001for those watching from home uh or online I not Angela Durham um you got a downgrade tonight H they can't see those online Elliot um well welcome everyone uh thanks for being here everyone in the room as well um I want to First acknowledge Deputy Phil hunt who's here with us tonight protecting us thank you Deputy hunt all right well we have quite a lengthy agenda uh I've set an ambitious goal for us to finish at 9:30 so um we'll see if we can meet that um not to curtail discussion but um we'll see if we can how close we can come to 9:30 all right so first order of business is the consent agenda Jason you want to walk us through that please thank you Mr chair thank you Mr chair and we do
002have new microphones just as a reminder to everyone there is a button for you to push to to to turn it on um if you wish to speak and when you do um for the uh for the for the consent agenda we have a number of items on there I want to mention one specifically the the uh continuity of services plan addendum for Esser 3.0 that's item F I want to give you a little bit of a detailed description of that under the Esser funding every six months we do an update to that plan we included in our Esser plan spending Forge largely for interventionist plus the mental health plus some technology related Services the the recommendation in this six-month update is no change we do anticipate that we will at the end of this
003fiscal year have some additional funds for the following fiscal year which is the last year of this grant we have to have the funds consumed uh by June 30th of 2024 um so I just want to give you all the heads up there no proposed changes here uh but at the end of the fiscal year um Rachel is going to evaluate the exact dollars and pennies that we have spent with the Staffing uh and we'll do a re-evaluation so expect in August uh some more detail and certainly open any questions you all have about the uh uh about the consent agenda I know there was a question about bringing it to to uh to the to the voting to the separ to as a separate voting item certainly open to do that if uh if
004you all wish that for the voting meeting on Monday any questions or comments about anything on the consent agenda Miss CL yeah I I was looking over this and and I'm fine with leaving it here but since we'll have it for another year um I guess my question is is should we look at the spending on this in conjunction with our regular budget or are these greater priorities um I think one of the things that I'm would like to see is um you know there's a a section on this budget where it talks about um retaining recruiting and retaining Educators or teachers and I don't see we I don't see us spending any money there um another thing that I am constantly talking about with um our County residents is the third grade retention um
005and I I don't know if the interventionists are are is that is that looped in with tutoring um and I would just I would love to see some of these some of this funds going towards recruiting and retaining teachers um I think that's really important um but again we might I don't know so that was my question well thank you for that I think that's worth discussing uh as we prepare for for next year a couple of basics in r correct me if I'm if I miss some of this or misstate this with these grants we could not supplant in other words not replace an existing budget item out of our general funds with this with this money um we could only add two and this particular Grant focused on what was described a year
006and a half ago as learning loss right uh and so we when we went through the process it included some Community discussions that was part of the requirement for the grant to develop priori ities the interventionist uh we had a longer term plan to add interventionist especially at our elementary schools and it was actually it it's it's it is K12 but um the the interventionist role is to to give direct instruction through tier three of RTI those students who are furthest behind and so with this grant we were able to increase that Staffing beyond what we were capable of with our regular budget so I think it's worth us having that discussion at the end of this year how's that going you know is is is is is it appropriate to make some shifts we
007are already having that discussion in the context of tier three intervention anyway trying to find some efficiencies uh in that um RTI Works response intervention where you you um you identify students who need additional intervention based on your Universal screeners uh and we have seen students grow through that through that process um so that's kind of a nutshell of where we are I think it's worth us having that discussion at the end of the year to follow up with that would you say the interventionists are more learning interventionist or counseling interventionist direct instruction for students who are behind in math in math and Ela thank you yep good today okay any other questions or comments on the consent agenda okay superintendent's report oh sorry Jen go ahead told me I didn't see you um I
008I had emailed you Jason earlier about the same point that Donna brought up and I think I wanted to just clarify that these were one-time funds right not recurring funds that we applied for as a result of uh the covid learning loss funding package like a grant that so it made sense that we wouldn't do teacher salary or retention out of that because then we'd have to fund it as we got further you know once this ended so that helped me and I just since it was brought out thank you all right anyone else on consent all right superintendent's report all right thank you Mr chair we have two items that I want to describe in the superintendent's report but briefly I want to let you know uh we had a um a lot of
009weather watching today and I want to thank our staff uh it's it's a lot of hard work to stay in school sometimes and um we all our buses went through the morning process safely and went through the afternoon process safely uh and many of our neighbors didn't uh some of our neighbors did and I just want to thank our staff for walking through that it's a lot of minutes a lot of time just really drilling down to make sure we make the best decision we can to to fulfill our mission and be safe uh so thank you to everyone uh who who work through that want to specifically mention Mike Fletcher our safety director and his team uh Julie oer and Lee web spent a lot of time with him especially today really drilling down
010and studying the the projections for Williamson County bus has made it through safe just felt it was important to mention that I do have two items uh um on the agenda number one we're going to give you this next iteration of our math adoption process and then after that presentation uh Dr Jeremy quals will give you some information related to the Innovative schools Grant that's upcoming so I know uh uh Jenny you were going to present and I think I'm think I'm I'm using her first name because I think you all have gotten to know her over the last few months as uh as as she's given you updates on our math adoption process thank you Mr Golden and thank you for having me back we're almost done with the whole adoption process so you
011won't have to to uh to endure any more updates but I'm super excited to report what the work that's been going on so far we've done a lot of exciting things um with the adoption um first our committee met on January 17th we met right here we had every single publisher for every one of um of the materials that we are considering come and do an in-depth presentation for the textbook committee they got to ask a lot of questions and we learned a lot about the different components of um of those materials um the committee also was provided time that day to look through the resources they got to ask questions they got to like literally pick them up and Page through them so that was really a a wonderful day of learning a lot
012of Engagement our parents on the committee are amazing they're very involved they ask a lot of great questions and they want to know um all the steps and all of the details related to the work they're doing so we're very excited to have them we also had five public reviews the last one was this past Monday we had a lot of community um uh folks parents um some that are not parents and are just involved in the community and wanted to know more about the materials they came out they asked great questions they spent a lot of time in this room looking through the materials and then um they provided some wonderful insight into the materials so we have that feedback and I'll show you two different formats of that feedback we actually um had
013a lot of conversation so the whole time this was open to public review we were talking to folks who were asking questions um and that was really exciting to know the community is standing behind this and asking great questions is always exciting to us um so I have met with the committee on zooms and I have emailed them um folders with every single piece of feedback so we've scanned all the feedback into a folder and provided that to our adoption committee I met with them on zoom and through different sessions and I've asked them to read the comments um and to really consider the feedback and have those conversations in their building so I just want the community to rest assured that their comments are being read and they're being talked about and we're being
014thoughtful about what we're hearing back from the commit from the community um our teachers are continuing to review their their books at Host sites um there are samples that were provided by the Publishers that the committee has taken back to their building so they all the buildings have lots of samples to work with uh and there's also digital access that teachers have had the opportunity to review so we're excited about the opportunities we've provided all teachers to review the materials here's an example of the feedback so this is one that's handwritten so you you have the option when you come review to handr write um some feedback um and that this is one example of that and this is what we scan into that folder we remove all personal information related to the person who's
015um who's to the reviewer and we just provide this and this is another form another way you can um you can submit your review and that's electronic so when folks come out to to review the materials they have an option of uh how to submit it so these are just two different examples of what we've received so as far as our timeline we are right on time I highlighted March we will have um we will have a recommendation to you for the March board meeting uh for you to approve for final adoption and so the next slide talks about number seven and number a and how that breaks down and those are our next steps so teachers will make a recommendation to the textbook committee beginning this Monday so on Monday I'll email a form
016it's a Google form um we capture teacher recommendations on there those recommendations I then um take them and and um by school and I provide that data to that Committee Member representing that school the parent receives um recommendations all data uh for the district just so that they're aware of what our teachers are are asking to select so once I provide that data to the committee uh members they will make a recommendation um to put in front of you for final approval in March and that takes us to the end of the whole adoption um process so we're excited we should be but on the 27th I'll meet with the committee and they'll be able to cast that selection as a recommendation for you thank you so much Mr Hall thank you I just want
017to say thanks for these updates I know it's an additional process in and uh alongside all the work that the group has been doing but I really appreciate the the transparency and all the efforts involved in just making the public even more aware of how this is working so it's great to hear too that there was a lot of uh Community feedback that was part of it as we haven't had a lot of that in the past so it's seems that this is worth the effort correct we we've had more feedback and more review than we've had in the past and we're excited about that we we love to have the community involved in this process because it's really it's an important process it's it's uh it's it's Central it's focal to what we do
018um as a school system so it's really exciting to have that um if if I may uh Miss Miss Lopez uh a couple of our board members have have heard from one or two folks about some social emotional learning components in some of the teachers additions uh could you speak to that and give them an update on that sure absolutely so um a few of the Publishers added a little a note in the teachers Edition um and also some of them added little notes in the student workbook it isn't part of the lesson but it's almost like a note like a wondering about uh their math mindset it's really called a math mindset there are there's something called mathematical practices which is something that was put into place uh through nctm which is a National
019Counselor of of teachers of mathematics many years ago which talks about good practice in mathematics which is like having discourse uh being precise things of that nature so they have taken those mathematical practices and kind of and and and done an iteration of that that into an what they call Anal component um it is not part of the lesson it is not part of the framework but there are components there for teachers to read and some of those really are mathematical practices with anal label and some go a little bit beyond just the mathematical practices and ask other questions and some of them have to do with how students feel about math some of them have to do about how they engage in discourse how they feel when they engage engage in discourse which is
020a mathematical practice we're supposed to encourage discourse in a math classroom so that we can hear each other's views on how you solve problem so that's actually a very common a very important and central part of mathematics so there are some Publishers that have added that as anal component again I think it's maath practices component but um it is not part of the framework of the lesson so it is not embedded as part of the lesson it's almost like a little wondering for the student and it gives them box at the very end of u a lesson there's a little box where a student is asked a question and they can respond or not respond uh being a math teacher myself I would imagine that there's hardly enough time to get through your whole entire
021lesson in a math block so I can't imagine that we would stop math instruction to go through some sort ofal lesson um I think it's almost there just to engage the two to kind of pair the two theal and the math practice IES I have a question so I know you're not in a position to really answer this fully yet because the process is not finished but I can anticipate one of the questions that may come is when we get to the end of the process doing a qualitative assessment of a curriculum that has the SEO components versus a curriculum that didn't have the SEO components um basically is one better than another in terms of actual the actual math ma teaching of math um and then you know because I think that's going to
022be part of the the thinking process is if you've got one that's SEO one that's not and they're equal why wouldn't you choose again thinking ahead why wouldn't you choose the one that doesn't have it just to avoid any potential concerns or criticisms not asking you to really get into that now I'm just thinking out loud a little bit about what may come when we get to the end of that process and and ultimately we ask teachers to be the deciding factor on what we utilize teachers look at so many components when they're looking at curriculum so for example they're going to look at what assessment pieces are included so a lot of times what what breaks kind of like the vote for them looking at everything equally may be an assessment component for some
023teachers it's the extra practice available within the program there are so many components that make up a good curriculum and I think different teachers have different experien different needs in their classroom I know some of our teachers are really excited about U the components that include differentiated instruction so some of these programs have really smart uh digital processes that actually take students and and they uh recognize where the gaps are and they tell the teacher here are the gaps for these groups of students so it it groups them um with through a differentiated approach that's a really exciting piece for a lot of teachers so I think a lot of teachers I mean I when I've spoken to the committee about some of these um some of the feedback which was this was one such
024was mentioned in the feedback and we've gone through all of the feedback and their comment to me was what that's there I didn't even see it because they're so involved in all the other pieces that are so important to them from the standpoint of the framework and all the additional pieces that they know they need in a really comprehensive curriculum that is not something that teachers are looking at that that's that's a that's kind of like a distraction a sidebar for them again they didn't even know it was there when I mentioned it so to answer your question I think our teachers are really focused on what is the very best program that suits the needs of their students and I don't I think our Math teachers would would tell you they're not experts inal
025they don't know how to incorporate that into a math lesson and I don't think they'll be distracted by that component thank you any other questions on this on on the math textbooks right thank you so much M CL oh okay sorry so you were saying that some of the questions because I even remember reading one that you know and and I think that's an important discussion to have but what I know that some of our curriculums are more strict where you have to say exactly you know follow exactly what the textbook says what freedoms are there for the Educators to is it is it bound tightly to script or do do the teachers have the Liberty to use their Professional Knowledge of like what their students need and and are they bound to a script
026sure that's a really good question with math curriculum it is super important that teachers um the teachers approach the standard um in a way that teaches it fully and to the rigor into the level that it's supposed to be taught so the lesson takes you through that through that approach of teaching it and then the teacher in any every math classroom differentiation is so important because we have students you know all over that run the gamut within one classroom so it's really important for them to focus on that as far as that so to answer your question that particular component I've looked at all the curriculums that have that thatal component that label on it none of them include that as part of the lesson or the framework it is outside of that so if
