um we've already got the the rate is built into this year's budget I uh let me address that last bit about the Gap Bean error yes we will spend 5 months worth of pay that will need to be budgeted in for next year at 12 months so that part is accurate as to the penny if property tax was our only Revenue Source I think a clear answer to your statement is yes but because we have multiple Revenue sources and we know from the County Commission that they they do not intend to add a penny to the property tax rate our recommendation is based on the
196sales tax that second bucket but to your to your point if the commission had to be the decision maker on that Revenue Side by far their flexibility their decisionmaking power would be within the property tax rate because sales tax is not something that they control but what they have at their what they have at their disposal is something that we are forced to do which is to balance their balance our budget we balance our budget with with our fund balance um and so push come to shove if we let's just say we did this the County Commission approves it we don't have the the funds are not available um and and they're not going to ask us assuming they're not going to ask us to renig on this or cut somewhere else then they would
197have the ability to if if if they're not going to raise property taxes which is fine then but they have they do have the ability uh to to go to their fund balance there's probably a couple other things to that they can do too to move some move some money around but it's not necessarily so so I wasn't thinking about it I was I guess I said it incorrectly so they're not NE necessarily at allocating pennies to this it's being it's they're they're essentially going to be using our fund ballots to fund now but this is going to be the Baseline for at least that dollar amount is going to be the Baseline for this budget not the based on the 3.4 and the 3.9 million not based on what the total cost is for
198for next year so we'll there there will be a kind of a step between this year's budget next year that's right I got to process a little bit but y'all go ahead next up is Eric and then Josh thank you so I've asked about this before and just you know hope it's not beating a dead horse but want to go back to when we're talking about the sales revenue um are we getting sales tax revenue from online sales or is that is that is that being routed locally at all at the county level is it going to the municipalities is it going to the state um just what is our share of that because I don't think anyone thinks that's going to decrease I think I have an answer for you but I trust Rachel's
199answer better Rachel if you would answer my understanding is it's going to the municipalities I'm sorry it's going to the mun IP alties and do we see any of it and because we're on the because we're on the U um uh internet playing this you looked over to Rachel I want to make sure that the the question was are we seeing any of it that's that was the question yes okay what we see is what the county reports to us if they're if the county is receiving it then we are getting our portion of it so so I get my dog food shipment on Amazon or what have you and pay you know my whatever that's going to the city of Franklin but it's not going to at the county level not necessarily correct all
200right thank [Music] you Mr Brown yeah just a couple of basic questions what what grow grow rate did we build this year's budget based on in terms of sales tax revenue growth generally speaking what we did last year if yall recall we knew we were going to get an additional we estimated $12 million uh in additional funding that we had been paying back to the county not paying back we giving our portion back to go towards Capital so we had act added an additional 12 billion this is on top of that I want to be clear with that too um so our great within I tell you I guess where I'm going with the question about 8% so the budget was based on an assumption of an 8% growth rate in sales tax correct and
201and it's tracking the four months into of the fiscal year it's tracking at what 20 20% so more than double correct okay and then do we have a policy that dictates what our fund balance has to be we have a state um requirement that at on day one of our budget year we must have a three % fund balance no State requirement related to the rest of the year but we every year we must replenish it to that point to begin with 3% of your total budget as fund balance yes correct okay thank you for reference I will add this for just for your own reference for us for this year that was 12 million 12.4 million is roughly what we have to have is the 3% level I guess I don't want to believe
202this point particularly this late at night but as good as this is uh for our our teachers um I don't think this is going to solve our teacher shortage problem that there are long-term things that we're going to have to do thank you for that my my vision of this is this is going to be more valuable in retention to let teachers know we appreciate what we're what you know what they're going through and let our classified staff know the same um the shortage of teachers continues to be a problem the most Stark change we have seen with teacher recruiting the last three years is the number of applicants it has substantially dropped and that's going to continue as long as there's a shortage of teachers so just wanted to make sure that that everybody
