001County Schoolboard work session we're going to call the meeting to order and start out with the consent agenda review um and then the superintendent report thank you madam chair on thank you madam chair on the consent agenda we have uh two of our standard items the minutes and the field trip requests we also have uh the annual approval of the facilities use fee schedule we don't have any proposed changes for the facilities use fee you all may recall I am estimating four years ago we talked about the potential for charging for exterior use and decided against it so since then we've been pretty pretty um consistent and standard on uh on our pricing so certainly open any questions you may have about the items on the consent agenda okay no questions we'll go ahead and
002move on to the superintendent's report thank you madam chair uh we have two items listed on the superintendent report the strategic planning update and Safety and Security I have a PowerPoint that I'm going to share with you where I've actually addressed that in Reverse uh and uh and I think we all we all have spent a lot of time the past few weeks thinking about security and Mike Fletcher and his team have gotten a lot of questions I've gotten a lot of questions and I know you've gotten a lot of questions um one of the one of the uh pieces of of uh really good professional work Mike Fletcher has done is prepared for discussions with you all as board members oneon-one and I know at least one of you you um maybe two or
003three already have had some real detailed discussions with Mike Fletcher about school security uh as part of that he had prepared a PowerPoint uh that shares some detail with you a some of the detail that we just flat should not share publicly but at the same time there's there are some elements of security of our security plan that we have thoughtfully decided is appropriate to share um with you at a meeting we've had some conversations with the sheriff about that uh one of the most common questions I know that you all received and that I received in the last uh few weeks after the tragedy uh that the Covenant School experienced was questions related to access control uh at the beginning of this school year we had three main focus points for our principles one
004was celebrate teachers second was grow in collaboration the third was focus on student safety and we had really two main prongs of that for for key Focus points for our principles in this year one was mental health grow and how we supported students um with their mental health and you all invested in our budget on items related to that and we F we spent some time focusing on that uh Second we talked about access control that was a key Focus point for us this year and continues to be a key Focus Point uh and related to that I want to give you a bit of of an overview of what Mike Fletcher has shared with the items that we have concluded are appropriate to to share publicly knowing that some of the details will never
005be appropriate It's actually an exception to uh the open records law in Tennessee to share school safety plans uh because there are some details in there that only law enforcement should know only only School administrators uh should know so with that I'm going to share um pieces of the uh PowerPoint that Mike Fletcher put together and invite you as individual board members if you have not had a one-on-one conversation um with with Fletch certainly invite you to schedule something with him and and walk through that because I know each one of you may have specific questions based on your life experience and so we want to hear from you we want to share with you uh so with that U you can see uh first slide yes sir broadcasting right now yes sir okay so
006this is all public yes sir and these are items that we felt are appropriate and important to share um publicly and it may be that you ask questions tonight that that Mr Fletcher or I answer and say that's not something that we are going to answer in a in a public setting um but but certainly open to any questions that you may have uh so number one I want to speak to our threat assessment um program a few years ago we created a very formal threat assessment process uh when a threat comes and you all see them from time to time something might come on social media it might happen in the middle of the night we have a very formal threat assessment process that is triggered immediately we have some software that is designed
007to give us insight into into threats uh that might be posted um on our electronic system in addition into the phone calls we might get related to threats uh within that we have developed a countywide team that evaluates threats and you can see at this particular element that Mr Fletcher put together that team is pretty comprehensive the school system Franklin Special School District the District Attorney's Office uh the criminal investigation division of the Williamson County Sheriff's Office and then other local education agencies we also include conversations with our Municipal law enforcement office uh in in the the moment a threat is known and is made public or or given to us this system is triggered law enforcement has access to a lot of electronic data that the ordinary person doesn't have access to often even
008an anonymous threat on social media can be found and it in my experience with our local law enforcement team they do an incredible job of getting to the source of those threats uh very quickly uh so it's it we we often talk to our families when a threat is evaluated and when a when a email is sent to parents because they've heard about the threat uh that we will prosecute those threats to the full extent of what the law allows us to do we have a very close relationship with the juvenile court judge Guffy recognizes the seriousness of threats so it's a it's a full team effort uh and so I I want to thank Mike Fletcher and his team for working with those professionals who have the skills to drill down and investigate those
009threats second physical security and you all know some of this already I I've said this more than once in public meetings there's no substitute for people for about 10 maybe 11 years now we the sheriff's department has had an SRO budgeted at every one of our schools uh just like so many others he goes through staffing issues it's a large project to train a school resource officer they go through through mental evaluations in addition to their training they are relationship Builders with students but they know their number one purpose they know their primary purpose if you visit a school I invite you to have a conversation with one of the sheriff's department sro's I make it a point when I go to a school to talk to them and thank them they know to a
010person the main reason they're there and there's no substitute for them because of the response time uh from from those Law Enforcement Officers um the sheriff continues to work with the County commission for budgeting uh because that is a that is a hard to feel position um but I I think you all know that their their visibility is noticeable uh on the campuses this is not on the on the U on the PowerPoint but I want to remind you that one of the comments that we heard from the state at the beginning of this school year was that the troopers were going to adjust their work and make sure they they were available and and and included in their rounds school campuses so especially in the rural areas we have seen Tennessee Tennessee Highway Patrol
011on our campuses at unpredictable times because the the state government made it a point to be visible and what our former sheriff is actually the commissioner of safety uh and so it's not just because of us it's because of his his professionalism uh in the conversation ations he's had with the governor the Tennessee Highway Patrol considers it a priority as well so that's number one the people security limit it and screen that's a common question we've gotten in the last few weeks and I'm going to give you a little bit more detail related to that uh tonight Access Control uh we have at every one of our um offices a video system many of you have visited that you push a button they can see who's on video you show your ID they determine that
012you're appropriately at the school and they let you in through a a locking mechanism uh that that that increases the Safety and Security at the buildings uh we still have a lot of hard locks key locks in some of our older buildings we're in the process of Shifting to a fob entry at every building our newer buildings have a fob entry but that video access control is at every one of our front doors we have some spots where we're still working on increasing that some of the side doors where students and teachers might come in because they're at another building or maybe at the playground and so we're going through the process of of increasing those to improve convenience knowing that every door does lock uh vestibules uh a few years ago we set up
013a structure where there was a double entry at every front door of our schools and many of those schools had to be retrofitted because the old tradition was a wide open Panel of doors leading into a wide Hall uh and it's it's a very obvious security measure to anyone who even drives by sometime sometimes you can see those double entry doors and that's a key Point uh that we want our community to know we do have that double entry uh and so with that I'm going to give you a little bit of detail related to the security laminate and screen uh I have a link to a a news report from Fox 17 from 2017 uh that that dates back to the time that we were evaluating this laminate that we think it's important for