027you pick up one of those books you'll see that students go through the entire lesson the practice uh the modeling they go through all of it and then at the end at the very end of the lesson it'll pose a little question so we would never tell teachers that that is scripted or part of the program because it isn't it isn't part of the standards it's not aligned to the standards again some of it is aligned to mathematical practices and mathematical practices are just solid routines that we use as Math teachers to ensure that we are meeting all the needs of our students so to answer that question I hope I didn't go around it too long but to answer the question no we would never ask teachers to include that as part of the
028lesson because a it's not in the framework of the lesson and B um it is not it is not aligned to the mathematics standard so it would not be a component that we would ever um tell the teacher she or he has to utilize I guess I I was more so just the I mean of course theal component but the more so just the lesson itself does the teacher have some freedom in there to be able to to have some professional judgment you have to you really have to because the way that math lessons um the way you approach approach math lessons or math instruction you have to determine what the students need in the classroom so any all good math lessons have differentiation so I'm going to say okay this group group is going
029to do this piece and this group is going to do the extension piece and this group is going to do something totally different because our way ahead so we cannot script you can you can script an actual delivery of a lesson but what the students do for their practice really depends on your classroom so you'll see that math lessons are divided into different components different sections so that you assign the different sections a students need so and there is not a one size fits all for any math lesson especially with all the differentiation provided through the digital components thank you so it's a little it's very different than the way we approach an Ela lesson Mr Welch in any of the curriculum choices is is flip learning being considered um like a flip classroom where
030the students do the learning at home and then they do the practice the Solutions in the classroom um there is one curriculum in middle school that really has that that that sets up the the lessons well to be able to do that as far as the flip classroom that is something we've been doing for a year some teachers do it and really like it and some do not we would never tell a teacher that they that she or he has to have a flip classroom that is that that's that's an approach and I've used that approach as a teacher myself when it's appropriate so when I know that most of my students have something like have a deep knowledge of something that I'm about to approach I may do a flip classroom to condense that
031lesson and save some time for the things where I have to spend a lot of time on so there are some C there's one curriculum that that I think would would make it very easy to do that but we would never tell it can also be approached through direct instruction so we would never tell a teacher to do it or not to do it it's almost like just a a pedagogical approach to teaching all right I don't think there are any more comments or questions so thank you very much yes absolutely thank you all right thank you Mr chair uh next on the on the agenda is the CCT update Innovative schools Grant application uh as Dr qu starts walking up in last year's state budget the governor asked for and received from the legislature
032uh funding for College and Career Technical education programs to this level a million dollars per high school and half a million dollar per Middle School in the aggregate to every school district so for us the state designated $15.5 million for Innovations in in Career Technical education programs and I think you all know that since the governor's been in office he often speaks of Career Tech programs a couple of years ago he visited Fairview High School and and our megatronics program uh so Dr qus has been leading the charge on our plan to submit a Grant application for this money that's sitting there waiting for us March 31st is the the grant deadline uh and the vision we have for this is to take the model of the EIC one step further for the first time
033and I don't know how long Generations the E has been a College and Career Technical Hub where students from every one of our schools could come and and take Innovative courses and stay at their Zone School we've learned that it works the EIC now has about 400 students we started off with it just a just that handful and it has grown fast and it's been robust and it's been pretty wonderful uh for our students we learned from that and from some of our peers and some of our visits here and there including a trip that we just recently took to Scottdale Arizona that there are some CCT programs that can get enough student participation that we can actually get a teacher for if we have a hub so Dr calls has been working on the
034idea the plan the model to create a new Hub uh for some for some Innovative CCT CTE programs that we believe probably couldn't survive at just one school but can become robust if it's a magnet hub for for students from across the district and we've got an opportunity uh with with a funding so Dr calls if you would share thank you I I'm so excited to be here uh for those that don't know me on the board uh I'm a little bit high energy so if you don't like that now's a good time for a bathroom break uh you know Mr Golden said you got an hour to talk and I said no just give me five minutes give me five minutes so I'm going to go fast but I would be remissed to give
035some shout outs and thank yous before I get started uh for eight months we've been working on this and I I I'm so fortunate to work with an unbelievable group of people uh Chris Snider Jen cleever Paula chil Brighton Hargrove and Eric uh Harvey I'm so thankful for them to be on this crazy adventure with me for eight months I'm thankful for Mr Golden and Rachel farmer Dr orer Dr Webb Dr Allen Miss Willie all giving me the encouragement and support and and picking apart and poking holes in this thing and us coming together as a team lastly but not least the two gentlemen over there in the corner Mr Fortney and Mr Anderson uh you know they say if you can if a marriage can survive building a house it can survive anything so
036you're fixing to be attached to me and I can't wait to to go through that so best of luck right anyway let's get started anybody who School models Grant uh like he said Governor Lee put that in his budget a half a half a billion dollars and we're going to they they uh usually when they do grants they have a lot of red tape this one is really interesting that you can pull those funds and and building as actually a part of that when you think about Innovation I came across this the other day and I really thought that was nice innovating is creating new value and Innovation here uh a friend of mine told me that he defines Innovation as those that go first and when you think about Williamson County Schools academically athletically
037and artistically we are first in everything and I want this process and what we're creating in this to be right there synonymous with that and enhance those three uh areas so the mission and vision of the ism as defined by the tdoe right there is to empower districts and schools to transform the traditional high school and middle school models to foster a culture of College and Career wellness and and Readiness and it comes through four lenses or four buckets as we've call it in the office reimagining time space Partnerships and modes of learning and I'm going to explain to you very briefly each of those and how we're going to do this with this grant reimagining time uh Mr Golden mentioned that we visit a school out in in in uh Phoenix that accelerated uh
038programs of study to from a four-year track to a two-year track so Juniors and seniors that can provide their own transportation it's a hybrid model it gives them opportunities to spend a half a day at a location and half a day at their home school as it as it sees fits for career or skill obtainment rather we're going to look at that accelerated model okay we're going to accelerate the industry credentials work-based learning internships apprenticeships all of those things we're going to look at how we can partner with with an online learning program of how to couple that into getting time for those kids uh that that do this program fits in making sure that they can get accelerated academics through this reimagining space this is one of my favorite it's got to look the
039part it has to look the part and what that part is when I show you in just a moment I think you will understand it about the space and how it's going to be non-traditional in every sense of the way it can't be rows of 5 by5 25 students in a classroom it has to be totally different in order for this to work reimagine Partnerships we have been at the table with so many private uh groups we met with one today it's it's we're bat in a thousand when we start talking about this plan and how industry Partners can get involved with with with Talent with uh with with financially or you know just with any kind of resource they have what does that look like well what do you say if we have an
040industry partner that comes in and teaches an IT program as an example because it is the fastest moving uh uh sector out there number one in job growth but number two think about cyber security how that changes hour by hour not week by week not year by year what if those people came in and help teach alongside the actual facilitators they're actually teaching what they're seeing every day in in that world that's what we're talking about with those Partnerships and reimagining that modes of learning we talked about how this can change everything that we do in a traditional classroom differently with skill obtainment and also academic advising uh uh we are very fortunate that Dr Daryl Lampley uh vice president of Columbia State we work hand inand just about every day on all kinds of
041projects they're they're going to uh provide a career counselor in this Center that can help align kids with college help align kids with careers do any kind of uh uh career advisement with families as well Nashville Tech council is another one that's going to want to put a person in the facility that helps get companies recruited to help industry partners for those kids to get internships to go out and do those if I may Jeremy I just want to just note that first bullet of Vanguard just as a reminder that's our Online High School uh and pbl Project based learning yes okay just make sure you guys understood those acronyms so my predecessors Dr or and Dr Allen did a really good job four years ago they taught me this this verbiage they always kept
042saying build these exit ramps we want to build exit ramps for every kid regardless if they're going straight to the workforce twoyear College foure college and Etc I want to take that a step further I want to have launch pads at the end of those exit ramps so the moment they get off they can be launched into anything and everything that we offer through this facility we sent out surveys to uh all the uh Rising freshman through Juniors uh surveys we got quite a bit of responses I was very very uh pleased with the responses that we've got we threw out some programming that we don't we we offer a few of those and we don't offer uh some of those just to see where everybody was kind of thinking as you can see uh
043the parents are in blue Student Response is in green yellow is the combined leadership and bus business we we are an executive Community everybody likes those executive filling classes or or programs possibly in leadership and business that was all that was a popular one for us culinary is always a popular one for us biomed Aviation you can go down and you can kind of see where those kind of ranked and then uh I I changed it to where it kind of was ranked where you could see it a little better as the overall top eight programs that uh were requested via that survey so some potential programs we're looking at for this facility would be Aviation flight we would be working with Franklin Special School Districts as a partner in this as well they're they're
044committed to offering an eighth grade class over there to accelerate and Fast Track you can get a personal pilot's license by 16 maybe even 17 years old we're looking at that uh process we're looking at a bu business leadership class that could be a one-off that we want to give kids regardless if they're a CTE e kid or if they're an AP kid that could take a one-off class get dual credit dual enrollment with MTSU through their student for Center of Success uh uh Center and uh uh we feel like that is a great tool and asset that we could possibly do as a program hospitality and tourism uh that's going to be in conjunction with Columbia State as well that is a completely different program of study that we've offered yet we do offer
045culinary but a combination of hospitality and tourism and that's been really really a hot topic with our industry partners and that is also the number one job growth in Williamson County in the Middle Tennessee area uh according to tsba dashboard data it data Sciences cyber security uh and coding and then industrial Arts this is something that is kind of cyclical if you think back 30 years ago those classes were really big your shop class you what in class right we're looking at trying to do an HVAC program possibly with an industry partner that kind of covers all of the above mechanical electrical plumbing and Welding where they can get a skill out of any of those buckets and then take that into the workforce that they choose to do so so here's some of our
046industry partners that have already given us a letter of uh partnership uh these these folks are been tremendous about everything so far and we are meeting with with people daily like I said today we had a group that is uh committed to doing some stuff we we're meeting with some pretty large uh headquarters here in town town and hopefully fingers crossed more people will come to the table and I feel very confident that they will here's our postsecondary uh educational Partners so far like I mentioned Franklin Special School District uh Middle Tennessee State and Columbia State now if you take the EIC model like Mr Golden mentioned it is a it's a proven model 72 72 kids when we first opened he mentioned it we've have over 400 applications sitting there right now I mean
047we're at the point where it's like Chick-fil-A everybody's waiting in line they don't even know what for but they're waiting in line and we're trying to figure out how in the world can we manage that many kids and not try to turn anybody turn anybody away but it is it is like Mr Golden said it it is a proven fact that it works that every kid has the opportunity from any High School to come to one Center and do that if you take that model and you take the CTE model and you put them together you now have what's called The Innovation Hub and hub and ladies and gentlemen without further Ado this is the vision of the Hub a facility that kids can come to that looks totally different than a traditional vocational pathway
048if you will that will offer those programs that we talked uh discussed earlier and those programs or the facility rather can be a plug andplay area if one program let's say has a High attendance rate or application rate and then 5 years later it kind of dwindles or whatnot we can can plug and play a new program within that facility this is kind of what the vision of the floor plan looks like this is all completely conceptual at the moment we haven't even gotten into square footage other than the fact of where it could possibly be and uh we're looking at a square footage of around 13 to 14,000 square fet per floor so we have a vision for a location uh we've been speaking to government um Williamson County government opened up a new
049animal shelter and the existing animal shelter adjacent to the EIC which is it officially at CH Park uh is empty uh the mayor has said he's open to making a request of the County commission for a long-term lease for us to take that Western portion of Chek Park uh again through a long-term lease and place that this new facility with the funding we have from the state on that existing location tear down the old building build this um so um I know Mr Cook's office and Dan OS Brooks have been working on a draft lease our plan is uh to submit that draft lease to the County Commission in March ask them to approve that lease so that we have a location that we can submit to the state for this plan I was going
050to piggy back off of that the reason for this location the important piece of this location is a transportation we've already got Transportation figured out for the EIC we double up the routes they come to one location they the EIC kids go to the EIC The Innovation Hub kids go there and we don't have to invent any kind of new traffic pattern during the day with bus uh routing as we all know that the bus transportation and bus drivers we we try to make sure we take care of those folks and and that would that would not complicate things by having it there they could drop off at two locations from a timing perspective uh the again the governor put this money in last year's budget uh the deadline for the application is March 31st
051there is a at this moment if I'm not mistaken a two plus year window to get this completed three it's have they extended it it's a total it's a total of a fouryear process year one is eaten up right now right this is considered year one so you have three years on the back side so I I um we're going to ask if if if if we go through the approval process the state approves it um we get the land uh uh commitment from the county uh uh ask Kevin to in conjunction with the county to work on a construction plan uh the from a staffing standpoint we are probably looking at what year Jeremy uh 24 25 25 26 25 fall of 25 uh for Staffing and I know one of the items that
052we often talk about when it comes to capital investment is what are what what are the operational costs that are ongoing and think back to what we did with the EIC we did we we have staffed it we have teachers there we will do the same thing might there be some offset over the course of time as students say I want to spend some of my instructional time at this location and and not at my at my home high school perhaps but it is an in an investment very much like the EIC where we're open additional doors for students where we're giving them additional paths to choose and I am convinced that this is worth that additional investment we we we also know that these to reiterate this have an opportunity to succeed because we've