203under understands the the we've we've we we always try to pay our teachers as as much as we can under the under the parameters that we have and um and we're we're various degrees above and below our our neighbors mostly below probably for the most part um but were it not for the we it not for the surplus of sales tax um the desire could have been there but you your your recommendation would have been like I I'm not you you couldn't have made a recommendation that you're making were it not for for this surplus of sales tax is that correct the risk would have grown exponentially short short answer your question is yes because the sales tax revenue is is is higher we've determined that we can make this recommendation we've got growth coming
204next year and we don't know enough yet from those other Revenue sources well just I mean because we we again in a fairly unprecedented fashion last fall we we bumped up some of the Tas and their and their pay right um and this was this was prior to getting any of the any of the history of sales tax or anything and this was just based on some additional Revenue that we or that we might have from uh from an expenses being lower we thought we could do it within the within the existing budget it didn't have anything to do with Revenue that's right um and and at the time we um I mean I'm fine with the with what we what we got I was actually requesting to to make that to make that more
205um but these the people who got that that increase they're all they're also going to be subject to they're also going to get the the dollar there will be more of the dollar raise than the than the 3% raise that's correct we we we we did that raise the special education teachers assistant position up to $15 per hour minimum and of course there's a scale for more experience those individuals under this proposal would become paid at would be paid at $16 per hour right but everybody will get a everybody get a dollar that's right okay thank you okay I think we're moving to our next item approval of retention bonus for school psychologist Mr golden thank you madam chair uh school psychologist position is one that is an especially difficult position right now um one
206of our neighbors is offering a substantial bonus and I'm just going to be blunt making direct calls to our employees and offering them jobs uh and we have determined that that needs an immediate response with with a with a uh with a retention bonus so we do recommend a uh $5,000 uh retention bonus uh for for the school psychologist position like we get on the phone too Mr Brown what are the criteria for such for these bonuses as far as you have to stay a certain period of time yeah I'll tell you what where where we're at operationally our plan is if you all approve it to give half now and half at the end of the year um I don't believe it's wise to make this conditioned upon signing a non-compete because our competitors
207aren't doing that and they're offering a higher salary uh so from a professionalism perspective we feel like that's the that's the best step saying oh by the way we're going to give you about what what they're giving you with less salary but you got to sign something and the total spend for this would be what uh if I may Rachel Rachel or Vicki if you would can you tell us what the total spend for this would be 21,000 we'll have to do the quick math on that we currently have about 42 just an approximation $200,000 21,000 should be right, 210,000 210,000 yeah so you don't want to no other strings attached other than like what did you say the time frame of the Half Upon approval and then half at the end of the year
208for finishing out the year the calendar year uh uh thank you for that actually the fiscal year well the the the contract year I mean into of the school year is it is it possible to I mean is it possible to do half at the the completion of the first month of of next year and we solve next year's Staffing problem too and we we'll discuss that I mean it's same calendar year but like that that helps us retain them through at least the start of next year I we we'll discuss that that's worth that's worth having a conversation about I don't see any other questions on that item the next one is approval of open and or closed Zone schools for 2022 2023 and this is an annual agenda item Mr golden thank you
209madam chair those of you who've been on the board for a while know our tradition that became a state law to um to to approve open Zone schools annually the state changed that law and substantially changed it uh to to include a a substantial shift from what we've traditionally done of a first com first serve open Zone to a structure where we had to make every seat even drilled down to individual grade levels open with a lottery system if it filled up so this proposal here is based on what we can do within the new law for a proposed open zone so each each school's numbers are going to be substantially higher than we have traditionally done traditionally we've looked at 25 to 50 uh um based on those schools that we knew we had
210capacity at these numbers are going to be bigger because the new state law requires something much more substantial um U Dana is here who can speak to the details of the law um and of course Allison uh Nunley is here uh she's got primary responsibility for our projections but I want to give you a couple of key points those schools where we're projecting growth in the next few years we've done what we can to protect seats those schools that are experiencing construction projects where we're going to be exacerbating problems if we have an substantial influx of students we have protected those seats as well we've done that within the parameters of what we believe this new law is structured to do my opinion about this new law is it is not welld designed for high