014everyone to know we have this extra layer of security and so um Tim do you have the capacity to actually click on that for me it's about a two two and a half minute report from Fox 17 news you might recognize a face or two in this video well now to a possible protection from a shooting attack can a film just millimeters thick really save lives in an active shooter situation that's what one company says its products can do and a local SWAT team put the product to the test today Fox 17's Eric Alvarez is live to explain why some local school districts are watching very closely and very much taking notice well Scott right now School leaders from around the Midstate are keeping an eye on this product what it is it's a very
015thin film it's just a few millimeters thick on either side of a glass door or window it's called eversafe and earlier today a company out of Alabama put it Toe to Toe with a SWAT team in Williamson County handguns shotguns even automatic weapons you saw how many rounds was shot into this and it's still here the clear coding doesn't make doors and windows completely Bulletproof but the company says it does give whoever is on the other side time to run hide or fight imagine what would have happened in a school setting for example or a church setting soon as that first round was fired then everybody takes action Williamson County SWAT officers then turned to brute force with hammers baseball bats even fire the idea is if it takes a team of trained operatives minutes
016to get through it could give police enough time to neutralize a mass shooter what's out here is still out here what's in in there still in there that's the whole point behind this after this film stood up to everything from bullets to baseball bats one local school district says they'd like to see this product reinforcing their doors I was very impressed Kelton blacker is the transportation director for cheum County Schools whatever we got to do to keep children safe um is important so this would this would go a long ways representatives from metro schools Williamson County Schools the state capital and Vanderbilt also watched the demonstration it's still unclear if any of them plan to Shell out the funds but Wednesday's display certainly raised a lot of eyebrows now the thank you for that Tim
017uh and again this was from 2017 uh the efforts we have are human efforts they're not perfect um we continue to work at every every angle we can every thought we can working towards this but I want to thank you and thank the commission for a decision they made in 2017 to invest in this we're going to have more needs come up because this is an ongoing effort there's never going to be a perfect resolution to student safety but we continue to work with the sheriff's department and local law enforcement agencies to continue to try to find ways to harden uh our our buildings um I felt like it was important we felt like it was important especially since this was already discussed even six years ago in a public setting to let folks know
018we did invest in that and we continue to work on that on a regular basis um so you you may have noticed two products uh in that description the the security laminate and you can notice that when you go to our to our schools and I mentioned to our teachers in a in my Friday note last week those who've been in the buildings the last few years May noticed a change in the in the windows uh and and as as we went through this process so there's a couple of examples of security laminate we also have security vinyl there's ways to make to create the the logos within that and you may notice those as well uh when you when you visit our schools finally security screens there's a couple of examples here um you
019may notice the axes in that demo that they had we have a few spots in the district where the screens are appropriate breezeways uh in between two buildings where we've secured that uh and so um we're we're using the appropriate product based on the based on the location and we want people to know it's it the design is to make it hard um for for folks to get in um so Mike Fletcher also included this in his description train we trained SRO and onw and other law enforcement on school critical events especially in the summertime our buildings are used for training uh we have an ongoing work with the sheriff's department and local law enforcement to train uh because it's important for those professionals who protect us uh to to uh to continue to to
020have appropriate training law enforcement response uh Mr Fletcher mentioned uh in in our conversations that in Williamson County there's a unified response all the responders have worked together to have a unified response when when when an event comes up and then a secondary Medical Response uh in the event one of these horrible events happens so final thing we wanted to mention related to this uh you may hear terms like lockdown shelter in place Etc uh and these are these are things that your your children and our and our our family's children hear about in in their training so you can see some of the detail that he's shared there if a situation occurs around a school campus uh that requires that that includes someone trying to actively get into a school that's a lockdown that's
021part of what our students are practice everything else there's shelter in place um this is the detail of shelter in place when we have winter weather we might shelter in place when there's a tornado Etc we might shelter in place and you can see the other detail um related to that that triggers a shelter in place uh and then that's a time when students and staff um remain on campus and inside the school um based on the window of time time uh for law enforcement to evaluate that uh we often practice often practice these items we have had some evaluation in conversations with our with faculty members with administrators and with our students to evaluate where are we now at a time when something is fresh on our minds it's a good time to think
022about our experience with our safety plan uh so uh we we we expect that we will be making some adjustments based on what we've learned it seems like when whenever a tragedy happens it it it it it teaches us something new uh and and so again we felt like it was important for you to see some of this detail now you notice the colors are different uh so I'm I'm shifting to a couple of other slides I want to give you a couple of quick views of some items one related to bullying one related to counseling and then finally I want to address where we are this with theate strategic plan but Madame chair because we've we finished talking about safety I would like to invite you all if you have any questions uh certainly
023want to certainly want to answer those and Mike Fletcher's here uh if you if you have any questions about where we are with safety U with the um the concern about doors being left open and I know we have the SRO going around if the teachers see it and we may have you know off off um site you know County people coming in is there any talk about a future um having a sensor on the door so the front office can tell if a door is a jar and they can immediately handle it we've we've had some discussions about that uh flet if would you mind speaking to that yeah thank you for the question we we are we're looking at that and so with the access control that we're currently using that is a
024component of it so as we work towards uh completing that access control project that would be the next phase of of um it's it's several layers of technology and it ties into one basic system which actually starts with our camera system and then kind of expands out from there to answer your question bluntly yes we're actively looking at that process we've got a little bit more infrastructure to build out but we're we're definitely looking at at a particular system to uh monitor those doorways to tell us what kind of condition they're in every little uh bit is going to help so we do have staff going around sro's going around checking those doors um but we all know what the reality is it can be you know uh just something simply gets in the way
025of the door latching uh and it can be that somebody puts something in the way of that door latching so we're going to harness everything that we can to try to prevent that from happening because those are just holes into our buildings and we don't want that I think so all right so um uh the question that I have is when a Sr um has to transport a a child uh maybe to the hospital or to juvenile court um what is the protocol uh to have other SRO to stand in their place I'm going to try to answer that but you'd be best served asking the sheriff that particular question because about their procedure I'll tell you what I see happen and that is that often times when they have a particular student maybe they're
026going to transport to juvenile court or uh maybe they've got to go to the hospital after a medical emergency or something like that first they've got uh roving sergeants and I believe there's six or seven of them and they are going to respond to support that officer throughout that particular situation so they'll remain on campus if that SRO has to leave um and and if not then um there's your standard Patrol officers that are in the area that could be requested to come uh nonetheless they're going to get someone to come for that per particular period of time if they got to be off campus thank you all right thank you oh yeah I'm sorry so not really a question just more of an FYI to to the board um to let all know I've