053learned that it's a big step for a student to commit to a CTE program and leave their Zone school this allows them to have the best of both worlds we be we project it we'll be able to staff it where we can have a teacher teaching one item one one course one one uh Focus area we we historically struggle with teachers for CTE programs if we can continue the flow of students with that committed teacher at one location we believe this is sustainable so I'm super excited about it um Dr qus um thank you for that commitment to five minutes of a presentation I like how you did that that's nice um but uh certainly open to any questions you all may have Mr Welch and then Mr Wimberley uh Mr gu have you had
054any initial conversations with the state government and those who are providing the grant they giving you any indication about their thoughts about this program yes thank you for that question Welch um actually interesting we had our state director's meeting on Friday of last week one of the approvers the main approvers a man by the name of Chuck Carter came and sought me out in the group of everybody's like where is the application we want to see yours we feel like yours is the best he said that I was I was I was very kind of nervous I was like why is he coming over here but he said uh he's like we've been talking about this and this is exactly what the spirit of this grant is meant to do is to is to get
055out of the box innovate and and do something different than what's been done before and and who was this individual I'm sorry he is a tdo me a tdoe member of the Tennessee Department of Education he's he's actual a reviewer of the applications of the ism grants that's probably a pretty good indication support yeah so so you said 15.5 million potentially yes budget's going to be tight I'll tell you that well it's it's it's a nice and it's a grant it's it's not that's correct local funding or anything like that it is it is no such thing as a free lunch but it's free money as far as we're concerned that that we're getting that's right to supplement we've got a spot and you said you've already had conversations with mayor Anderson he's open to
056it and providing it it's a great spot we got the transportation um filled out I mean it seemed like a no-brainer to me Mr B and Jeremy it it's it's aligns perfectly with with what we've seen the state's priority be of of pushing uh more career in college Tech uh college career Tech but also above and beyond that it seems like something that not only can we do these programs but we can do them on a more Grand scale because we're not trying to replicate the same thing with resources and in you know eight nine different high schools but rather centralize it open it up to any student not just the ones that are zoned to a particular program [Music] um I I I'm also saying it and and tell me if I understand it
057correctly but this also feels like something that applies to students all along the sort of career spectrum of whether they want to uh immediately go into the job Force if they want to go into uh trade school if they want to go into higher education if if if you want to do civil engineering or you want to do you know construction or man management or whatever it is it's it has applications for really every student um I'm trying to play devil's advocate here and think of anything bad with this but it it's just it seems like this could be a game changer for our district just one of those jewels that could really be differentiated and frankly it's something I think that we need as a district I know I've told Le the story before
058of you know Young man that I I had watched from elementary to graduation Russ a great kid I love this kid you know always had a smile great attitude and year three when my son came home from college um emotional telling the story uh went to a quick surve restaurant I saw him behind the counter serving burgers and it it uh broke my heart you know we failed this kid you know was a great kid and we knew that that that was not his path was going in but it was thought about what about all those kids where it's the next level that's not what do we offer them and in this case thank God you know I how are you doing what are you up to and he oh I'm doing great I'm going
059to aircraft engine school one of the things that you have up there so I kicked around for a few years but now I found it I found my track and everything else and it was just thank god um but here it's it's that exactly except we're talking about not not only to doing that handoff but well that that offramp that you talked about you know building that path for him um sorry but this is this is exciting stuff I'm just see a lot of opportunity with this what you're talking about is what we call it EIC finding the why he hadn't found his why yet and EIC we have every Walk of Life in there from a perfect ACT score to a possibility of a a homeless kid and they all find their why in
060that place right and this is exactly what you're talking about that this building could extend that and help kids find their why you mentioned Devil's Advocate the one item that I could come up with was it is a it it in a few years it will be an operational commitment and I I think it's worth it um those of you who've participated in some of our uh strategic plan Community meetings you have all heard some of those participants in those deep discussions mention career opportunities for students so this opportunity is here now to do what we're already talking about in next year's strategic plan well I've also seen a mentioned public private Partnerships in those meetings as well and it looks like we've you know it's not even a done deal but we've already got
061some from you know very successful local businesses all the way up to Fortune 500 companies that are ready to sign on yeah and we're and obviously everybody's schedules are different and like the fiscal book so everybody's having discussions budgetary wise too so yeah it's it's it's constantly ongoing unfortunately like Mr Golden said we have till March 31st but that doesn't mean we have to have those solidified right once the approval process goes through we work continually working on We have basically two and a half years from that point to really work on Partnerships and and and other items too yes and to that point Dr qu is included on his PowerPoint businesses that have committed with letters with written support um he's cultivating other prominent businesses we're not going to mention them until we get
062a full commitment but even on our trip to Scottdale we had some really detailed conversations with with some more corporate entities for additional support So marks 31st is a tight timeline and obviously we're not meeting a whole lot since then we as a board what do you need from us and approval if if we decide as a group to move forward this thank you so much for that I'm all I'm asking for you all now is a is a verbal or physical thumbs up tonight um it just I just wanted to make sure you were on this on the same page with us before we submitted this I mentioned at the last couple of meetings that this was coming um that's what I'm asking thank you Dan we we've got a few people who've asked
063to speak so maybe we'll get more um endorsements from that so who I've got right now is Sheila Jen Jay and Dan and you also Donna I need to talk after I'll let them go first all right Sheila thank you um first of all the as far as the um Educators for this where we at on getting professional experienced professional Educators that don't have to have a teaching license but be based on their experience teaching in the CTE program are we getting any legs on that is that something we have to do a resolution in the future to try to promote getting something like that past thank you for the question and I want to let everyone know um one of the reasons uh Sheila has asked that question is because in Arizona we learned
064that some of the CTE teachers they don't require an actual teachers license they go straight from industry to that we've had some discussions with some industry leaders in Middle Tennessee about their training programs for some of these professions that that we listed um that you know where they have their own curriculum EX ET so that's the why for that question right now Tennessee does require a teacher's license there are some credits then with some detail that they can give for for a for a transitional license uh based on a a career path um one we we have a number of our teachers who were in other careers and went back and got their teachers license Dr calls Dr Webb I'm trying to remember the name of the uh of the teacher at Fairview who's who's
065uh teaching that really um that that industry based um Kevin seore yeah thank you Kevin cmore uh he's an example of that in our in our district Dr web um and and actually Vicky Hall if you would too also can do you have any more detail to answer that questions about licenser I can just say for now we they still do have to have a license so they have to enroll in in a program we do work with them to get them um on like a one one year waiver so that they can come on into the classroom but then over that onee period of time they do have to enroll well maybe just in you know since we've got a couple years to deal with it and if the state's really on board maybe
066this is something we can kind of get changed you know and just kind of help us along um and just for you know when I went to the evit if anyone wants to know about the evit we saw in Arizona it is a fascinating place and one of the things I liked about it too was there was an early child Hood development not only you know we have our associates degree you know after two years but this particular program actually the credits they receive in their two-year program they partnered with a college that actually receives those credits one-on-one to when they go in that they actually enter the college as a sophomore and to get their J Ed college so they're actually and that's was really cool program too and we have a couple of
067examples of those programs as well where students finish with a with an ass can finish with an Associate degree to give you a little bit of body of what um of what Sheila is talking about evit is the East Valley Institute of Technology the model in Metro Phoenix and there's multiple locations around the city they have uh o overlaying school districts so you have your Geographic School District similar to ours and in a in a handful of spots around the large metropolitan area they've created separate school districts that serve Juniors and seniors for College and Career Technical education and they're they're a hub where multiple investing school districts put their efforts into a hub uh jointly uh the geography of our area is very different because their their Geographic space of their school districts is
068is a lot smaller than ours um so the Nugget that we can learn from that is let's create a hub ourselves within our geography and I would like to say it's on 65 acres too it's it's pretty impressive it's pretty impressive 5000 students yeah 5 students 65 acres they're a little bit more densely populated give us about 30 years uh they actually started that program about 30 years ago [Music] Jen yeah I just I wanted to mention I think this is phenomenal and it's really exciting and we talked a lot or heard a lot about exit ramps for all students and I just felt like it didn't specifically call out being intentional about our students with disabilities and finding ways that we can partner with these large corporations and different um maybe even vog rehab
069could be brought in as a academic partner um just to give them the same opportunities for this kind of work-based learning spot just thank you sure we we we yes that's that was not mentioned however we we would treat them no different because we already have those programs in place and we have those participations now uh but I'm curious about who you're talking about I'd love to to reach out to them Jay thank you is there J or Jeremy is do you have a I'm just thinking about the difference in putting a second location on the Franklin campus versus potentially Distributing it at somewhere else geographically in the in the county I'm I'm just wondering about the geographic participation the EIC now is it is it largely from from those cities that border Franklin or
070is it that's a great question our largest two bodies of of participants are Ravenwood and uh is it Independence don't quote me on that Independence maybe second but Brentwood Ravenwood Independence are like the top three so it's kind of funny that you would think at one point in time Franklin was our lowest participation rate they could walk through the hallway and come through the door and do it and they've they're they're now on the top top four but uh uh actually our largest groups come from further out so I mean that that was really my only my only negative was was was maybe would would it be would it be better to have it I mean obviously we can't help where we get the where we get the free land right but um just wondering
071if there if we put something down closer to Independence and Summit um would that would that increase participation we did bring Rin storm over that um and if if we couldn't and can't get the the land um adjacent to Franklin um we've talked about independence being our our our next location it would be more expensive to build there uh because we actually own some acreage behind Independence there's a Creek Running there we probably have to put a bridge in so we've had some pretty detailed discussions of that when that land was purchased I if I'm not mistaken Kevin actually um came came right behind that Independence purchase I think there was a uh it was a family farm and the entire acreage was purchased um but ultimately from a transportation standpoint from the available land
072this looked like a good ide you know a great spot with the grant money long term as we grow 10 15 20 years I do see that that acreage behind Independence has a potential for something like that yeah that sounds good well and but and you think do you think is our goal to get 100% of the of the of the facility cost taken care of with the grant that's that's the hope and see that's that kind of factor into the decision of location two with not having to buy land or develop land too much Transportation cost as well too and making sure that we had that trans see the model's already set for the EIC so we could just double up routes but uh I like where you're going though we can get multiple
073hubs if you'd like I like that idea um I I will say also Dr qus is talking to corporate entities um if we get an offer that he's able to to to uh get the commitment we we'll bring it back to you we we may even talk about naming to get some the funding Dan thank you Jeremy this is awesome and um you know I'm going way back to 14 when Dave and Julie and Williams and Inc and few others would meet with industry in the area and talk about co-oping and skill trades and uh it's great that we got a governor that understands that also uh I had a question what is the rate of our students that graduate that go on to four years versus a two-year or or not U Dr Allen
074and I are actually were talking about that a couple of weeks ago um it's in the last the last data we saw it was in the 80% range Dr Allen can you speak to that it's a good question Dan so we uh or Mr Cash um low 80s uh for total enrollment in postsecondary about 15 to 20% about 15% of those go to a two-year to start um so we're in the low 80s um what excites me about the programming that's going to be offered here is this is not targeting the same students that are already doing CTE courses um we see a real need to help students gain stackable credentials and really the more credentials that we can get them while they are in high school get them as far down that path whether
075it be a a technical certificate uh prior to a an associates degree is a real need of ours so um our completion rate we monitor our completion rate at the postsecondary level as well and so we see an opportunity there where these programs um you know Mr Cash you and I had lots of conversations back in 14 about some of those specific programs up there and the one thing that we always ran into was we we couldn't put them in one school because there wouldn't be enough students in that one school that would participate in those programs and so it was a it was a a financial issue for us so this is an opportunity that we capitalize on busing that's already going to the EIC We Gather those students from multiple schools and send
076there so we see a real opportunity to get uh to really improve the credentials that our students will leave high school with so if life happens and they can't get through that associates degree they've already got a technical certificate or work credentials that will that are career oriented not just job oriented and to piggyback off that Mr Cash The Accelerated model of getting them there fast like he was speaking of we had one industry partner that we're hopefully going to still deal with that could sign those kids and even pay for their schooling on the back side of it and then they would be committed to come back and work for them that's the best of both worlds that's like the perfect scenario right credentialed job waiting we're going to pay for your school well
077that's that's the win-win in the whole thing and it's a win-win for parents students and everyone and and I love this and again thank you for focusing on this uh all these years to even make it better and better and I think this is going to be a like I say a just a fantastic win for the students thank you I want to tell one more story about Scottsdale since um since we we we've talked about it they're a robust 30 plus year program um they have a firefighter program uh two-thirds of the students in that firefighter program have jobs the week they graduate school because evit has a has a relationship with the state of Utah for Forest firefighting um when when you when we get this going over the course of time we
078are going to find examples like that in our community where we get a supply chain of Staffing uh for local Industries and the importance of that trip Mr Golden to piggy back off what you said was the fact that we had government officials there that started that conversation with hey we have trouble Staffing certain positions how can we work together with local government so that would be even even a win-win for all of us locally all right Donna then Elliot thank you I love this program I love that we're thinking outside of the box for kids that might not want to be the college track and we're providing for them um and I love the uh Private Business private partnership I think that's great um questions on so all the building would be like the
07915 is it$ 15.5 million Grant and then any thoughts on the ongoing budget um it's going to depend on how many programs start uh so um Dr qus I know you've had some discussions about that uh and we've used the EIC model in those discussions so talk about teacher Staffing and support staff so we're looking at trying to come out of the starting blocks with four programs is what we're trying to look at so that would be four staff members that we would have to have and the grant would cover that but at the end of the grant obviously we would that would be a a pickup for us us okay thank you MH okay Elliot thank you um hey Jeremy how how does this plan differentiate from teat Tennessee College of Applied technology so