211growth areas the tsba actually if I'm not mistaken has addressed this law too um but we are bound by it this year uh and I anticipate that this has a potential to be substantially different with open Zone students compared to what we've had up to this point but we do recommend approval of of our uh of our in uh recommendation in this packet any questions oh Mr Mitchell yes thank you so a couple of so so this is completely different than what we've seen before um so let me give you one example you we've got 116 open Zone spots for Allandale Elementary um is that and that's per that's at the school for any grade is that correct yes sir so so we're not able to to get this more granular to say I've got
212you know in in this particular uh metric you're showing 127 fifth graders and only uh 84 first graders so we we can't say we've got room for so many first through fourth but we're full on fifth grade in a high growth area we can't drill down like that to your point um and then the second I didn't think that I thought that's what this was way I was reading it and then the second question I have is so if I'm open Zone this year and my child is a first grader does that mean that first grader gets to stay there through the duration and any feeder patterns as well or can we change that and make require it do we have the ability to say okay you're going to have to reapply every year and
213it you don't get the feeder pattern uh grandfather like we've done in the past well right now the existing policy applies and that allows the student to continue in the feeder pattern if there's room and so to your point and Dana correct me if I'm wrong within the scope of the existing policy we do have that power to say there's no room and you can't continue at a feeder pattern standpoint right and if if then if you would address the individual schools like from a first grader moving up to second grade I'm sure so so my question I think was was I I apply into Allandale as a first grader can do we have the authority to change policy to say you're going to have to apply as a second grader and a third grader
214so we're not locked in to because we let's say I have 2016 applicants and I fill that up I don't I I need to but we continue to have growth in that area based upon the current law yes we could change policy with that said I know that this is a tsba agenda item I know that um in speaking with Ben Torres they are they have they're working on different legislation I don't know if it would with that different legislation might change that but under even with this current law we could change our policy and not be in conflict with the current state law and and and Eric had a reminded me too our current policy says your sibling gets to go with you right and that's correct and so are we and so since
215that's current policy that's the case here too well for the for the grandfathering um where somebody moves out the siblings can continue in that feeder pattern um so you're for for open Zone an Alison if you would address open Zone request um with siblings so student one of a family is approved open zoned student two is approved as a sibling that student doesn't count towards the open Zone School numbers really really and is that that's by our policy or that's by state law policy policy okay and current policy is once a student is approved they're approved through the highest grade level of that school right so to that point if we see a substantial impact from this law and there's no change to the law chances are we're going to recommend some substantial changes to
216the to the policy so I I will say under the new law it does address um and you'll see we reserved some seeds and it specifically um talks about siblings as a re in the new law to reserve seats but to Allison's point that is something that we have been looking at and you know we we may come back depending upon how this first open enrollment what it looks like Miss Cleveland so to so to clarify hello there we go so to clarify again I kind of heard two different things at least in my mind under the current policy based on this new law we can still say they cannot they can no longer attend the Zone the school that they're in due to overcrowding we can put them back in their own Zone not
217for that particular school Under the policy but when they matriculate to the next school our policy allows us to send them back okay and so what will need to do is be you know make it very clear to the person who is applying that that is the probability is it's going to happen with the growth right now there's a risk and they've got to understand that risk when they're applying and for the Benefit of Mr Brown I'm going to add a little piece to to this because we've discussed it prior to you getting on the board there's a Nuance to this policy that those who attend out of Zone have a more firm foothold to continue in that school than someone who lives there if the growth in the area forces a resoning I want