027I've been working with Mr cook I'd mentioned this to Angela and Mr Golden and uh Fletch um on a resolution that I'd like to bring forward uh next month I hope to I'd hoped to bring it this month but there just was not time for um the background investigation that we we did but uh it it would be on a resolution encouraging the creation of uh emergency response protective orders that Governor Lee has um endorsed himself as well as you know former Governor High L and bris lieuten govern MCN so I don't want to get into the details with it because I said it's still under work but just as a an FY and a Curtis said I want to let you know that is something that I'm working on and plan to be bringing
028next month for consideration to the rest of the board all right thank you uh if there's no other questions um Fletch if if you have any conclusion statements to to add I I certainly welcome them but I I want to tell you that we're we're we're on our toes all the time it is not um it is not a perfect effort I will tell you we worry about talking about it publicly uh because it's hard to predict what people are capable of um but we continue to work at it and we will do everything that that we feel ebly can uh to to to protect our faculty protect our staff and protect our students um knowing that it will never be a complete uh effort and finally I do want to say uh we we
029still continue to grieve for the families and the and the and the friends who were so negatively affected by the Covenant School um it's a community and I think I think I spoke to this at the at the last uh board meeting and this is not something that you just think about for a couple of days and forget uh and and and our professionals have been working on on this for years and and that effort's not going to stop so with that uh uh I do have a couple more um uh quick quick view items uh so Rick Wimberly um and I had a conversation I'm thinking maybe two weeks ago or so about bullying stats I know you can't see the detail of this we're going to have this posted and certainly invite you
030to see it so Vicky Hall from our human resources department our assistant superintendent for HR uh tracks So Many Items related to uh related to to student discipline especially Title 9 complaints um bullying and harassment complaints this chart at the bottom actually shows data as of the end of February so we don't have last month's data uh put together yet um but I want you to to just get a glimpse of where we are with uh with bullying claims Etc and and some of the detail includes generally speaking uh on the top left box uh uh fiscal year 20 fiscal year school year uh uh 2223 compared to the right-hand box school year 2122 that we've had a number of a higher number generally speaking of of bullying complaints when I became became superintendent about
031four years ago uh Dr Webb and I made it made it a point to have conversations with students uh ac across the district one commonality that we heard was we've kind of given up complaining um because it doesn't feel like there's a response and my hope is that what we're seeing here is a substantial change in the faith of our students that we're going to do something about it when when an incident comes up uh one key point that we have experienced this year is the consistency in our student handbooks and you all may remember us talking about that last year uh and and um you all helped with this in creating the board policy with Tier 1 tier 2 tier three uh reports we have data on that that we're Gathering as well uh
032and so we're going to be sharing at the end of this school year a a more complete detailed report for you uh where we I'll probably do a full superintendent report on student discipline bullying and harassment we do make a report with all that data to the state I think in July of each year we actually provide that report to the state um but but we we felt like the time was right for you to just get a glimpse of where we are uh for the school year uh we've had a really good school year uh but with children with youth bad decisions will happen and you need to respond to them I am convinced that the work we do with student discipline when we create self-discipline among our students helps contribute to the culture
033of learning that we have at WCS it's the whole package uh you can't have a culture of Learning Without good self-discipline so we'll be giving you a little bit more detail on this a lot more detail on this in about two months but I thought felt like it was important for you to get just a snapshot of of where we are uh this year um next another quick view for you counseling commitments yes sir just one quick question to maybe to put a little more context on this it for 2223 it's 769 incidents um do you have a sense of how many um individuals that pertains to I'm guessing it's not 769 Unique Individuals just trying to S get a sense of how many students we're talking about that are participating in this thank you
034for that you're right it's not it's not guaranteed to be separate students I'm looking at I'm looking at Miss Hall do you have any idea I don't I don't okay thank you I I might just request not anything urgent by any means but just over time when you can get to it if that's something we could come up with that would be at least for me useful just for context thank you for that and one of the one of the hopes I had with giving you a glimpse is for you all to share those thoughts particular bits of of of detail you might want want in the next couple of months as we as we close out this school year so is there any sense of I mean this uh is a doubled number of
035incidents reported is there any sense in how much of that is attributable to the fact that we have uh upped our game as far as soliciting reports and manag in reports and taking that in consideration have our actual number of incidents really doubled and I'm speaking of a of a sense to answer your question rather than actual data and I'm looking over your shoulder at Dr Webb I'm going to ask her to comment on this as well because she has some of those detailed discussions I know her team is working hard on this as well I think that's part of it it's not the whole thing uh responsiveness is part of it uh I can't sit here and say we don't we don't have we don't have fewer well I can't here I can't sit
036here and say we have fewer real complaints this year than we did last year I think I I can't sit here and say that we have fewer real complaints this year than last year it's just that they're being reported I guess I'm answering your question on as a as a negative and it may may be articulated that poorly but I would like to ask Dr Webb to speak to that uh we have made an effort communicated that with the students on the front end of the of the of the school year is it has it fully doubled the actual incident probably not based on our sense U but Dr web can you speak to that thank you Mr Golden I can't quantify that either but I can share that it's an emphasis for us our
037HR department has helped us with that emphasis by putting on every student's class link dashboard an automatic way I can click on that icon and I can report an incident of bullying harassment I can report it right from my uh Chromebook and we know that we have seen more an increase using that method versus our prior methods I think it's a a combination of things I do know speaking to students and principal speaking with their uh leadership uh student groups and their student Le clubs that students do feel that something's going to happen when I bring these uh issues to someone's attention and there's more confidence in that um we certainly still hear students say loudly and clearly we want to see more we want to see more consistency and we're continuing to review that
038but I do think that there's somewhat of an increase that could be tied to that fact that you know students have access to report and they are hearing us emphasize it it's certainly at the Forefront of our conversations on an ongoing basis with students and though anytime you see a doubling of instances such as this it's concerning um so uh I tamper tamper any kind of excitement that I may have like okay they're telling us that's great uh certainly that's tampered uh but we certainly are responding to them it's at the Forefront of every conversation that we have each month when we meet with our leadership and our district leadership meetings with principles we know that it's been discussed addressed and emphasized um we have a lot to do we're in the process of meeting
039as a committee uh reviewing uh the principal student parent Collective feedback on how we're doing with that new policy that you approved and evaluating do we need to uh add additional layers of practice or even procedures uh to our implementation across the District of how we're addressing some of these issues or is there a need to refine the policy itself um so the same committee that started the work on the dress code policy that you'll look at tonight and hear the the first draft version of that policy that same committee is continuing their work in reviewing this uh our code of conduct policy and any kind of implementation uh guidance that we're hearing from the building so that we can ensure that we're doing a better job every year every day on addressing these very