080uh tcat okay so we work very closely with Columbia State tcat has come to the table on a few of their programs too and this could be accelerated model into the teat uh Mr Golden keeps mention to EV it they they put they don't have teat esque facilities anywhere 100 mile radius of that place because they've put them out of business right but we uh we we we're not suggesting we're doing no no no no no no we're going to work closely with with uh with the teap with Columbia State and all the above it's it accelerated model into that where we look at it from an industry standpoint though is it's a it's an opportunity for that industry to come in and get the best of the best before anybody else gets them right
081so that's kind of that model we're looking at for the industry to drive that and I'm glad you asked that question let's use Lee as as an example uh the Lee company themselves and Andy Marshall Hospitality same way has a credentialing program it's kind of like a tecat college model they bring those kids in or bring their their their employees in and they they have their own process that they go through and I find that very interesting it's been kind of a learning experience for us too as we were talking about that thinking how do we build out uh these these credential programs with Columbia State and and tat and all the rest rest and and some of these folks are like look we have developed a model of of this or we'll take those
082kids and we'll pay for them to go there so we're going to use utilize each and every step of the way it's like those exert we're talking about straight to uh uh Workforce teat uh Junior College Community College in four year all the way through so so it you know in reading the teat uh website it it talks about it being a uh dual enrollment opportunity ities for high school students and Workforce Development for Tennessee residents it really sounds like what we're doing is putting together a teat uh College inside our district is that I I I I don't see what we're doing here is being any different from what they're doing um our vision for the robustness of it other than the fact that it's in Williamson County and to Jeremy's point there aren't
083any teat I mean the closest cats and Dixon Dixon Mur Camp here Dixon Murphysboro and hall right right and so from a from a travel standpoint that can be that can be prohibitive and it's a little bit earlier in the process you know you're you're working with 16 17 yeah yeah well is the plan to to to attract eighth graders yes there'll be some intro there'll be some intro work with eighth graders as well so and then the comment uh I I guess it was uh I don't remember who who asked the question but uh so if the grant is 15 well we're saying 15 A5 million is what we're hoping the Grant's going to be and you think you can build a building for less than that and still have a year and still
084have room for for operational cost at the end of that so the preliminary numbers and and once again those are all preliminary we have two different models we're looking at of the building one with a little bit more Square footage and one with maybe not as much uh one is around the $10 million Mark and the other one's around the $13 million Mark obviously Mr Fort you could probably speak a whole lot more to that about price per square uh footage right now but the plan is absolutely to have a turnkey Solution on this thing uh for for Staffing for finished you know not just the building but the everything that goes in it as well I will tell you though my life experience tells me the answer to your question is no yeah that
085we need to be thinking about fall of 25 as op operational sustainable expenses so I think I think our question then is is how much are we willing to ask the county to contribute to this Vision because I I mean 15 million's not going to I'll be surprised if you can if we can build that for 15 million with today's cost of constru ruction and the fact that you have to demo a building on top of it yeah um Kevin Kevin and I had a conversation and I know Dr calls has been involved in that when you look at that artist rendering yeah realistically it's going to it's going to take a lot of value engineering for sure and and have so so as we again I'll go back to the teat thing what's if
086if this is what's the possibility of them pushing back on that at the state level since that's kind of since Workforce Development is kind of their their candle if you will or their M that their Charter if if what we're trying to do here is produce students that are going to be employable in into the workforce immediately with the skill set well the governor what thank you for that question the Governor funded this in and this current Year's budget uh it's it's clear that this is what they are expecting now to your to your point Jeremy earlier about about the discussions with the tdoe and the review anecdotally we've heard from some other districts that that their plan was not as robust as this but it's clear to me from the commitment the state made
087they are looking for some vertical approaches to increase that to increase that that job opportunity for Workforce Development yeah function and we're talking we're serving we're serving younger younger students than those programs serve and and they don't require tat will require requires the grants for the enroll the tuition GRS know tat has any jurisdiction in this process I could be wrong uh well they're completely different if this is out of Department of Education they're they're out of correct I think they're they're not part of and I I think there's all kinds of possibilities for that we may have students and we will have students who Who start a program and and they get they get their feet wet and say you know what I like blank I've enjoyed this but I know teat has this
088additional program I'm going to go grab that I see that this is going to ultimately be a net win for everyone yeah all right thank you yes Dan yeah teat they've got uh people 30 40 years old training in there so they've got people from all different age groups this is going to be for students and uh I don't know what what do you think do you think the governor is going to put all this money out this year and uh see the development starting and drop the ball I don't think so so you know hopefully things are going to go well and uh they'll be contrib ruting more money that's a that's a possibility I you we know that when you start a project you have to be realistic about what you got um
089and and know that there's that that if if there's some success you may get more rck if I'm not mistaken this money has already been approved by the legislature that's correct and in the governor's proposed budget uh that he just announced there was a lot of teap money in there whether it be approved or not so surely they're in sync yeah okay I don't see anything further um I I for one just add my comment I think this could be one of end up being one of the best things we've ever done I mean in my opinion um and I think it's a golden opportunity not sorry pardon the pun to uh totally unintentional by the way to um to get a corporate sponsor partner to help fund some of this I mean I I
090mean it's just heat up perfectly for something like that in my opinion thank you very much for this thank you thank you I think this is a a a legacy moment that we can leave for lots of lots of kids coming through so thank y'all for your time all right that's my report okay uh operations report Mr Fortney thank you Mr chairman good evening board members uh if I can just add one thing before I start with with with the uh capital projects is on this new initiative through the governor with this $15 million for this facility that we've been talking about uh Eric and I and others were talking about okay what what kind of realistic cost can we budget and our number right now is sitting at about $400 a square foot uh
091the type of building is not as detailed is what a regular high school would be okay be more open spaces and so forth and based on that amount we're looking somewhere around 32 to 37,000 Square ft at that $400 so it it may come in a little bit smaller but we feel pretty comfortable at the present date with the numbers that we're seeing so I just thought I'd add that in if it's worth anything to you uh on the capital project side as you all know we have two high schools Cox Road and wils Lane under construction pardon elementary elementary I'm sorry under construction they're all progressing well budgets are on target uh we expect to have furniture going into those buildings right around the 1st to the middle of June so that'll give us
092plenty of time to stock the buildings and get staff in there Timely to uh acclimate to those two new buildings as you all are aware we're we have moved into the facility over at Ravenwood uh students are actively in classes there uh there's a few punch list items that have to be done and some site site work that weather has not allowed us to to accomplish uh page middle or paig high school is tracking very well also uh we expect completion of phase three in may end of May and we'll stock that building with furniture and so forth during the month of of June and and into July and then turn that facility over uh I'm excited about that building it's it's really coming out super looking and has some very very nice spaces in
093it as far as being able to function as as we had planned uh Summit uh we have an addition going there as you all well known and unfortunately that one has kind of dragged on a lot longer than I would have anticipated uh it is a 23 classroom Edition uh we've been in the very beginning plagued with some weather issues and some soil conditions that we had to uh resolve we've gotten those resolved but we we have had some I don't like bringing it up but supply chain issues uh to give you an example we have two very large boiler tanks for the new addition that we never took delivery until about 3 weeks ago uh steel products are a problem right now we're we're we're pretty confident right now that we can move into
094Summit the week of the 6th of March uh we do have furniture going into the building uh they're assembling that and distrib it and so forth we have a fire alarm issue that we're working through with the contractor and the design team but we hope to have that resolved by the end of next week and then get our occupancy permits and move forward in that respect uh aside from that that kind of caps it up other than the fact that we're looking at the uh page High phase four uh I don't have a definite on when the documents will be ready but we expect to bid that in July of this year uh and continue on with construction uh and that about sums it up any questions for Mr Fortney all right thank you sir
095so the uh the vice chair report um I'm just going to mention one thing um and that is strategic planning so so I know I was able to attend one of the meetings this past week at Franklin High School one of the community meetings um you I thought it was very interesting to hear the feedback and and see the conversations that that were happening I know several of you were there there are believe three more two more next week um can you call out those locations just as a reminder sure uh Tuesday the 21st at 5:30 at Fairview High School uh 5:30 to 7: is the schedule and uh Thursday the 23rd 5:30 at mil Creek Middle School okay so just encourage board members Community um come out to those meetings if you have an
096opportunity uh would be much your your contributions would be much appreciated Sheila I'm going to turn it over to you for a brief legislative update thank you um first of all there are a lot of bills out there and just so you know the process I go through is um I look at I go through the bills and then I see number one do they have the sponsor and then also if they've already been through a couple committees because as you know a lot of bills come through and they're just bills they just kind of fail through the process so I want to make sure they have legs before you know I bring anything to you the one and I do have a list but because of time we can do it maybe next next
097month but there is one bill I want to bring to your attention that it's um house bill um 0595 uh and it's sponsored by um a senator and a representative from East County and I think the reason why this bill my personal opinion is because there's been issues in East County um but we do need to be aware of it is that it allows all registered voters if any County um to file a petition with the County election commission demanding the recall of a member of a local school board education right now this is just applies to Madison County um but now this particular Bill applies to all counties and I like I said I think it's because of issues going on East but it still does affect us if it goes through so you
098know you're want to have opinions on it call your legislators you know and find out if this is really something that's going to have legs because right now it's it is picking up but whether or not it'll go much further I don't know but I just wanted to make you guys aware of it thanks thank you J all right I'm going to uh suggest that we get through the first uh part of new business with with Rachel and then maybe take a f minute break if everyone's good with that all right Miss farmer uh budget items the first one approval of central cafeteria fund Amendment supply chain assistance first award thank you Mr chair we have two the first two that we cover are both going to be for the same type of award the
099USDA push money down to the state of Tennessee and then the state is pushing it out to the leas the first one uh is for $66,667 again we've had another one similar to this where it's for minimally processed food and so we are asking that you approve the uh both of us receiving the funds and then being able to use that for food cost the second one as I said is same second award but this one is for 1,168 n322 again we need to rec recognize the revenue so that we can expense then for food cost and to be clear this is for the current fiscal year great any questions all right item three approval of capital fund Amendment inter category transfer Cox and wils with wils Lane if you recall we came back and
100had to ask for additional it funding at that point in time we did not have enough money and contingency to pay for that also at the time the County Planning Commission had asked us to do some stop lights so we came through our general fund and requested those funds to be paid now uh we if you recall to the Planning Commission that portion of the lights did not get approved by the County Commission we are coming back now and asking for normal process when we open a new school supplies of materials for the schools to open we can either pull it from fund balance or we can pull it from contingency or for the capital projects so what because we have used fund balance already to fund part of Wilks we are asking to use
101part of contingency now to fund both Wilks and the Cox property for those additional those initial Supply purchases so what we would need to do is move 290,000 for each school out of contingency into the proper account and if I may Rachel just to make sure we're clear Capital contingency from the rural fund correct and that would leave us if we make we're going to I have another request so I'll go ahead and tell you with the two requests that would Le leave us within the rural Capital funds uh 1.7 million almost 1.8 million and then within general just so for your knowledge we have 648,000 in contingency right now Jay she anticipated my question that's what I wanted to know so you're good I was ready all right Elliot thank thank you uh Rachel
102and I and I guess Kevin so we're anticipating for Cox and wil we're pulling a little less than 600,000 out of contingency to to kind of make ends meet do we anticipate a similar uh need for page and Ravenwood and and Summit additions and I guess Brentwood middle as well I'll give my my opinion and then he can tell me if I'm wrong I would say no in that regard because these are the supplies and materials it's the clocks on the walls it's the garbage cans in the rooms so there will be some of that but the schools may be able to incorporate part of that as well it will not be to the magnitude anywhere close to what this may be okay thank you I guess Kevin did you have any I con with
103figured as much all right uh item four Capital fund Amendment mil Creek Middle softball field there is a need to build uh a softball field on the property for mil Creek middle and related to Title 9 and so we again we are going to request that we use contingency funds out of a Ru of 33635 six and the total numbers I gave you before included this coming out for the contingency balances and if I may Mr chair uh I did send you all some EMA an email with some detail related to to uh our athletic fields um I know we're going through a strategic planning process um uh both our athletic director and our Arts director are going through review process districtwide um in in evaluating our our facilities you all remember the discussion that
104we had just a couple of months ago um we've asked them to now start working on priorities for us uh and ultimately I intend that to be in conjunction with our strategic plan to let some of those goals that we developed drive us Jen I just wanted to add to this one because um I had some parents from Mil Creek reach out about the fact that this is being built um over a current soccer field which leaves the mil Creek Middle School without a soccer fields but um I spoke with Dr P and she's worked with Dr Mafi to come up with a schedule with the high school nearby so that they can have I guess they have an alternating schedule for middle and high school soccer so there will be an opportunity for them
105to kind of share that field and it'll work out um and then just in thinking with the strategic planning process this was something that just came up when you said that Jason um that if we are looking at parents who are I mean we've seen a lot of stickers next to the school start time Healthy Start time thing and so as we're building out these Playing Fields one of the comments that maybe we had I can't remember where this came up but one of the comments was that if um if start times were to swap with Elementary and secondary let's say that we would maybe need more lights on more Fields because they may have to practice later at night in the season when it gets darker earlier so I just wanted to see if
106that was all being considered as we're building these athletic fields thank thank you for that um that is something that Darren joins um is is looking at um generally speaking we haven't installed lights at our Middle School field so we've needed to get those events in especially during Standard Time uh before before dark uh in in the event we end up with some goals related to considering a starttime change that's one of the factors we already know is going to is going to take some work okay item five general purpose School fund Amendment disproportionality from idea state issued an additional required amount for us to transfer from oured federal projects Ida money over to the general purpose School fund and that amount is $207,375 cents any questions what is Ida individuals with disabilities in Education