218you get a visual of that that's a good that's a real good point right that you kind of that they they kind of have a press they kind of have a comes a pecking order who who has first dibs at what's open that hasn't been a huge issue up to this point under our processes but it could be under this new law Mr Brown so back to your example of the person who matriculates to the next grade band and then at that point you can put them back in the zone that they're in yes where they live right can they then appeal for the out of Zone transfer under the under the statute uh again well so number one we have have an appeal process anyone can appeal um and and based on whatever their
219individual needs are we work we look at the individual under the state law could they reapply the for the for the next year on the same basis that they that they got out of Zone the first time under the new statute let's say they're in they're in fifth grade they're going into fifth grade under this statute they go they get requests to go to a school that's not in their Zone yeah they go then to sixth grade you move them back to their Zone because you can under policy then they appeal to the statute again to go back out of Zone that would be I think my I think the answer to your question is no because if we determined there was no room we would submit to you a request for open Zone that
220included zero at that school okay right so that they could under under the appeal process um also but the statute doesn't limit the statute doesn't limit them necessarily to only doing it once that's correct that's correct if the capacity exists I Believe Miss Nell wants to have a word [Music] here I did want to reiterate that with the new state law we have to post the list on our website for 14 days prior to opening the out of Zone portal so that's why the out of Zone portal this year will not open until February 1st whereas in years past we opened out of Zone request the day after the board meeting so we do have to post it um all students that are approved to attend an out of Zone School must provide their own
221transportation all the way to and from school per policy you and you just answered my second question I'm I'm looking at the the bill that was introduced last session last year and again it could have been amended since then before it became law but I I saw that part about the transportation um and I and then it also says that non-residents of the county are secondary to residents of the county that didn't change right so that's right current residents of Williamson County get first first right to the open slots yes and and first residents of Williamson County School District so they need to be in our district not fssd okay so if I may address that our board policy uh does not allow nonresidents to come to Williamson County Schools unless they are an employee
222working for us or in one of our buildings so as an example an SRO who's working in our building they could they could send their child um there are some districts in the state that do have out of county attendance and allow and actually encourage it okay um and so that's I I believe that's what that part of the law was designed to address just to those counties that allow it yes okay thank you our next item is the approve I do maybe this was mentioned but Mr n Le did you discuss what might occur if there are more people who apply than seats I did I mentioned it briefly that there's actually a lottery requirement but we did not give anyil okay I just wanted to make sure Lottery versus first come first service
223yes sir okay how's that Lottery ConEd so Allison if you will speak to that after I get this short version our board policy calls for May 15th as a deadline so if it becomes apparent that one of one or more of these schools is filling up we'll need to wait till May 15th to make a decision if the numbers go over the available seats Allison then we'll have to do a lottery so he's asking how that Lottery structure I have a call in with our software vendor tomorrow morning to discuss because our our vendor does do lotteries in with other districts so I'm going to talk to them about how that's going to work because we have an online uh portal that parents can go in to put in their application for out of Zone
224request so I'll have more information on that next week so it really could some be some random um draw like that's what it would be out of those applicants yes sir it could be instead of first come first serve School Board doesn't conduct control Rick you pull the ball out of the thing yeah Jay did you have a question I I did um so Alison how does the how do the 100 how do we determine what the reserved enrollment for growth is under the under the law we reviewed those schools that are in high growth areas um for example on the elementaries that's a good one Clover craftt Elementary we have reserved 150 enrollment spaces because it's in more of a higher growth area than Allandale is right now in its zoning so we reserve
225those spaces for employees children siblings grandfather requests when people move out of Zone and potential growth think trying to think three and four years out and M Mr G these are based on estimates right it's very difficult to be precise with that no that that's fair but the but what how much how much leeway does the law allow us in in those in those estimates because this is about I mean this is double at least the the number of schools that are going to be subject to open zoning so the the law um states that we the Lea May reserve a reasonable number of enrollment spaces each school year from the number of spaces if any determined by the Lea to be available for enrollment to accommodate the potential enrollment of students who may relocate