040things MCH just say something before we move on um it sounds like we're doing a lot of the right things but any way you cut it this is not good this is very disturbing to me yes and I'm sure others agree with that um and I don't know how to fix it yeah but we need to figure it out well we we are working on growing it I think the next two years of that data is going to be telling uh I'll give you one anecdote uh I have a I have a superintendent Advisory Group from with students high school students and we've spoken to them about this recently uh and one of the details that so many of those students have shared with us is the question of what discipline does it take to
041change behavior and some of them have suggested you need to throw the proverbial book at us when we do that and so we're in the process of taking that feedback from Young students young minds from parents from our administrators to work on improving the consistency districtwide on the discipline uh so what we know is continuing to work on want to continue to communicate find that spot for each student that will help them make better decisions next time is something we need to work on and again the dad is going to be telling thank you Mr Mitchell thank you madam chair um REM and I'm I've been sitting here trying to remember if if 2122 had remote days did we have any remote school days in 2122 I've I've blanked my mind on that it was
042a long time ago but I'm thinking we definitely had them in in 2021 yeah the governor had Us close schools in in the spring of 20 uh with the quarantines from the health department 2021 was the most difficult year in fighting that battle I'm trying to remember in the fall of 21 Gary did we have any yeah I think we I don't think we did I think we we we changed that over the summer um so two additional data points I think that I would be interested in uh I'm assuming we take uh on campus and off-campus reports uh on on these I mean you you can you I'm assuming you can file a complaint for harassment and bullying if it's electronic even so therefore that's right it it can be off considered quote off-campus
043versus on campus it it can it can be so I would be curious in that Daya Point how what's what's our distribution between on campus and off-campus uh and then the other would break it down by elementary middle school and high school and see thank you and and so if we can kind of almost heat map it out and and Al when you get to that point start tracking it by school do we have seem to have hotpots in certain areas of the county we do actually track it by school so I've I've got that information and I've got electronic whether it was electronically delivered I have that information the on campus or off-campus um that I'm not sure how easy I'll be able to get that and sometimes I would think electron I would
044consider electronic to be off campus sometimes it's electronic on campus they'll send you know so it could be it could be both but I can definitely get you what's electronic and what's not I want to add a little bit related to that every time there's a complaint we investigate there are limits on what we can do from a discipline standpoint uh and and this tracks back to federal law we can't discipline a student for something that was exclusively not a WCS event uh but we investigate everyone to determine whether it has impacted school if it hasn't depending on the fact and circumstances the principales still have some tools in their toolbox principles will let parents know hey your child we determined that your child did this this is something that we recommend you know about
045and address as you deem appropriate and know that if something happens on campus there will be discipline for this if it's something that reaches the level of a juvenile offense it's possible it may be turned over to law enforcement so there there are some some additional tools that we have even though there might we might not have the capacity to actually discipline yeah is are these all cases that have been proven that there has been harassment or is this totaled a total of everything that's come into the principles because they have to do a report so thank you for that so so we have that on both and just looking at this um uh Miss Hall if you would speak to those that are actually up here sure the number you see up there this
046769 incidents reported that's how many um uh harassment or bullying forms have been submitted through to HR this year um of those 205 have been confirmed it's gone up a little bit from your number down here that's the grand total it's 188 so since I did this report it's gone up to 205 last year the confirmed numbers was about 105 um so that has gone up but only 304 incidents were reported last year okay so so if in elementary school for instance if a child comes in and says Joey pushed me down and uh you know of course you try to take care of it right there but if this happens again is there a a report filed so we're we're filing reports on everything okay thank you Mr Welch so I think the first
047question you just answered I was going to say what are the numbers at the bottom so those are the verified incidents versus because we've got 188 of the grand total versus 769 reported the ones at the bottom that's broken out by month and also by um the pro ed class the protected category and um the grand total down there at the bottom is 188 those are confirmed cases okay and then along with that then the over half of these are are in January what it's a total I think the column at the bottom they're they're probably they look a little bit off right there but it's there were I mean there was definitely 222 total yeah got it thank you Mr G and Mr thanks for the clarification on that because I was I was
048confused so so basically one one out of one out of three cases has so I'm assuming that with that with confirmed comes comes some kind of some kind some form of discipline are these the ones that we that we to the extent that we dis when they could we have a confirmed case of an off-campus event that we don't have any um don't have any any guid or any any way to do anything about it would that be on this list or would that not be on the list it it could have been reported as a as a first incident and then they would close it out but they may have to say everything happened off campus and we're unable to take any action on it something along those lines so I guess to Josh's
049point on on on analyzing the um the frequency of the events particularly the the 2/3 that are that that we we have a report but we don't have any discipline necessarily um can you can you speak to to kind of the the nature of those is it the we didn't have enough evidence or somebody was a too sensitive or like I mean in your judgment right like are we like how yeah I can I can tell you what I see and then I think Dr Webb would maybe like to fill in some here especially like an elementary school we'll get something that somebody is bullying me they're making fun of my shirt something like that and it's it's something that you know for it to be bullying it has to be you know a repeated
050occurrence you know unless it's in one of these protected class areas so there may be a lot are like that there there are things that happen that are wrong and they address it in the school but they don't necessarily reach the level of bullying then Dr Webb do you have something else and I would say occasionally that happens at the secondary level more often than not is that um a student tells us that it's happening in the in the community but there's no Nexus for us to take any action on it so in those cases we look into it investigate as much as we can and then make contact with the families to to let them know of what we're aware of that's taking place but a jurisdiction over something that happens in the community
051outside of the school that doesn't have an effect or a Nexus on our campus isn't something that we can discipline necessarily but it's something that we follow up and let parents know about I would say the secondary level that may happen a little bit more often than what um what Miss Hall just described happening at the elementary level so I guess to to that point the the principles on site are rather than the rather than in the data like looking at it by repeat offenders from a from an from a reporter standpoint or from a an accused standpoint I we can't call them guilty right but um so the so the principles on site know know how often I mean they they know repeat offenders on on both sides and so um is so I
052guess that's the that's the answer from a from a from an actionable standpoint they're taking care of that we don't have any quantifiable data to kind of to dictate okay how many of these 769 are just the same people being reported and the same people doing the reporting but they they obviously figure that out on a on a case on a site level right right and it just because it's not a confirmed bullying case doesn't mean that there wasn't some action taken at school to correct um any kind of misbehavior but but it's just um the actions didn't rise to the level of bullying well I really really appreciate the I know this was in response to to some of the discussions that we all had a year or so back so I love the