107Act I'm glad he answered that we live by acronyms all right item six general purpose School fund resolution on nursing intercategory transfer this is a resolution that we're bringing in just as a reminder we cannot transfer funds in a category from an operational account to a salary Personnel account and vice versa without getting both your approval and the commission's approval once the budget's been approved so in this case we had contracted Services the plan was to use contracted services to help support needs that were required for students related to nursing they were not able to fulfill they could not hire through contracted services so we had a have a 05 nurse who is willing and certified to be able to perform those procedures but she is an employee of ours and so in order to
108pay her we would need to move funding from contracted Services over to to the actual payroll line and that's what we're requesting to do with this particular resolution the total would be $38,600 it's no additional cost to the district it's just moving it between the types of accounts any questions number seven Central cafeteria fund resolution excess fund balance this resolution is related to the central cafeteria fund they have a maximum required of what they can hold in their fund balance at the end for each year and that maximum is a average of 3 months of operating expenses uh so that is the amount that the state looks at once the audited financial statements are approved they take your fund balance determine what the amount is that is three months worth of operating expenditures and then
109that rest of it is considered excess and it has to be spent and so Mr redti with Food Services has for the last couple of years had had to foro some of the equipment expenditures in order to make ensure that uh he had proper budget proper funding for the rest of his budget and so it's time now to go ahead and replace that so he has an extensive plan countywide on how to spend these funds so again that total was 3, 363,000 128 he had a very good year last year um is expected honestly to probably have excess funds again this year that we'll have to come back for and if I may add to that you see those additional federal funds um that's one of the reasons why um he's operating in the black
110think back to where we were two years ago with cash flow issues any questions and and Jason I believe you had said that these excess funds are going to allow not only the replacement of all the this equipment but potentially for for certain not require any increase in the the meal PR price and potentially even a reduction thank you for that uh you're correct um Mr ridi is here for sure if if uh um if if if I may James can you step up to a microphone and and speak to the uh to the cost of meals give us a give tell us how long we've we've been flat on meal prices and your longer term plan longterm plan uh long-term plan right now for meal prices is to stay stagnant where we are at
111the uh 375 Mark I think looking forward we are projecting some uh dealing with some food costs going into next year and some new government regulations coming down the pipeline that will make food a little more restrictive which means a little more expensive but I think we got a good plan to uh maintain and keep the prices where they are for the next uh for the next few years okay thank you sir all right slight amendment to my break plan let's go ahead and get through BC and d and then break and we can jump into some of the items that may take a little more discussion uh so let's go quickly then to family tuition rate thank you Mr chair uh annually we set the family tuition rate for those who uh might be
112uh moving into the district and don't have their houses in order uh or uh or just those those occasional items where that comes up we have a respon responsibility to set the rate based on our actual um revenues and Rachel has prepared a memo for you you may notice that this proposed rate is a decrease of $68 from the prior year uh tuition based upon that analysis uh so certainly open any questions you may have and Rachel's here as well do you want to I forgot to I do want to mention this does not affect our staff member rate you may recall we dropped it to $2,000 with the reduction of 400 for the next for the for year two uh and and on um this is exclusively for those uh who might pay the
113rate for a different reason any questions okay approval of school fees thank you Mr chair uh annually we we submit per state law a request for you to appr approve school fees and I make it a point to emphasize this the the Tennessee law calls these fees for any payment uh a family gives for any curricular program during the school day program they call it a fee but it's not really a fee it's a voluntary donation uh for years we made sure we make that clear in our memo um dating back I've been here 18 years every single year we tried to make a point of this um so it's a request that we make of our parents for curricular items to support our programs for extracurricular we do have the authority and you all
114do have the authority to set a fee as a condition of participation um what we traditionally do is ask for that and if there's gaps then the fundraising fundraising activities uh from our excellent boosters support those gaps in those extracurricular activities um uh Dr Webb and Dr orer have prepared these uh high school middle school and then Elementary uh fee requests respectively uh there's a small number of changes on there most notably a football because the the the cycle for helmets has changed that's a big a big item because of concussion protocols and the longevity of helmets certainly open to any questions you may have Jay I guess so annually I I ask us please to to fund these academic fees in the budget um so that our teachers don't have to ask students to
115voluntarily pay for um things like supplies and paper and workbooks and things that are that are part of the of the curriculum I uh these were these were made fees back in 2008 I believe when when we had a budget shortfall and we had to pull stuff out of the budget um uh anticipating that we were not going to be in a in a in a crisis situation hopefully um if the budget can allow I just ask that I I would love to be able to ask our our our parents for for additional donations that actually provide something over and above what the what the bare minimum is this isn't a function of of uh I think we can I think we could use this roughly million dollars I think is is what we've have
116estimated this to be in the past um I think our parents are more than willing to pay for it I just think that free and public education we need to provide the required materials for the class in the budget and then we provide extras um with the extra donation so that's my continued ask I hope that we will have the have the funds to to do that that wait thanks Josh um so one of the required fees in here is for summer school um given our uh learning loss programs what is how will that be determined or used or assessed thank you for that so number one this is unrelated to the third grade law and the and those programs um Dr Webb if you would if you would speak to this because this is
117a high school fee thank you Mr Elliot that uh summer school fee would be for optional courses that students take in the summer uh to enhance their learning uh those are optional courses that they take outside of remediation uh you'll see the credit recovery fee for high school that is the remediation fee that we charge for summer intervention that includes at the high school level Algebra 1 which is taught uh now we started last year in a more traditional setting of uh of a summer school setting with a teacher teaching those actual courses versus uh an online um um asynchronous type model of of remediating those courses the uh we have very few of those um optional courses that we'll be offering this upcoming summer for summer school elective courses so for the um again
118I guess talk explain if you will the fees that are listed as required fees you know and some of these are as I'm looking the $450 for um youth legislature fee if a child is interested in that but for whatever reason does not pay it what is I mean what's what's our approach for remediating that and allowing the student to kind of participate short answer without giving detail is we find a way and I'm going to turn it over to Dr Webb to give some detail thank you Mr Elliot those required fees that money is the the cost that it takes for those students to individually participate in those elective programs however annually we have students who wish to participate who don't have the individual funds to do so so we do get creative we
119reach out to our uh PTO groups we reach out to our community um we uh in some instances solicit donations from the community to help um specifically Target those individual costs for students to participate to my knowledge we haven't turned a student away from any program that they wish to participate in regardless of their ability to pay if that indeed were a barrier to their participation thank you Dr Webb I I'll if I may one one last followup so if you remember a year or so ago one of my one of the things I I kind of fought for was was around around the concept of food shaming right where we would give a different type of make sure that we didn't ever um give a different type of meal to somebody who was receiving
120go government subsidies in the food line or or that wasn't allowed a meal if they you know had a balance on on the payment talk reassure me that we don't have a similar concern here where you have a child who somehow has to find the courage to go up and act ask for help and and therefore be identified by their peers that they're having to do extra work or they're having to participate in fundraising where others aren't or the point is that it's not it's not readily identifiable by their peers or faculty that this child is is uh requesting assistance to participate in activities that others would not have to request similar assistance kind of got wordy there but thank you for that Mr Mitchell and thank you I do remember specifically you raising that
121concern and thank you for bringing voice to that topic and uh helping us recognize where we were maybe mispp unintentionally I do believe and some of our practices around that food uh aspect we we absolutely addressed those and our current practice with these uh required fees for these optional activities is that these fees are not introduced to students when they are solicited for participation uh the the fee aspect or their payment part um it comes after the students um you know have the interest and demonstrated their interest which allows the teacher to be able to communicate um how those funds um you know would be uh required what they're used for and what that confidential means of communication would be if a student doesn't have the opportunity to pay but obviously have already expressed their
122interest um often times those are in confidential conversations to the the sponsor themselves with always an option to speak to that trusted adult that you know in the building uh the counseling office and school administrator to share that uh Express need for uh These funds to be covered and as I mentioned earlier I do feel like that our process has been effective because we have had students come forward and we have found ways to cover those fees for students so they could continue their participation and honor the fact that uh they want to participate before they ever knew that there could be a fee associated with it and that isn't trickery by any means it's strategic and the point that we want to know what students want to participate in regardless of their ability to
123pay uh and that also allows the sponsor to know who are those students who walked away from participation and it allows them the opportunity to have a confidential conversation with them about why they walked away for participation after expressing interest and when those means are communicated uh our our teachers and sponsors take those next steps to ensure students have the availability so you're you're confident that we don't we we can say in a school year we don't ever have any students that don't participate in a club or or an activity due to the inability to fund the the fee I feel good about that Mr Elliott um it's always something that we continue to wrap conversation around I never say 100% Assurance with anything because we do there could be human error where a student
124um has missed some means of communication or we've missed it but it is a concentrated effort on an annual basis to ensure students have the opportunity to participate regardless of their ability to pay and I do feel like because of the the conversations I've been a part of and trying to find those creative means to find the funds for those students that I know that it's happening across the district thank you yes sir thank you for that effort too Rick thank you I'm wondering if we don't have something out of order here because these are fees uh that we're being asked to approve for the next year we haven't done next year's budget yet and there's no doubt that this will come up in the budget discussion Jay will make sure that it does and
125so we are we kind of jumping ahead here why are we approving fees that that we know we're going to be talking about in the budget I think I could answer I think we changed it specifically because we were in past years we would approve the budget and then we would approve the fees um but if we were to change our mind on the fees we we'd have to go back and change the budget so I think this is this is giving the this is giving Rachel something to go by um and make sure that if there is anything include in the budget that she could that she could do that that's correct yeah so it was it was ultimately a a whe consensus in essence of the board to take these first okay thank
126you which prompts a question Jay referenced a million dollars is is do we have a ballpark number of what the net number would be if this right now it's about 1.4 1.4 the net number after that's what we've collected not the net but what was collected in revenues and and we won't know until the end of the year last year we had about 200,000 left sorry 100,000 left over from what was collected versus what was spent and then I mean between 50 schools scattered out that rolls into their fund balance whatever's left okay so theoretically if we were to fund it in advance it be 1.3 1.4 million 1.4 million um based off of this year's numbers Sheila what is the participation rate in that do you have a percentage of I don't and every
127school does not charge particularly the elementary school they do not all the elementary schools charge the $25 fee and so I could not tell you exactly what the participation rate is Dr oyer Dr Webb can you give any detail I don't one other thing I would say too is that the high school level to just throw that out Middle School there's the one fee but then at the high school level you're charging by classes and depending on what the class parent could pay for one class and not for the other not for another class because it is by class so I I don't know exactly how we would track that all I can add to that is that it does greatly vary it um we do not charge not every curriculum team charges every single
128one of these fees and if there's a way to charge less than that amount they there are many schools that charge less one of the things that we do in our syllabi is communicate how the fees will be spent to the penny uh if if we can so that families know how the money will be spent um if they choose to to add those or send in those fees and then we don't charge if we we don't need it can I add one other thing to that when they're looking at the class fee this is the maximum amount but teachers are required to give a list that says this is what we're going to purchase so that the bookkeepers know exactly how much we're trying not to create an exess you never want an access
129we're not going to charge unless there's the need and so they do have details so at any given time if a parent wants to know what is my fee being use for they should be able to give them a list of exactly what's being purchased oh yeah so to to kind of follow up on on Josh's question of if the if the gross collection is 1.3 1.4 and I mean these fees are all over the place for different activities and stuff that is 1.3 1.4 really the the cost of what we would have to come up with to fund this no what happens is the fund balance the schools that their general fund will pick up any child so if someone doesn't want to pay the fee we're still going to go ahead and provide
130the B the biology kits or the chemistry kits everybody's going to still participate so the schools have again their general fund they receive donations or they have their own fundraisers like pictures every year that go the kids bring home their proofs they get a each school will get a certain dollar amount for those kind of things so they have school fundraisers that go into their general fund and that general fund helps cover any of these costs so if an elementary school decided they did not want to necessarily charge the fee either PTO have probably donated money and said we you know we'll sponsor x amount of dollars to help help you or they have a healthy general fund from other aspects other donations and fundraisers but but it so I'm looking to give you an
131example of we've got $200 for football or $250 for cheerleading those participation fees which is different than the what the school is charging and so that's not that's not included in the in the one correct we do not have I don't have a total on any of the participation fees okay thank you yes sir Eric um I think the concept of that you know of course in a perfect world a free and appropriate education of course we wouldn't have to ask our parents for for this money and we shouldn't have to ask the parents for this money we should be funded appropriately where we we have it but the reality of it is is we're not and we we know we're an exceptionally lean District we don't have the money and and we've heard a
132lot of promises about you know teacher pay minimums and additional funding that's coming through and I hope it does and and if and when it does I think this would be a great thing to look at um eliminating but but we don't have it in the bank account yet so we can talk about why don't we just fund it ourselves it's it's only another million dollars and and I kind of do the same thing I always do look at it it goes well let's look at it from an opportunity cost if we got an additional 1.3 1.4 million Grant tomorrow would Mr Golden come to us and say hey we want to eliminate these fees this is this is the very best thing that we could spend that money on and and I just don't