226within the school zone students who may have Z siblings enrolling and students who may have a parent who teaches um so that it that is the full guidance that we have uh from the legislature so it is a reasonable number so I I feel like can given the fact that we're not going to make a decision until May 15th if we keep that does anybody mind us addressing I I really this is a it's a big change it um can we can we have a can we have a policy committee and a and another board meeting to to review this um I realize that's going to push back to March 1st they're still going to have 75 days to um to to be up and and the the reason is I think we need to
227we we might need to re to rethink the the grandfathering of of open Zone students and how that um and how that matriculates because if not then Alison's going to I was just looking at one of one of my schools Crockett has has 143 open spots and and we're graining 43 open spots but Woodland has zero um and so it's it's only a matter I mean we're we're just going to exacerbate maybe they don't maybe nobody wants to come to Crockett I don't know but um and maybe we all maybe we all SWAP enough that it doesn't make a difference but if it does then it's going to cause Woodland to be over sooner rather than we than we thought I'll hope Dr Oreo will jump in but my concern would be scheduling and Staffing
228we can approve out of Zone requests until we get to the point we're we're going to wait for two or three weeks but say Allen Del only has 10 applications out of 116 spots we can go ahead and approve those 10 and get them in Skyward in the right school for next school year I worry about waiting un until March to start with Staffing and scheduling issues and high school enrollments I mean the guidance counselors are starting to meet with their high school students I mean but are are they doing that before March 1st yes um well I I appreciate that but I I also also worry about making a change to our to our grandfathering policy after the after this takes effect and we and we we people thought they were going to matriculate
229to their next school and we tell them that they're not if I may let me make a suggestion um and I'd like maybe we can think about this the families are not making the app the for sure decision until we approve it um we do have time from the time the window opens until it closes to let them know when you know what the rules are actually going to be pres presuming that we wouldn't make any changes in the in the number of in the number of Open Spaces B based on policy Chang I will tell you on the on that's a good point that might it it could it tweak a little bit based on changes Mr Golden if I may I printed out the number of open Zone students that we apply that
230we approve for the current school year the only school that filled Its Spots was Centennial High School of those 25 we only approved 184 now realize that we didn't have as wide a range of and as many open Zone but we really don't know how big of an effect this is going to be so are you saying you need to know you need lead time because of that I think that the parents are already going to be thrown for a loop to have to put in their application and wait a few weeks to know and if they have to wait longer than that I and from a staffing standpoint a scheduling standpoint I think it's best to go ahead and start in February Miss Cleveland okay I do agree with Jay about revisiting the policy
231but I also want want to touch base again what you said about tsba are they challenging this yes so one of our uh agenda items later on are three resolutions one of them deals with this particular uh law that tsba is working on because particularly for counties like us with high growth this is very difficult to to try to plan for what it's going incredible something so basically it's probably better I agree about discussing the possible policy changed based on this but to kind of hold off until we see what tsba is if we're able to push that through or no I'm not I'm not at all because if tsba does something that would take effect next year okay so we still have this law if if y'all want to look at policy I'm not
232at all opposed to putting that at the February uh policy committee and seeing what changes you want to make um so that I think that's a you know we can definitely do that okay great I just wanted to make sure it wasn't going to be an immediate change of what they're trying to do my last conversation with Ben was that it would not affect this school year it would affect the the plans that if they come to fruition would affect next school year okay thank you yeah if the legislature makes a decision it will be after this has already been in operation this this reminds me of that letter grade law that was passed and it was never implemented right because they went back the next year well you're talking about districts getting later grades
233with the letter well actually that was actually deferred as a result of covid oh okay so it wasn't it wasn't revealed not completely bright ideas Mr Brown C when you're talking about this year versus next year the law the law could take effect as as of July 1 but the the planning for the rezoning and placement of students would have already had to have happened that's correct you couldn't unwind it that's right so even a change in the law would only apply to the 20 23 23 24 yes and that's what happened with this law this law pass but it took effect for this upcoming school year not the school year we're in so yes it same thing so I I agree that I think we need to look at all policies related to this