053data I think we can massage how we how we report it and what the and and how to how to interpret it um and and then to see hopefully we hopefully get going better I mean zero zero incident isn't um you know it's it's probably the goal but not not ever going to be a reality right I think reporting it is a great thing um that's good now if we can if we can have the same level reporting and then see some some some decline then we're we're making some some progress right that's right Mr wimbley well we're putting in our orders for more data it would be interesting to know uh how many of these incidents reported eventually will ended up with law enforcement and also just would make the point that um Jay
054we have talked a lot about this and I think we made some tremendous progress but one of the observations from the stakeholder meetings that we've had uh as weel strategic plan is I think it's safe to say that in every one of those stakeholder M that one of the concerns expressed was safety which would include obviously bully so U I think our community uh is deeply concerned like we are and com upon us to type of leadership that uh brings the community together because this is not only a school issue it's a community issue to bring the community together to to fight this thank you for that comment and I'm not sure if your microphone worked at that one so I'll I'm GNA give it always me I hear in my uh so you you
055just just in case it didn't come on just so we remember this discussion if we go back to look you you mentioned the the uh stakeholder meetings in our strategic plan and how safety was was regularly mentioned and how student safety is a community issue uh and so so thank you for that uh we had I think 18 different stakeholder meetings with with different groups and you're right that was a regular comment I spoke to the principales at the last meeting about maso's hierarchy of needs and if if you guys are familiar with with that it talks about the Baseline needs of food clothing and shelter safety and then ultimately to the top of self-actualization somehow someway we as a school system are are addressing every one of those student needs from the very basic
056to the completion of a of a very skilled effort uh toward success and uh we can't we can't miss any of those uh this is Baseline y'all making sure that students are safe and they feel safe uh so on that on that point I'm going to slip to my next quick view uh so Donna Clemens and I had a conversation about counseling and uh and one of the questions she asked was especially thinking back to the budget uh vote that you all had last month uh what's the breakdown of of what we've done from a finance standpoint in commitments to counseling so uh Rachel farmer pulled this out and again we're going to make sure we post this because every time we do a screenshot of this kind of data it's hard to see um
057but this shows uh the current Year's budget and the total resources spent on counseling and related services and the budget that you all voted on last month in the total resources spent on counseling uh so it's gone up by $3.3 million from this current budget year to next and what we're proposing to the County Commission uh and a lot of it's that 6% pay raise uh with with the supports for school counselors and she's listed guidance counselors that's how it shows up in the in the uh in the in the finance the state finance structure and you can see the first two items are pay and benefits and you can also see that there has been an increase in the number of counselors from this current budget year to the next from 133 and a
058half to 147 that's based on growth includes the two new schools uh and in our staffing standards for counselors I will tell you that if you look back at that Staffing standard document uh that is our staffing standard and it is below the professions recommendation for counselors there's a counselor group that that has a that has a recommendation uh and we continue to work towards um some of those professional recommendations you can see social workers uh and that's that's that's again a pay issue we have not increased those 504 coordinators this this next year's budget includes 20 504 coordinators when we took that first step in this year's budget to create that position to 504 coordinators so this budget includes that doubling of that uh just as a reminder we found a an extremely high
059growth in 504 plans which included counselors spending much of their time on the paperwork so we created uh a for lack of a better term at the moment a technician position where they could they could take a lot of that paperwork off the counselor's plates to allow them to do their substantive work and we've increased those numbers and Dr Webb and Dr oyer I think it's we we we currently have one per feeder pattern in essence uh and we're we're in essence shooting at two through two per for per feeder pattern is that a good synopsis of that Staffing for 504 coordinators no I'm GNA I'm going to pitch it to you all share a little bit of detail about where we've assigned those 504 coordinators and the current budget in the our current Academic
060Year we have five 504 excuse me 10 504 coordinators we strategically assigned those to the schools who had the highest number of of 504 students uh students being served by 504 plan and so that fell being two middle schools and eight High School schools so increasing that to 20 in the additional budget proposal for next year we would do the same thing we would look at almost like a staffing standard of sorts to assign those based on where the highest need is in those buildings trying to take that lift off of the counseling loads and so at the secondary level those 20 um um we have a a number of students that uh would be served by 504 that would receive a half of additional 504 coordinator those with a larger number would receive a
0611.0 most of our high schools because of just the sheer size would receive the 1.0 some middle schools would receive 1.0 and others a 0.5 based on that um Staffing standard of sorts based on the total number of students being served and it would be for five4 and students being served with um a new instructional learning plan specifically uh designed for dislexia which is a uh new state expectation to ensure that we manage those uh files in a in a very structured way and so those coordinators are are working with the 504 students and the students what we call an ilpd an individual learning plan for students um who have dyslexia Mr galbert Jason you might not have gotten here yet on the on the last line item the Stars counselors but is there is
062there any non staff related items there because it seems like we we two people but we doubled or almost added 40% of theost thank you the the cost of stars has gone up uh for them to get those professionals uh and so so part of it's cost part of it's an increase in the hours um we've actually added a little bit um to the elementary as well uh so Dr Webb can you share some detail related to that the amount of service to our students uh will increase a total of two additional professionals the big cost differential is how we've been paying for those current services and so because we had some some federal funding that could be utilized and could only be reallocated based on disproportionality and offsetting some of the mental health impacts
063on some of behavior issues that were taking place in schools we were able to reallocate some funding some federal funds that are earmarked to uh Mental Health Services that were're with with us losing that disproportionality uh classification those Federal fronts can no longer be used for that purpose so what you'll see in this Stars budget is essentially maintaining our current level of service with two additional professionals but how we're funding those would have to change based on us losing the other funding that we had so the so the increase was was rather our our net cost after after some funding sources went away so our so that's why so we were basically we had some some percentage we had you know an extra 50 $100,000 of of counselors really but then we had to come
064up with another million to to replace the funds that that went away that's basically correct 8 33,000 yeah and the additional we did have an increase as well you know when we work with stars there's a portion of those funds that um come from from funding sources that stars gets to pay for some of the uh counseling services that they're able to to offer out and so based on the amount of money they receive the fluctuation of cost we did have an increase but a majority of this cost increase is because of the change in fund so help me out there like who do we I mean these are these are people that were paying or they're on staff their contract they're contracted so this is a contracted service line and so Stars also receives
065a small amount of money from other sources that offsets some of the cost that they Char that they they charge us and so that fluctuates um they also had increase so um but the major cost is because we're losing the addition the funding to maintain the service but based on this year uh um a we tried to because we knew that this increase was so large we tried to keep any additional staff to the absolute minimum we felt like we really have to have those two additional people in addition to the great cost increase and I and I want to speak to the distinction between our school counselors are listed as guidance counselors here in the finance documents and stars uh the Stars counseling process and and availability is a parent decision so there may