133think that's the case that if if we are trying to um increase our budget and our spend and and there there's more appropriate things to put it towards um I think there are some very real concerns and Dr Elliott I think you brought up a great one you know the food shame and the other things I will say having been involved in high school sports and and just PTO and things like that I've seen it up close where the parents will the coaches will get with the parents and say hey we need some help for unidentified student and you know the parents yes absolutely what do we we we take care of our own and are very generous and we do that we shouldn't have to but it it does get done it does get
134done in such a way where it you know it's not hey Billy needs a new pair of cleats that doesn't happen right that way um so it's kind of the the same point I I it would it would be be the right thing to it should be the way it is but but unfortunately I think we have to build policy around reality and the reality right now is that we need these funds and it's not that 1.4 1.3 spread out evenly across you know all of our schools and it's it's really clustered in a lot of things we take this away there's a lot of programs that are really heavily hit hard I can think like physics programs or things like that where there's extra materials and supplies and and classroom needs that they need
135that money it's used it's counted on it's it's planned on if we take it away there is a very substantial lack of services and support and education that those students are provided thank you just maybe a point of clarification for me because I I don't know that I fully understood it sounded like we're collecting roughly based on the numbers I heard roughly 90% of what it would take for to fund all the fees anyway right is that did I hear that right the the participation rate you didn't really know the participation don't know the participation rate class fees and those charging class fees every again everybody does not charge a class fee um so we're close to to spending everything we're collecting there have been times s where we will charge a fee have a
136price and we end up getting something for cheaper whether it's books or kits or whatever that may be so you may have residual amounts left over um but that does not mean that's going into the fund balance but that fund balance may be covering for 600 kids that didn't pay a fee at all so I wouldn't say no that that is the total cost it's not that's not the total cost of what is costing the school but that is what from the fees that we have collected specifically related to class fees that we've charged spending yes okay all right any more questions on that all right approval of Encore summer 2023 enrichment program fees thank you Mr chair for many years we have had an encore program at our elementary schools and the memo displays
137for you the locations it's a July summer program for students and just to put it as clearly as I can it's a fun program that involves a lot of field trips uh so I've got a kind of from Dr Royer a lot of incredible programming that happens on campus that that is designed to really engage certainly there are some academic components but it really is unique project-based learning is happening but we might be kind of tricking them into the learning that's occurring so it's a it's a self-funded program so these are the fees for the for the summer but you're you're as I'm reading this you're asking to wave it correct oh well asking to wave it for the children of the instructors oh okay thank you just the children of the of the teachers
138Miss that all right any questions I compare that to the bus driver eats free kind of thinking all right let's um it is 7:56 that clock says 7:54 my computer says 756 what's the actual time 756 all right let's come back at um 802 you're going to set it e e e all right let me ask everyone to come back to the table we'll get started e e let's resume uh with board policies we've got a couple for first reading we'll start with those um Jason thank you Mr chair board policy 1.73 on for first reading is the attendance area zoning and non-resident student policy this is a policy that we have to be really thoughtful about uh changing because because the nuances of it we are recommending some changes for first reading that includes
139in court incorporating the new Tennessee law about open Zone schools uh plus three items that you all voted on at the last resoning just a couple of months ago one um the priority for for Rising n9th graders uh at a school uh where there's less than 15% of it students zoned to a different School uh second Rising seventh and eighth graders for for uh for grandfathering and then third Rising 10th 11th and 12th for for grandfathering uh for high school students so um I expect that we will recommend uh approval at first reading at Monday's meeting any questions this of course will go back to policy committee but any questions for now Mr chair I got to add one thing you you all may ask this if you study this there were two line outs
140for blue lines the original policy committee included incorporating a paragraph in two different spots but the discussion led to just keeping it at another spot so when you see the Blue Line outs of a couple of paragraphs that's the explanation Mr Beasley I just want to be clear I just walked into the uh the meeting just a little late um did you say this was going back to policy yes sir and that is uh 1.73 yes okay excellent first reading thank you all right hey Jo yeah Vice chair yeah so help me remember Jason when we we talked a lot about this in policy and there was a section where we debated over whether it needed to be separate or not yes sir can you help me remember sure that's uh you will see some
141blue line outs on page three and Page four uh where we the the the original proposal included separating out uh The Sibling clause and the that included a line out on um originally on page four or five under siblings so we returned that portion to The Sibling Clause applying to everything rather than specifically to just um particular items in the policy and and I guess I'll point out to everyone who wasn't at the uh um board meet or or at the uh policy meeting that there's a distinction we in this policy between rezoning of existing schools and re and resoning for and opening new schools and it and it has a lot to to do with the grandfathering and what students are allowed to stay behind and not so I'll I'll everybody can kind of
142read it but that's that's unique to what we're doing that's a big fairly large change to what we're doing today thank you for that uh the proposal is that when you extend um grandfathering to lower grades that it's for rezoning as opposed to opening new schools because we really need to fill up those brand new schools and and it gets to a point for the high schools you know where you're going to have nothing but freshmen or at least freshman and sophomores you're going to have enough to field sports teams and and truly for the first two years or maybe three years depending upon how we do it whether you're going to have the full Gambit of extracurricular activity available for the for the students that go to the new school thank thank you chair
143okay any other questions on that one all right the uh use of internet thank you Mr chair uh as Dana osbrook explained at the policy committee there's been a change of law regarding internet use of internet policy as a result the tsba included a recommended policy uh this proposed policy change affects the the recommendations of tsba it also includes Mr chair the next item deletion of 1.85 use as use of electronic mail uh and the the the plan is that as as you all approve this if you approve it then the use of electronic mail policy deletes any questions on either of those Donna thank you Mr chair um I I asked a question about this at the policy meeting um on page two where it's talking about employees and the use of social networking
144um number one where it says uh District staff who have a presence on social media websites are prohibited from posting data documents photographs inappropriate information that is likely to create a material and substantial disruption of classroom activity and I asked for an example of that and an example that I was given which I understand um would be something about a student personal data which is illegal um so my question is is this more for is this is this part of the policy um stating something that we know is illegal or is it more stating what's unprofessional uh for a teacher in social networking um because I I do think there teachers know that they're working with minors and they understand the professionalism that is needed um my I would like to see this be much
145more objective than so subjective because I think in some ways when a teacher sees this they're like oh my gosh you know can I put a political sign in my yard what what are I you know I hope that makes sense but that would be my concern with this is I would like to see something way more objective this is got question marks all over it for me thank you for that we'll we'll discuss that and prepare for for the second reading and of course to your example of political activity um a teacher can they're not prohibited from engaging in political activity outside their role as a teacher so I to your point I I would not want to even imply that they can't do that okay but I'd like yeah something more objective on
146this thank you we'll talk about that okay any questions so the number three on uh for first and final reading U editorial change on purchasing thank you Mr chair uh there's been a change in the law and if I'm not mistaken the County government has already uh has already affected this as well um um on page one line 27 it may be hard to find because it's one change all purchases estimated to be between 20,000 and 50,000 um may be made uh in the open market without newspaper notice but shall be based on at least three competitive quotes you may notice a newspaper reference some of the parts of the law continue to be archaic um but but the change is that the minimum for three quotes has gone up from 2500 to 20,000 Eric
147that's a dumb question but newsp paper notice um how's that defined is it can we is it online advertis does it have to be a physical black and white print well is if I'm not mistaken the language is a local publication of of of um local circulation or something to that effect a publication of local circulation with at least one thank you thank you yeah Mr cook knows this off the top of his head of at least once a week oh great now bill us for that so locally nothing he's buing for this time uh so Lo locally um we do have some Publications that actually do both they they're Print Plus internet um and I can't remember off the top of my head if if you can do just internet or not you caning
148y thank you any further questions on that one all all right so let's move to item F approval of the reconsideration committee's recommendation for the following library books I'll read them off speak Perks of Being a Wallflower the Field Guide to the North American teenager and where the crad seeing Mr golden thank you Mr chair um back in if I'm not mistaken November or so uh we received two requests for reconsideration for Library books one of which actually included a reconsideration some of some instructional materials for some of the same titles as well uh we created a committee based on the existing policy subsequent to that the law has changed and and changed the responsibilities of the board in this so we are actually we created a committee for the ex for the for the
149old policy and now under the new law you all have a responsibility to be the decision maker on a request for reconsideration of a library book used to be that you were the appell body now you're the decision maker uh so um we went through the committee process uh we have two uh committee chairs who are going to present to you uh portions of this PowerPoint Miss Willie Dickerson chaired the committee that shows up as item F on your agenda and lorett Carl uh um uh chair the committee that that appears as item G on your on your agenda and they will walk through with you the the requests that they received and the processes that the committee went through and making the recommendations that are in your packet so miss Dickerson thank you we're
150going to briefly go through uh the report that's in your packet um and we're going to start off by saying first of all we going need to thank the members of our various committees for all the hard work that they did doing this and my committee uh was called the reconsideration committee but they wanted me to let you know that we refer to ourselves as a book club and that uh we kind of missed meeting we met so much that we kind of missed meeting with each other now so uh we're going to proceed first of all the complaint is given in the report but as stated on the screen screen the complainant really just uh objected to these five books and these five books is a little bit different from the second uh committee
151we had our complaint was twofold it was about instruction and it was also about the library so I'm only com uh talking tonight about the library because we did operate under the old policy which said that we were the decision makers for on that um so it was they objected to the book and they wanted these books four of the five books removed from the library and so the district's action we first of all established the committee and the com uh the policy actually told us who was on the committee it said that I would chair the committee as being an executive director we would have a district principal we would have um someone a school board member and we would also have a PTO member from that particular school and so the five of
152us became very close and uh uh I would tell you before the complaint ended up here at the district office the principal of the school had a meeting with uh parent as well along with uh Dr our assistant superintendent since I hadn't referred to names in any of this the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning and the teachers met as a group to go over and discuss the parents concern uh the books Mr Brown read the books to you but the books are here in the packet uh you have a uh review of the book just one of the reviews of uh from the publisher book list about these books and to tell you what the committee did we um the committee started meeting in October we met the majority of our meetings were in
153person and we I think there were two meetings that we had by Zoom but most of them were in person we actually had the hearing the policy called for us to have a hearing with complainant as well as the teachers we met with the complainant we listened to his concerns um then we also met with the teachers uh and we did that because of ours we were doing the really the very first part of it about the instruction part of it and the teachers I will tell you as the executive director for secondary that works with the high school I was very impressed with those teachers uh and their presentation and why they did and why they chose those books and uh uh and these I would tell you that also that the reason these
154books came up this was a choice assignment that parents also had an opportunity to talk with their kids and decide on what if their book would if their child would read either one of these books so it was not just books that if you read those books you would think that uh they were going to be a class discussion that was not how this uh assignment was structured and so I committee met and we made a decision about the lesson part of the books the instructional part of it and I will tell you that the old policy 4.4 03 said that we would have to send the decision to the complainant to the teachers to the superintendent and I will tell you and I actually brought a copy of it with me just in case
155anyone didn't believe me but that the appearent uh the appearent the complainant actually thanked the committee and you know he thanked us for all the work that we did by listening to him and reading these books and he knew that we had to spend time reading these books in their entirety and he never read either one of the books he just went off of what someone had said and the uh review of them and he was very impressed that the committee did did read these books and that he told us that he was satisfied with our conclusion and the work that we did and he thanked us and I thought that said a whole lot for the complainant about this and then the committee continued to meet because we still had to deal with the
156Library part of ours because we kind of divided it into two and the reason we did that is because the law changed the state law changed and so um we had to uh make a judgment a a recommendation to you but making judgments by what it was age appropriate for these books and we kept waiting on the State Board of Education to they were supposed to come out with guidelines and they were supposed to be out one month then they were supposed to be out another month and then eventually they met and did nothing and so our committee came up with the following recommendation to you and uh they were very I will tell you that our committee was uh very headstrong is a nice way to put it we we spoke as we speak
157as one one voice uh all five of us and we said without having clear guidance on how to determine the level of objectable content or age appropri that will dictate the removal of a book from a library per state law the committee recommends that all four books and I list the books um they should not be removed from the high school library and that is the recommen recommendation from the book club reconsideration committee to the board and if if I may um while we're transitioning to to miss Carl um Miss Dickerson spoke to the committee addressing this on two levels one the curriculum level to the library book level we have not given you a copy of their report on the library book I mean on the on the curriculum side we're going to email
158that to you tomorrow um just so you can see the context of that because the decisions that they made on the curriculum we've already implemented and there are some changes that are different from the library from their library book recommendation to you oh one other thing uh the state textbook and instructional materials quality commission is the entity that was was looking that that that that there was there was scheduled to give us some guidance on on the uh on the age appropriateness question uh they have shared that they needed some additional help from the state to be able to give some guidance and that's one of the reasons why we don't have that yet can can we see if there are questions on this item before we move to the next one does anyone have
159any questions for Mr Dickerson on this particular process yeah yes how many how many votes were there how many was there five yes sir there five of us and that's why I went over who they were okay so then there was one that voted against it or a suggestion no sir we were unanimous in ours okay Mr Cash that's that's item G that had had that set up thank you and and just just for clarity I'll come to you next the on the you you mentioned that the complaintant was satis ified with the recommendation or the decision on the curriculum portion yes just for clarity what was that decision on the curriculum it's in the report but we want we had five different books um I I can speak to it on two of okay