234to to make sure that we give ourselves the flexibility to manage the the um potential the yeah the the movement for sure the other thing that occurred to me is that if we're with our sibling rule that if there is a lottery does a lottery is a lottery at a family or a child so if you have if if if we're in a school that ends up in a lottery and I have three children in the lottery do I versus my one family in the lottery anyway the there's there's some nuances there that could quickly become a me Qui quickly become messy that's a good point so so just for just for clarity sake your recommendation is the staff recommendation is to go ahead yes ma'am and we've agreed that we're going to look at
235policy is that our under shared understanding okay great I don't see any other hands uh next up approval of the charter school Review Committee 2022 thank you madam chair we anticipate based on notices we' received that there will be two Charter School applications that are that must be submitted by February 1st so at the moment we don't have any Charter School applications our board policy actually calls for us to um have a recommended committee at the December meeting which we didn't have uh so now come January anticipating that there will be some Charter School applications I am recommending the charter school Review Committee as required by the board policy so we'll recommend approval of that uh at the Tuesday night meeting and just for clarification there would be one Review Committee that would review both
236um applications if we if we do in fact receive two I don't see any questions so we'll move on to our next item approval of the tsba legislative agenda and I'm going to pass that to miss OS Brooks so board members uh tsba did send out an email uh with their legislative packet um and looking through that there are three resolutions that are attached um one of the first resolution that we're asking you to uh approve and consider uh Tuesday evening at the board meeting the first first resolution deals with um incentives for teachers uh for the teaching profession um as you know we currently some school districts Williamson count is one of them currently has a grow your own programs um but we are also asking in this resolution the state to provide some
237additional incentives for individuals um entering into the teaching profession what um and maybe perhaps funding to pay for the practice test um what you have heard this evening uh and we've talked about in other meetings is that the pool of applicants is smaller every year there's fewer and fewer uh people going into the teaching profession and so this was a resolution that uh TS tsba is sponsoring regarding uh incentives for our teachers or those who may want to become teachers the second resolution is a resolution um requesting Amendment to the open enrollment for leas so we would be asking either that the general assembly resend the new law that we just discussed or they amend it and give local control back to the school districts so that we determine uh policies to govern trans transfers
238of students within our school district so either resend it or change it so that um that is for boards can make that discussion then the last resolution um you may recall last school year we talked about uh third grade and there was going to be uh retention decisions for for um third grade students the last resolution is requesting this was adopted during the 2021 special session it was public chapter number one and um students in third grade should not be promoted to the next grade level unless the student is determined to be proficient in ela based on the students achieving a performance level ranking of on track or mastered and um we are in this resolution [Applause] asking that you allow that the legislature allows school districts to make those retention decisions as we have
239in the past for third grade students based upon School District data which would demonstrate an understanding of ela instead of the um law that was enacted in 2021 we have attached those are the three recommended by staff we have attached um after that in the packet the statement of the 2022 legislative agenda for tsba so if there are any other um items that y'all want to discuss or want a resolution on please let me know and I could add that to the agenda for Tuesday and if I may one little additional piece Madam chair Dana am I correct that the draft resolutions are based on the tsba they are in line with the tsb's recommendations correct Mr [Music] Welch Jason is the high performing schools act still on the books it is and is that
240I don't think we've used it in a while or requested to use it remind me it allows us to apply for an exemption from any legislation or just the regulation any legislation or regulation um and I'm trying to remember uh the the the the detail of that but it it does give us the capacity to make the request and the commissioner is the decision maker all right okay thank you y Mr galbert this as Jason said that this is based on T tsba language but I got a question on the on the Open Enrollment sure one um the I don't know the one two 3 fourth whereas the last the last sentence it it's it says that we this would placees undue unintended undue burdens on leas as it would not allow Boards of Education