066be a recommendation parent getes permission for for those services our social workers also do referrals for private providers so it's really a combination of different assets to help with whatever issue a student may be going through and it's a parent decision Mr Brown thank you Jay asked my main question but going to the guidance counselors and social workers in particular where there's 20 I'm sorry guidance counselors and 504 coordinators total of 23 24 additional what what are we paying ballpark on average to those positions VI salary Vicki or Rachel can you speak to that the guidance counselors and the 504 coordinators for probably about 62 is for the guidance counselors okay and 55 for the um for the 504s okay then but there're yeah I just done taking out the Stars increase I that came
067out it's just it's average I mean that's it's would be similar to just what the average teacher pay is that sounds that sounds about right I I just have done the math 77,000 per just taking out the Stars money which with you out benefits and everything that's probably about right okay thank you Mr Wimberly no okay um Mr Mitchell so I was going to make the point that stars St RS is an acronym for the actual company that we hire we contract these individuals from and and so you could go and Google that and find the find the website of the organization and they provide this service across pretty much the metropolitan area as well and so corre Stars stands for students taking a right stand and and they do a lot of the group
068type work and the individuals it used to stand for that does it not stand students taking a right stand I think their official corporate name may be Stars Inc but it is you're correct it is the acronym students taking a right stand and and so that's why it's called Stars counselors thank you okay all right all right thank you madam chair with that I have my final slide I want you to get a glimpse of where we're headed with the Strategic plan uh so so many of you I think maybe all of you at some point or another uh spent some time in one of our uh one of our sessions with with lipom University's uh facilitators and some some group of stakeholders it's been a great experience for me and we're not done yet
069uh the the the lipam folks uh coordinated um a lot of data Gathering uh as you know and I know uh Lydia shared with you a list of uh of uh of the of the uh steering committee team that that has worked to put that data together and develop some objectives related to that so I want you to to to see right now where we are with the three proposed strategic plan commitment areas preparing students for Life After WCS building team quality and excellence and then providing a safe and supportive learning environment those are the three big buckets that we expect you all are going to see in May with some specific objectives coming down through that uh so the steering committee met uh just this week and it yep I I lose track of
070T time sometimes but it was we met on Monday uh and our our leadership team is going to look at the product of the steering committee this coming Monday uh and the schedule we set when we started this process was for you all to look at a at the draft strategic plan for the next five years at the May meeting Rick Wimberly is H the board representative on that steering committee and he and I had a had a really good discussion and he made a suggestion that that uh that I that I think is really valuable he suggested we speak to this a little bit quicker uh than next month's work session so I'm asking you all to pencil in this the day that's scheduled for the polic the upcoming policy committee uh we're going
071to speak with lium and see if we can have an early look at the draft strategic plan that same day as the policy committee meeting in other words do the policy committee adjourn that and spend a little bit of time getting that first look at the Strategic plan uh uh and uh our lipsum team they're working on on a review of where we where we've been and they'll they're I I don't know yet if they'll be sharing that at the at the at the meeting SCH that we're working on after the policy committee or we'll speak to that at the work session or both um but I want you all to have enough time to process on this uh because this is ultimately going to guide us in where we're headed over the next five
072years and I want to I want to share with you just one little piece of something that just was driven home to me at our Monday meeting uh you you sat through and participated in so many of those stakeholder discussions where we did a sore analysis talked about our strengths opportunities aspirations and then results as part of that sore acronym if you look at our current strategic plan there are not a lot of goals goals related to academic performance not a lot of results and details about specific goals for test scores for example we basically have one and it's act and we have two goals related to that barring that there's not a lot of those goals in there as we started talking about the aspirations and opportunities from our stakeholders what I have seen
073is that success is to some degree assumed it's an expectation an an underlying expectation from all of us from all our community from all our stakeholders from you from us this past year our students using those measures have done better than they ever have and yet there weren't a lot of goals in the Strategic plan for that so I want you to be thinking about that that we know that that is our expectation here but even in our existing plan we don't have a lot of goals related to it we continue to push that even without the goals so as you think about where we're headed and in a few weeks get the product that we're still working on keep that in your mind uh that what we're talking about is finding ways to get
074better even Beyond where where we are so I'm excited about where we're going Rick I got you and I caught each other's eye just now is there anything you want to share about your experience uh um tonight no no um I would say that um of course we're still in a draft and we've only been covering the commitment area so far and then of course the staff will work on the other things but I do think that um that we have done a pretty good job capturing not only what the state stakeholder meetings uh taught us but also some of the themes that we regularly discuss here I think the board is going to be pleased with with uh with the draft um and some of the things that we talked about in The Retreat
075we made sure that they were included in there in addition to your thing so I you know certainly it's a the the the plan will be owned by the board but uh I think the team has done a good job um reflecting uh things that I think the board will find important and if not we can change it Madam chair that's my report unless there's any other questions fantastic thank you and next up is Kevin Fortney for the operations report thank you madam chair uh I wanted all the board members to know that our projects are all tracking fairly well we have some uh continue to have some supply chain issues primarily in our electrical divisions by that uh there switch gear issues electrical panels uh those type pieces of equipment that are very necessary
076uh for the functionality of these buildings as you can one as one can imagine uh two in particular one at the Arrington site and then one over at uh paage High School the good thing is that our team has uh both Contracting engineering and design and our own folks have come up with resolutions to these have they delayed are the projects delayed a little a little bit yes but I think that uh we'll be able to make up the majority of the time uh so we're still confident of our opening dates of course that cannot change uh but but wanted to let you know those are the things that we be that we're faced with uh at present time uh there is some labor issues that uh We've we've run across with some of our
077subs but the pressure is being placed upon them to you know get more people in here and let's get going faster uh but all in all again I think that that we're we're we're clicking along pretty well and and that it's not going to affect our opening and Staffing times uh we have started the the work over at mil Creek on the new softball field that's progressing very well uh the uh if you have haven't had a chance to run by the page High project or if you'd like to see some of what's going on at page High give myself or Eric a call and we'll try to get that tour or visit arranged for you uh I would like to keep it minimum individuals at a time because of our meeting requirements or the
078board's meeting requirements but if you'd like to do that I'm sure our guys would be more than pleased to to let you go through that uh that's about all I've got at the present time unless there's some specific questions I'll be glad to to answer for you Kevin I just I I do want to speak to uh one Brentwood Middle School you also you mentioned paig high school I know we've had some of you visit uh the Brentwood Middle School site as well Brentwood middle is tracking really well uh that that one is is I can't ask for to go any better I think Eric would agree with that uh we've had visitors over at Brentwood middle various board members and we've even had some a county commissioner or two and we've had uh some