160oh you go go ahead um um there was only one book that we said the committee found that we didn't feel that it should be used as uh a choice book or uh in that 10th grade class because they did go these five books went along with the curriculum the curriculum was about Misfits and since you asked me I'll give you the background of the instruction there the the teachers that PL the 10th grade p uh PLC English 10th grade team had been using teaching this unit for I think they said about two years am I right day but two years since we got and this was the one unit that 10th graders didn't didn't engage in because when they talked about Misfit the curriculum that was in the book used a 34 year old
161man that turned into bugs or something so the kids really didn't relate so that team of teachers met last summer to come up with a way that they could engage more kids in that unit and get the learning that they were supposed to get so they came up I think they told us and you can correct me if I'm wrong they started out with about 22 books and the book was never intended to replace what was in the text but they wanted a book that they can do comparison to so last summer they met met and narrowed the books down to I think there were eight finally that they n it to they engaged the parents in the sense that kids had um I just lost the word for the book notebook uh the electronic
162notebook uh I can't think of the term uh interactive Notebook thank you interactive notebook I lost it that uh in their interactive notebook which is now electronic the parents could actually look at the clips that they put out uh for the kids to make choices students were to go home have conversations with their parents and the parents and the students should choose the book that the kid was going the student was going to read and they were supposed to label their top three choices and they told the parents that some of them were obje had objectionable content in it and so there was an opportunity the teachers felt this was an opportunity for parents to engage with their with their students to have have these conversations and one of the questions that the committee asked
163uh parents asked these teachers how many parents uh said they didn't want their kid reading them and uh it was only one teacher if I remember correctly that said that she had two parents that said out of all those choices I only want my kid to read this one and so what the teachers did was just they were assigning these kids to groups because they had group projects that they were doing and they just assigned those kid two kids to the one their parents want them to read but never told their kid that you got this book because your mama wanted you to read this book and so out of that we only had basically three people that objected uh I guess to reading of the books but we listened to the teachers the teachers
164brought in samples of student work that we saw they also talked about about how they would ref they had reflected on on the assignment that had been done and how they were going to improve it for next year our suggestions to those teachers is they need to be a little bit more explicit in what they told the parents and what they shared not just that it has objectable content but it will be a little bit more specific in that and making sure that parents could look at those electronic notebooks or read several of the reviews that are out there not just the ones that the teacher was sending so it was only one book and it was uh perks of a Wallflower is the one that we said really shouldn't be a choice book in
165that 10th grade curriculum the where the croad say uh it's really not rated as a young adult book and so we said they need to move it up to a 12 grade book but we read the books and most of you most of us would in the committee we had our favorite book that we read I actually enjoyed this one but it is an adult book that's why and I never have watched the movie and so those were the only two that the committee had stipulated that they put on that's very very helpful thank you good Jay and then KC sorry sorry yeah Jay and then if I may thank you um Willie that was really it was great um I really enjoyed the process going through I think we all did um I will
166I will add I think while we while the those are the only two books that we that we recommended um on the curriculum side to be modified um we I think we did we did say that that the other three should only be used as a part of a of a list um and not required reading for for everyone I said that was the and they were not require they they weren't but I think we we kind of codified that in the in the recommendation so um and I guess it's not a recommendation it's just a it's it's new policy essentially because of how the of how the old policy works that's right we we're treating that as an instruction and a standard based on the committee decision um so I I think my my
167takeaway from from the process and and given our our wording here and and um and it was unanimous and and I and I will say that we we didn't always exactly agree um but we uh but we know how to uh we know how to come together and and present um something this that we could all agree upon um and I don't think I'm I'm out of turn in speaking for the committee and um but this is but this is really I'm not speaking for the committee I'm speaking um for myself but I think it's it's a discussion that we had all along um and the fact that I would really like for us as a as a board to to have further discussions probably in policy it makes the most sense but um I'm
168not sure if it will will just stay there um but we we really given the absence of the of the guidance um from the from the state and maybe we'll get some eventually maybe we won't but we're going to be faced with this over and over again and we kept on talking about the um that everybody has their line of what of what amount of um the the amount and the um the level is is is quoted there um but we we we could we could each put these books um on a on a Continuum and about the objectionable content and say oh well that one wasn't as bad this one was was was really graphic this one was you know it was almost it was same subject matter but the but it wasn't nearly
169as graphic if you're reading it's kind of like they're kind of out of- Body Experience I'm just talking about it in um in like non-concrete terms and then some of them it's just like in your face and U and so we there was a librarian on our on our committee um and we floated the idea of of the Librarians of of tasking um of really asking Jason ultimately if that's the will of the board but to task Librarians to come up with some criteria um of how first how how would you how would you rate or a a way to um to assess the appropriateness for uh for the library of future books coming into the library and then um and that by default that would then be the the rubric by which you would
170um you would analyze um whether books are are fit that are already in the library are fit to to stay there um and I mean it it I would love I mean personally I would love to know the Librarians take on on that because she admitted that um that everybody has has their has their line all the Librarians are are each operating under there's all there's things that they wouldn't put in the library um but it's on a but we've got 50 schools more than 50 Librarians um but they they're each operating off of their off of their own set of criteria and so if we could if we could get the them to to coales their their knowledge and and assess and help us to help the board maybe provide a recommendation to the
171board of um of what that criteria should be I think that would be U be really helpful to to give us because we're going to have to make all these the board's going to have to make these calls um going forward and um and it would be really nice to have some criteria but that was that's really my my takeaway um and what I'd like to see come out of that if the if the board chooses and during our process um we actually charged them in one of their meetings to kind of kind of help us to come up with the guidelines but as Jay started off and he used a phrase that we like using a lot uh we all have a line there are 12 board members and all 12 of you have
172a line and your line is based on your life experiences and so everybody is different even our complainant even realized that and we talked about that and I don't know if I should share this but even in his household his wife did not agree with what he was doing and he shared that with with us because you know it's it's kind of hard hard because you know I I I remember uh when we first started the process we I was at a school board meeting and Jay came over to me and he says you have to know that I taught Jay so we have a special relationship okay and he came over flying to me and he said I kind of read this book and I said Jay did we read the same book I
173said maybe I've been in this you know too long that maybe I've been you know I did I didn't get it and then I had to go back and reread it but everybody has your line so it's kind of hard to pick that one line and so as a committee that's your charge not ours sorry casc did you have a question yeah thank you very much um really appreciate the presentation and all the information and and thank you to all the committee members for all the time that was spent getting to this point um just so I understand correctly and maybe I wasn't clear on this so for these books the parents had to acknowledge parents were the parents were part of because I have the emails even from the complainant from the teacher the
174the parents were supposed to help their child come up with their top three and decide on what to read so the parents had knowledge of the books yes they were told that it had some objectionable cont content but it wasn't specific got you know because as some of them like the one that we we said shouldn't be in the 10th grade was very graphic y you know and I call it one of the people on our book club's book CU it's a certain page in that book that he want Willie I couldn't I said I understand that's your line and so parents were supposed to help you know so parents were supposed to help their kids make choices and what books they so there wasn't like a default set of books that kids got there
175were there were eight that they came from up with but even with this we have anop that says if you object to aook uh to an assignment a book The you can the teacher will give you an alternate assignment and so the teacher did offer the the complainant and Alternate but to start with and it's a classic and he didn't really like that but and then but I think when we finally got to it his objection was that he didn't want his child to be just be everybody else was going to be doing a group and we found out we all thought they that his daughter read The Catcher in the rod but which was the one that he you know was on the list but she talked some other friends into and the teacher
176gave them a was it Harry Potter a hobbit okay and they read another book but she had other friends that read the book with her too so the teacher was trying okay to and it wasn't on the original list because that list of books they were trying what the teachers told us they were attempting to get books that it would engage kids they had a black author about a a black student and kids they even told us that they made statements in their Reflections that the kids said well you know what I've never had been asked or asked to read an author a black author and he was it was a minority kid or minority author and even the kids said that book had too much profanity in it that author didn't have to do
177all that you know so kids are smart and so the teachers have really reflected on the feedback they got from the committee as well as from the students themselves so thanks that's that's really great I like to hear the characterization of the parental involvement as well as the thoughtful approach that the professionals are taking to you know find the right books for the kids and it's also I I really I love hearing about the Discerning nature of our students too um you know I think that it's a tough line to provide engaging real material that is similar to their experiences while you know are are you you know the concerns about something being salacious or normalizing things but at the same time these are you know some of these have really tough subjects that need
178to be addressed and the books are a way for kids to understand oh I'm not alone with this and they're they're really uh really important to have those difficult topics addressed in a thoughtful manner so um and the teacher said this was because of the fact that they did give Kids Choice more kids were engaged and they did a comparison between the book that was in the the novel that was in the book and their's and so kids really got a lot out of this unit this year by them doing that wow thanks very much well I know that presentation for me was really refreshing because it it kind of shows that the process works and it shows that there there's a a willingness to be flexible when there's a recognition that something may may
179need to be modified so I think in my view it's really refreshing so thank you and Jay was correct there were five of us and we all have we all have have a line and but we were willing to work hard to try to do the best thing for the kids of Williamson County so thank you very much all right so the next item is um approval of the reconsideration committee's recommendation for one book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close thank you Mr chair uh Miss Carl chaired that committee and uh she will walk through this reconsideration process thank you very much superintendent golden and thank you for your time right now I had the pleasure of chairing this committee and I too had a group of five total on our committee that worked incredibly hard
180um they were all all very experienced people with dealing with high school students which was wonderful we had a principal had a parent School Board member and our wcaa nominee was a high school librarian as well so we put our heads together on this work we began with the complaint back in October so this complaint did begin before the new policy was approved at the end of that month the concerned citizen stated in her complaint and you have a copy of the complaint attached to your agenda as well um that she believed the sexual content within this particular book broke state law and should be removed from our library from our high school library and she made this complaint at one particular High School in our system we um had her meet with the school
181principal and the library media specialist first to really talk about and hear what her concerns were they had that meeting they they deliberated after the meeting and the the principal in the librarian uh made a decision that they felt the book should should remain in the library they didn't agree with the the charges made and felt the book should remain in the library so the complaintant then moved that up to the district level and superintendent golden took the board policy into effect and nominated the people to serve on the committee this is a historical fiction novel that is in the center of this complaint it is just a single book it is just a library book so this one we didn't have the complexity of Miss Dickerson's committee where we had to deal with classroom
182instruction as well as Library this is just a book that is an option to check out in our high school library um we have the author and the publisher there for you process was very similar we uh had established roles we followed the policy your policy very carefully on what our actions needed to be but we had that that new guidance that came new law that came with the Tennessee age appropriate materials law so we had to look at the wording in there as well so we truly stayed focused on the substance of the complaint the guidelines of the policy and the language in that new age appropriate materials law we really were hoping for that um checklist or or guidance that came from the the state textbook commit Mission which did not come so
183we continued on with the process that we had a hearing with the complainant and we really had a wonderful conversation with that person and listened had a very respectful conversation and made sure we asked her to continue to share and made sure we knew every part of her concerns we ended up having about six committee meetings you have a timeline in in the actual report that I've shared with you so when you're looking at that you can see a more detailed timeline um that is on page four of that report it's just a nine-page report uh you'll also see a little bit more um about the complainant there if in the section that we we spoke about that our charge was really to look at the strengths of reading this book for a high school
184student compared to the objectionable content and consider if the book aligns with our mission in our school district and the value of reading that in its entirety we all read the book in the entirety before we began any deliberation about the book or looked at the complaint uh we at the end and we had great discussion I mean ours was kind of like a little book club too with just a single book um we really respected each other's ideas and and we each meeting we raised more questions we found answers to brought brought back to the next meeting deliberated very carefully and we agreed 100% on the committee that this book did support the mission of our schools and and did not violate the state laws as as um laid out in the complaint um
185we thought about the age appropriateness with our experience with high school students and one thing that that we really considered is there was more than one besides our Librarians choosing it from their Professional Knowledge there was also more than one professional review organization that had clearly recommended this book for high school students with that term high school we we were looking at that grade band um that is typical for us to decide on where books should be in the library as grades 9 to 12 this is where we were not unanimous when we got down to the nitty-gritty here we tried to find consensus but the thing we're unanimous on all five of us were that this book should remain in our high school library where we did not reach consensus was whether it should
186remain available to all high school students in the grade band 9 to 12 or if there should be an age restriction on that one Committee Member recommends that it only be available to students ages 16 and up and the other four um recommended that it be available to all high school students there's a a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of that and the the intricacies of high school where when you enter High School you often are in mixed grade classes mixed age classes and activities um it's a little bit hard we have 16-year-old freshmen we have 16-year-old seniors it's it's it's a challenge there but we all understood and respected um the Committee Member and wanted to put that out there for you to consider when you make your decision that that