241to limit transfers between schools to prevent iniquities in programming Staffing and demographic makeup of schools yes help me with the demographic makeup of schools because it it makes it sound like that we that we use demographic makeup of schools to um to to do our zoning and and therefore open zoning would would go against that and that's not how we that's not how we Zone um that's right we don't I don't know I just I wondering what what you think about that language so while that may not be how we have always discussed the zoning that is a peak of what we have to consider with zoning of of whether or not um in this particular case we have any place with capacity generally potentially in open Zone whereas before that would not have been
242the case if you I know we we can't I know we can't we can't use demographics and socioeconomics um as the as the basis of of moving this group nor can we like it's it's either way right like so like I don't know that we do that at all we certainly make it a point to not to not Zone away particular groups that are I mean I know that's been that's that's been hinted at in my that's been hinted at in my area sometimes right that we're trying to move people like let's just we're we're trying to move the people in apartments out or like we don't we don't do that we can't do that and so ages demographic by grade is that the is that the is that your point well we have to
243do it by grade now is a demographic yeah is I I don't know it's not it's not going to be just a race or national origin demographic which which I think is how you and I that's that's the way I was going I I was even going to socioeconomic and that maybe um I just I just didn't want I didn't want it to make it look like we did something that we that we didn't do but well I mean I'm very comfortable with leaving that paragraph and still talking about programming and Staffing of our schools and taking taking out that language if that would if we'd be more comfortable with that I'm okay if if everybody else is doing the same thing I'm comfortable with leaving it I just wanted to just want to know
244what you thought about it and if we if we take some language out are we not aren't we failing to approve the resolution as tsba has approved it because these were I assume all approved at the convention that's correct and so if we take if we change it we may and may as well I pass it correct I I I think consistent consistency is important and I think that they're you know to eliminate the the language you know I think the specificity of the language is important and and that's you're correct we don't do it but um I think it's good to be in alignment with our fellow districts well that's question right are are you speaking for your peers as a group as as a peer or are you speaking for yourself and and
245that's a that's a decision for the board you know because this the nature of these is not specific to Peculiar Williams and County issues it's it's speaking to the impact Statewide I mean it's a it's a single Ware it's it's a portion of a single warehous Clause it's not it it doesn't change the the the meat of the of the issue I was just I mean it doesn't change my mind on the on on voting yes to the to the resolution I I was if it were if it were our res that's you answered my first question which was is this language that we need to take kind of as is or do we have some edit rights and so the answer would probably be no we just we think about it as a whole
246which is fine oh I had a question about this my turn yes please staff recommending approval of these resolutions yes thank you covid-19 disability accommodation protocols um thank you madam chair uh we expect at the voting meeting on Tuesday night to have a proposal uh related to ADA accommodations in the context of covid-19 protocols thank you I don't see any questions and then our our final item for the night and the items under number seven are there for your information um final item is request from a board member regarding Library bu books yeah I uh I requested that and uh you know in lie of listening to all the different issues here and talking about it um I would uh ask that uh the Miller test be emailed to all of us so that we
247know how that works and uh if uh if nothing changes on the reconsideration someone signing up for it I I will do that myself okay thank you thank you could relative to Dan's point on the emailing of the Miller test could we get Dana's present entire presentation absolutely we'll make sure I was looking for it on our on our uh uh on the portal here and couldn't find it didn't see it in the email either yeah it's it I had not sent it out but we can send it and the presentation from The Librarians thank you I'm just glad didn't have a little dogging at this time so I'm going to tell you today is his Gotcha Day and I came so close but since you were so ugly that the last time had his
248picture up I didn't all right well this this reminds me of a summer of 2020 meeting in terms of the length um we haven't done this in a while thank everybody for your input and participation Mr Golden do you have anything else no ma'am thank you and I and uh I I hadn't had a chance to thank our our our our great Librarians for their presentations I want I know Miss Clayman is still here so thank you here our meeting is adjourned thank you no