079Commissioners from the city of Brentwood that have visited the site uh again we'll arrange those whenever possible uh we we try to keep them about an hour long at most uh till we get a lot of the finishes inside there's not a whole lot to see other in gray walls concrete masonry and concrete floors and trusses above your head uh so that's where we are today and uh we're just hoping for better times in in supply chain uh the only other remark I make is that our cost on new projects is still increasing uh that's something that everybody is faced with I know that there was a school in Murray County that bid about two and a half weeks ago and it was excess of $350 a square foot so that's what we're kind of
080faced with we're sure hoping for some relaxation and pricing uh but that's where it is thanks okay Mr Beasley um I know I brought it up last um last work session but I just wanted to get a followup if possible I'm still being contacted by um um individuals for the creek side field MH um where the sprinkle heads are sticking up really far out of the ground and that's where the kids play soccer and also when it's dusty and dry outside the kids are all dusty and sneezing dust and when it's wet then everybody's covered in mud and so I know you said you were going to follow up but I didn't know if anyone was able never able to go out to check on the fields and look at the erosion of the fields
081going into the creek sure Kevin can you speak to that yeah thank you very much for that question uh or followup on that uh the area that you're talking about the elevation is a bit low okay so we're we're looking at how and when we can uh get back in there and raise the elevation I think that's going to be the easiest thing to do we do have some underground drainage in that area already uh but the other thing that we're looking at today we if you're familiar with the Farmhouse that's at Creekside it's no longer there as of today uh we had to take that home down that it's an old farmhouse uh there was no historic relevance to it we checked on that before we did anything but we're clearing that whole area
082we're taking all the pav out we're taking the building completely out some of the old wooding wooden fencing the farm fence that is in bad shape we're taking out but that's going to be an area that we could actually get a pretty good siiz field up there it's a higher much much higher elevation uh we've already got the new bridge that we constructed when we built that project so we've got easy access to it so we want to look into that area also um during the I don't know if you've taken out all the foundation of the concrete of that home and I don't know if it was on a slab or if it was just a a um if it has a crawl space or what underneath um but I know that the PTA
083at Creekside was looking into and they're still raising funds I think their funds are at about maybe 880,000 right now and they're trying to build a outdoor um classroom and so I don't know if um that would save cost on the PTA for them or creek site itself uh to salvage that that Foundation there to put the um the Outdoor Classroom I don't know if that's been considered or not yeah the the uh foundation of the old home was uh you know wood and beam and joist uh on small rock and concrete spread type footing so that there wasn't a whole lot of concrete under it at all uh the driveways and all were going to go ahead and take out because they're cracked up they're you know they're in bad shape there's a small
084masonry retaining wall that's also going to come out there's a Springhouse at the very back of the house we left standing because we think that that not Spring House it's a wellous that that well can be reactivated and the previous owners told me me it was very productive well when it when they were farming so that's something that we're going to look into uh the school did contact me I think it's Quinn that's out there that's right called me and asked about uh if a member of the PTO could contact our office I said of course and they are wanting to put a pavilion Outdoor Classroom out there and there's plenty of room for both The Pavilion and for another Playfield so we'll work with them when they get to the point of wanting to
085do that all right thanks for the update thank you um next on the agenda is the board chair report and I don't have anything for you so we'll skip to new or unfinished business Mr golden thank you madam chair uh two months ago we had the reports of two reconsideration committees for library books uh 6A and 6B are here uh uh after some discussion at the voting meeting in February uh there was a vote to defer this to a date certain so we've placed it back on the agenda uh for for discussion tonight and certainly open to any discussion you all want to have related to that Miss Clemens you know I was thinking about this and um I realized we'll be making a decision on these library books the end of April and then
086for those of us familiar with the school calendar and how schools work they don't check out a lot of books in May they're bringing everything back in and I know we've all kind of been waiting and waiting for the state to give us guidance and we've gotten a little glimmer of hope that we might be getting some soon we're hoping and I know the guidance will help us um and in light of making a decision on this on Monday with maybe four or five days of library checkouts or waiting hopefully getting more guidance over the summer I'm wondering if it would be to our benefit to um defer this to like August um hoping that we get some guidance over the summer I don't know if anybody would be interested in that if I may
087man chair speak speak a little bit to that uh you all may recall I know some of you were at the meeting when tsba had their fall meetings and there one of the breakout sessions was the chair and vice chair of the textbook selection committee and they presented and included a description of the expectation the legislature P put on them to have some guidance related to uh a the age appropriateness materials act uh at the time they shared that they did they had asked for an attorney's help in that and did not have it I had a conversation about a week and a half ago uh with a member of that committee and their expectation is that the state is going to give them some help um with that so that may be part of
088that glimmer uh that you're talking about because they do they do have that requirement and Dana fill in if I've missed something they do have that requirement under Tennessee law they were actually scheduled to give guidance by January 1 if I'm not December I'm sorry December 1st uh and and they don't have it yet so it's possible I don't know their timetable but it it's it I I think that the chances are a little bit better than they were that they may give us some guidance don't have no idea what the guidance is going to be but but that possibility is there Mr Wimberly I assume that we'll need some type of motion at the meeting since okay so here's my question uh we've got a glimmer of hope can whatever the motion is made
089if indeed we want to delay it until we hear from the state can it be delayed until we hear from the state and not August because it's only a glimmer and they were supposed to give us guidance in December and we still don't have it so I don't know if a glimmer will serve sure I mean there there's there's two ways you can do this um the way that I always recommend is that basically you postpone out time just basically it's green yeah you want closer is that what you're saying is this go there it is there it is okay all right I have no idea where I was so I'm gonna start again um you can make a motion to uh defer not defer but postpone it to an inde definite time um if
090you do that then it'll take an action from the board to get it back on the table for when you want to take it up um when you have a deferral to a definite time or event then you take it up at that event so you could either do a motion to postpone indefinitely until it's brought back or you can make a motion to postpone to the meeting following whatever guidance you can get Mr G I I agree with I agree with that for Rick I mean I think I think motion to postpone until we get to we get guides I mean the the the committee's recommendation was was dictated both of them were dictated by the lack of um the lack of information from the state and given that no action is is basically
091we're just not making a decision but the but the effect of that is that the books are still in the library nothing changes I just I hate making a I hate making a determination as a board based on based on the way these are these were written out of necessity um and and in the in the interim and I I guess I would propose potentially I mean we're going we'll bring this up again at the after the state it's it's possible that that the that the state comes and I guess I I might I might change my recommendation to to just postpone it indefinitely because the state might come and what they what they come up with um might be a start and we might choose to to need to to do some extra work
092on it before because my what I would like is once we get the state's recommendation um that will likely be incomplete that we that we go through a process and and get our Librarians to to help us draft a a a policy that we can that we can use for for both in inclusion in the library like criteria for for inclusion in the library and for us to use for um for what would be grounds for U for removal Mr Mitchell thank you madam chair I I don't see I guess um we we are do we not have to take action on the committee's recommendations I mean can we just for ever not take action on that I thought we were required to either say yay or nay to the recommendation I I don't think