187was one of the recommendations I'm available for questions if you have any on this particular book okay Sheila um from Mrs Dickinson's um presentation I'm assuming that the father it was a parent of a student was this a parent of student a WCS parent no ma'am this was someone who does not have children in our School District or or grandchildren in our school district the book we asked her how that came to her attention cuz usually it's because of something you hear about a student having an experience or a struggle with a book or an assignment um she got a list from a group in Florida that she follows that had made a list of some books that that are potentially objectionable and so she used that list of 44 books to find this this
188one okay I appreciate that thank you Donna I know you were on the committee I'm not putting you on the spot but you were on the committee any any input from your perspective so I was the one Committee Member that thought that it might be a that it might be appropriate for 16 and older and and I and I think on this it has the f word it has the c word but I think even some there were some love scenes in there and some just matter that might be more suited towards older students I um we have kids as young as 13 maybe even younger but I went to high school when I was 13 I peaked in high school that I'm just kidding um but but I do think one of the questions
189I asked in this committee was um do we have in in our schools do we have in the libraries do we have a sector of books that are only for certain ages and we do have that in middle school where these books are for eighth graders and then so we have that technology that we could say okay these books are for this age there to me um and this was you know we had a five people five different opinions on a lot of things um but to me there's a lot that happens between freshman and Senior there's a lot that happens over those years and so I'm not saying this is a this is this is a heavy book um and and literary wise it's harder because it's written in first person and it's constantly
190switching who's talking and you have to figure it out it's not like um um little altars everywhere the followup that you you can tell by the speaker um who is who is right who's speaking at the time you have to figure it out it's a harder book and so all the kids would be able to eventually read it it's one of the few historical fictions maybe the only historical fiction for 911 which I think is an important thing but I just think it might be in our interest to consider do you know we have rating for movies we have ratings for TV shows um just to help along the way so we're not removing it completely from the high school experience but we're providing that for um older kids and I know you know 16
191is is arbitrary you know but at the same time 16 is a milestone year you know that's when you start driving that's when you start assuming more responsibility so that was my thinking I hope that answers your question yeah that's helpful Dan thank you Mr CH yeah I uh I agree with uh Miss Clemens I I don't think that's an un unreasonable request to have a a rating uh I've asked for this before I know there's books in the library uh that should not be there um the kids just haven't come across them yet so we'll probably be hearing about that but um I'm still interested in the betting process um Jason I guess that question is for you are are our books being bed yes you all may recall I'm trying to remember three
192months ago maybe four months ago our Li librarian coordinators spoke to the process they go through uh and so my my best answer is let me refer you back to that and I'll give you all a link because it may be that that's one of those things that it's worth a reminder right of of the process the Librarians go through um um I know I'm looking uh looking at doct Allen is there anything else you want to add to that I know that we've had some discussions with those Library coordinators that we installed in those positions really I think this current budget year if I'm not mistaken no there's no there's nothing I can add I think that that's a um uh their presentation library and presentation still stands um we have some consistency now
193build in across the grade bands um with our library leads so we've made some inroads on that but yeah their their presentation lays out really well uh the process that they go through edding those books I'll send you all a link to that with a time with a time stamp U for your review as you prepare for this uh along again with the uh with the report on the curriculum it's in our report oh that's what I was trying to tell you it's a part of our report we put that process in there for you oh okay thank you okay but um I mean I and also with the new state law the Librarians have to vet the books twice twice a year and they're in the process of doing their because I just got
194an email they they're in the process of vetting their collections at this time thank you yeah I just I just wanted to uh you know reiterate on that to make sure they still are being embedded um I can see a lot of books coming to through committee and uh uh this is a perfect example of how well it works um and I do know that from elementary to high school teachers and principls are working very hard to accommodate people with issues yeah um but um I don't think it's an un unreasonable request that Miss Clemens is asking for the simple reason I know books that are in there and uh I don't even know how they got reported I'm not sure but um it doesn't matter there's some books that that should absolutely not be
195in there and part of the process uh Librarians could have removed some of those books and instead now we're in a new policy and going over and over this stuff so uh age appropriate I think that that really comes into play and I think you know we should probably take the time out to uh look at these books and and put an age limit thank you thank you Casey thank you um as we're considering this and that would be another option would be to have that age limit um in place if a parent said a parent of of a 15-year-old said hey I want my kid to be able to check this out would they have that ability under this policy or under that recommendation well with a with a note sure I I see
196I think that's fair I think be more of an OP they're younger some parents you know depends I mean okay any other questions on this one and maybe just a point of clarification it goes back to item f um because the policy has changed and the laws have changed but on that one where the committee made the recommendation or the decision on the curriculum that decision stands in the absence of a of an appeal by the complainant that's correct and they have a what what window of time do make that appeal yeah 30 days thank you poliy days that has passed and the old policy said 15 days and uh when we notified the the complainant that was was a part of the letter that we notified and he had a uh date to do
197it but he sent the email before that saying he was not even going to that was not his intent so okay so for but for future reference when that when we go through this process if when that when the committee makes a curriculum decision that's the decision in the absence of an appeal yes and and it would never come to the board that is correct yeah but that's the old policy the new policy your new policy is a little bit different the library library books you are the decision maker curriculum has a 30-day not we have the policy someplace here that's why I was trying to draw the distinction because there is we are the final decision maker on library books but I didn't understand us to be that any longer for the curriculum that's
198my understanding too what I'll have what I'll do is have Dana give you a email with some clarity so it can be available to you to to review from time to time yeah one is automatic coming to us and one is not that's correct yeah right yeah and and just to clarify to to your point these these um reviews were under the old policy correct well it's under we started under the old policy but we had an obligation to follow the law under the new policy and the key law change was that this committee was not the library decision maker with an appeal to the board it was a recommendation to the board Okay so so it ended up being applying the practicality of the old policy overlaid by the existing by the new law
199so so the end result is we'll have to vote on these Monday night that is correct okay for the library that's right and if if I may since we're talking about that um uh I have asked miss osbrook the question of the authority that the board has on on the the detail of a of a decision restri red to 16 or a particular grade level or something she's given opinion an opinion that it can be done I'm going to ask her to give you some detail related to that uh in in an attorney climate email of course include Mr cook and I would encourage you to call Mr cook or or Miss OS Brooks um anytime before the Monday uh meeting if you have any questions as a reminder Mr cook gave you an attorney
200client memo a month or so ago uh um related to the First Amendment and uh and student clubs so certainly encourage you to have those conversations if you need that to prepare for Monday all right thank you any um anything else on either of those recommendations okay item H approval of the name for the new elementary school on Cox Road thank you Mr chair this is one of those enjoyable uh structures with a committee review uh and uh we have two new elementary schools that are are scheduled to open this fall it's time to name those schools we have a very thought out detailed policy regarding naming facilities it happens to be board policy 3.21 it also includes a committee uh and I have asked Dr Julie oer to give you a update on the
201committee work since she chaired both committies to make recommendations to you Dr oyer thank you superintendent gold I do want to start with that I'm generally not long-winded but when you have set the 9:30 timeline I'm very clearly watching the clock and saying I'm not getting in the way of that tonight U but thank you for the opportunity I I will I will be brief in my remarks because I don't want to be repetitive of the the documentation that you have in front of you but I do want to take a moment and express the seriousness with which the both committees entered into this work um we started by talking about that we were making history you know we've got buildings in this County that are named um all sorts of things and they last
202and so we we took that part of the work very seriously I'll start with Cox Road and then move into wils if that's appropriate um Cox Road the the resounding recommendation from our community and from the committee um is that the school be named Arrington Elementary the committee felt like it honors the history of the community just plain and simple there was a lot of discussion in that committee about the pride of this very tight neck Community there are other landmarks in Arrington um you may be familiar with the post office that's there you may be familiar with the vineyard that's there the committee did not feel that either of those things were going to be a distraction and in fact they liked the idea of Arrington um become the Arrington Elementary School becoming something
203else to let Arrington be on the map for if you will um Patton Elementary School was a the second choice of the group and that was specific to the Patton family that was one of the first families to own land in that area um it also represents the name of the first black school in the area it was also a church um they didn't want to include anything related to Chapel um but that patent was represented by Patton's Chapel at that time they felt like the historical element of the community is again similar to the roots of that tightnit Community are rooted in the history um but they felt like the patent Elementary name kind of Blended the historical piece with the elementary component and then the third recommendation was Arrington Creek Elementary School um
204they again liked honoring the Arrington name but it is important to note and we talked about it and got on Google Maps and had some rich discussion about the fact that the creek does not run through the school campus um so we want you as a committee to be aware of that I'll stop there and see if there are any questions specific to the Cox Road naming and Dr orer if I may while while the board members are preparing to ask questions I just wanted to jump back and make sure you all knew that the invitees to this committee included every school board member and every County Commissioner who uh who whose District included a portion of the zone that you voted on and and to add sorry and to add to that um on
205both of the Committees actually we had Representatives who had really rich local ties um to the area specifically with the Cox Road and so there there was there were members um at least one member who actually had family that farmed in the area and could speak very specifically to where that Creek was and where it wasn't um so that that was an a very interesting part of work as well any questions there yes ma'am so I'm new to this this is so exciting I love the naming process how does this does the school like come up with their mascots and and colors yes thank you thank you for asking that that is not something that the naming committee is responsible for truly it is simply and I wouldn't say simply truly it is just the
206name of the building and if I may I'm looking at Kevin Fortney he's lived this so many times Mr Fortney can you answer the the detail of the of the mascot naming the colors thank you Mr Golden uh the process of the mascot and the athletic colors is what I'm going to address the building colors of the interior of the building are selected by the design team uh we've learned that they they have a talent for that and so that's the direction that we generally go as far as athletic is once the PTO and the school principal get together uh they they they establish I believe Carol Birdsong will be involved and and they will establish a uh web address for people to make recommendations for the um mascot uh so that that will be
207the Outreach to the local community and the folks that will be attending the school and of course the athletic colors uh that that again we leave to the principal and the PTO or the student body uh and that's how that you know process works thank you any other questions on the Cox Road process all right you want to move to WIS Lane absolutely um the the you'll notice um in the memo that the committee chose not to rank these two recommendations so I'll speak to them generally and then give you um some more specific detail the the recommendation that is noted first is Amanda H North Elementary School I believe that most of you by now if you had not heard of Mrs North prior to um naming committee work I think you've heard of
208her now um I'm incredibly honored to have been a part of discussions that brought her Legacy more broadly into our school and just the general Williamson County Community she has a remarkable education Legacy um and the committee ultimately felt like her Legacy and again I'm not going to repeat all of the things that you have there um but they felt like her Legacy is strongly in line with the missions and values the mission and values of Williamson County Schools um I do think it's important to note that this was the top choice of any Community input that we received um I also think it's important to note specific to the all of the recommendations that the committee set forth in our original work that of the 13 total names that the committee worked through seven
209of them had some element of her name involved D in them and I think that's important to knowe because the the committee submitted two names because the Schoolboard policy speaks to submitting two or three names and so we did that but I think it's important to note that every option that we discussed included honoring her Legacy um and that feels important to mention as you think through through your work the second um bullet that is listed there is Northstar Elementary um and that is related specifically um there there two pieces there there's Mrs North that we've just discussed and Then star pointer who represents farming that happened and he the horse was a competitive horse um and broke some records the connection of the phrase North Star was more representative of the idea of the
210North Star being a beacon and a education and being something that as Educators we provide in the lives of students the school being the North Star in the community the school being the north star of um of a child's life just representing the navigation of life and learning it again I I want to reiterate that the connection and the commitment that the committee had was to representing and honoring Amanda north um throughout all of the work that they did and I'll take any questions from there Rick thank you if Amanda H North is the top choice of the committee is that incorrect statement but the top recommendation it it is the naming committee chose not to rank these it it actually shouldn't be noted as one and two so if we want to make the
211name Amanda North how do we decide whether or not we keep the H sure well I'll tell you there were a few little things there there was a Amanda H North there was Amanda North there was ah North I believe and other members of the committee are represented in the room I think any um any representation of her name would be what the the committee would recommend my practical answer is whatever the motion is you know whatever the actual motion is will be what controls and the motion comes from whom it would come from a board member okay thank you just real quickly WP scales is the official name of Scales Elementary Fred J paage is the official name of Paige High School I would if I may Mr Golden speak to that um the
212committee talked about that a lot um that that somewhere along the way Amanda H or Amanda or ah may disappear in the naming just just as it does with page or scales the committee spoke and the the principle of this building Jill Justice was an active part of the committee and she spoke to the the thinking that that the ongoing story will be told of who Amanda North was whether that's a plaque in the building whether that's discussion with students of of who she was and the Legacy that she represented um so even if it even if the ah or the Amanda H or the Amanda simply becomes North Elementary School um the committee still felt like it honored the Legacy that Mrs North represented in our community any other questions comments well thank you
213for all the work and it was a lot of work and a lot of input so thank you any other comments or feedback for the good of the order with that at 911 we are adjourned well done