093we get to kick that action down the road in forever so if if I may the um state law does not set a period of a time in which the board has to take action there's also nothing in our policy that states the board must take an action within a certain amount of time um while I don't think that inaction permanently is appropriate I from a legal standpoint there would be nothing if if it was the will of the body there's nothing legally that would prohibit you um making either of the Motions that Mr cook mentioned so thank you Dana and and in light of that do we have the is there any is is there any act anything from the state that would cause these committees to reconvene that would require let me c
094make that that would require these committees to reconvene I'll take that again so I don't know that it based on their charge I don't know that they would require the committee to reconvene however depending upon what the guidance looks like that might be um a recommendation of staff so again what they're charged with would be helpful not only to this board but to the committee um what they're charged with with giving definitions advice procedures so so to that point if we if we close it out we take a vote up whatever that vote might be we close that out those two committees are done regard then at that point regardless of what the state comes back with those committees are done and they're not going to reconvene because we've already made actions based upon the
095laws at the time we made the action correct what what there is the possibility of and I'm going through all of the scenarios in my mind with your questions Mr Mitchell part of the guidance and part of the charge of this state committee is an appeal from the board's decision right now that does not exist that could be um they could to appeal at this point well there's supposed to be but there isn't um they were charged with making the next step in that appeal so depending upon that guidance you could take an action that may be again would be based upon what we know right now but in a few months maybe a different action would be taken based upon guidance and what that appellate body does and what that appellate body looks at
096because again that's part of um part of their charge that was supposed to be in place by December 1st of 2022 so my my personal preference I guess is to action this close it out up or down whatever we're going to vote on and be done with it and assume that that whatever guidance if it comes because there's no guarantee that this time next year you're not still waiting on guidance from this committee that therefore we don't leave it in limbo we don't leave staff in a position of having to decide okay do we go back and review review that based upon new interpretations and we've got an open we we've got basically an open committee recommendation I I feel like we we need to close it out and be done with it and then
097if and let the next trunch of of of complaints go through the new rules that's kind of where I'm at with it we need to do what we're supposed to do Mr Cash yes thank you I uh I think to close it out is is doing nothing we've got new laws in place we don't have new laws in place do we have a law do we have a age appropriate law the the law is there the guidance that that the legisl asked isn't there so if we close this out we're we're just ignoring the law because not our fault but because they're not responding to us this may be a great opportunity to talk to our representatives and get them to push this to to give us a little bit of comfort in the decisions
098we make so I think it's very important to either postpone this or whatever Mr cook was was talking about if indefinite or you know just uh temporarily I think it's it's giving the it's giving it a chance to work if we just close it out it's going to be gone until the next time something comes up and you know on and on and on so I think we need to stick with their G get word from our representatives and uh just postpone this thank you Miss Cleveland I I do agree with Donna um just under the circumstances I don't think we should indefinitely do it because I just don't think that sounds good you know as a board to just kick it down the um Kick the Can down the road but I do think
099we are in a position to be able to defer it till August because as Donna said the libraries you know there's no issue between now in August that we have to worry about but I think going Beyond a August probably wouldn't be a good idea but at least deferring it to August it's really no harm doing that at this point Mr Welch Miss Carl what's your job title executive director of teaching learning and assessment how long have you been employed by Williamson County Schools since 19 1997 all right Miss Dickerson what is your job title executive director for secondary schools and how long have you been with Williams high schools I'm working on 51 years since 1972 thank you so we had a committee where we had two senior staff members with almost 80 years
100of experience who then went through this process followed our policy did everything that we asked we brought it up the decision was unanimous in one of the Committees and and near unanimous in the other um and we were ready to vote and we deferred because we had a motion made that was bit of a surprise it was last minute that staff did not have the ability to evaluate the implications and the legal challenges and everything else and we deferred two months on that we've since had that time to evaluate that we sat and with our legal team we heard what we heard um I don't see why it matters if the library is open or not or the kids in the book is either in there or not I just feel it's time to make
101a decision and move on or if we're not going to do that then I think we probably need to defer on even having these committees because I don't see what's the point is of tying up our senior staff that could be working on a lot of other things and all these meetings if we're going to have them go through this process come to us with a recommendation and then we just go well we're not going to make a decision um the the law is what it is um and we are following it we are following the law the rules we are only doing this because of things that have changed not because of anything that we look to do ourself our policy change because of these regulations and I just don't feel we should be
102held hostage to something that may or may not occur uh I think it's well past time that we make a decision and so I'm not inclined to defer on this anymore myself Mr Brown thank you Jason I'm going to direct this to you but you can direct it whoever you want to um I'm curious what you or the team think would would potentially be as a result of any guidance that may come from the state whatever that might be would be would would cause a different outcome than what we already got in terms of the recommendations from the committee like what possibly could come our way that would change that outcome I I really don't know um I I don't want to speak to the legal advice you received in the attorney and client meeting
103and so I I would ask Mr cook and and uh as Miss osbrook interrupt me if I come close to that there already already uh the state law overlays the federal you know you've got first amendment issues and there's a lot of case law dating back to the 70s related to that but this new law the age appropriateness materials act hasn't defined it defined what that means um you've gotten advice about where you are at this point I guess my short answer is I don't know uh I I I don't know where that teex Tennessee textbook committee is going to land might might it be substantive and affect a decision down the road I boy I I I don't know and I don't even know what kind of percentage um chance to put on that
104uh but what I do know is that textbook commit asked for help from the state and and didn't get it before their deadline and now the implication is they're going to get it I I I I I don't know without getting into specifics though I mean is it fair to say that there would have to be a significant level of specificity in the guidance whatever that specificity says but there would have to be significant specificity in order for it to change the recommendation that's been made already is that fair if if I were on the committee I I think yes I think that would that if if I had been sitting there I would think yes um is there going to be a definition or parameters for what constitutes an age appropriateness evaluation for for
105me if I were evaluating it i' if there's if if there's a definition that says You must look at blank then it would take that I mean I'm making an assumption here but precedent from the state guidance on other things would indicate that you wouldn't get that level of specificity I haven't been I haven't been optimistic about it but based on other guidance we get from the state in other areas other matters other topics do we generally get that level of specificity that would trigger a different recommendation here or do we get generally get V more vague recommend or guidance and then we fill in I'm I'm gonna I'm going to call on the team to speak to that if if you can I think it depends on the topic uh sometimes we get very
106strict guidelines other times we're we're given dis discretion um Dr Allen you caught my eye so I'm gonna maybe maybe I'm I'm punishing you for catching my eye with that um yeah I think I was just scratching my eye actually trying to catch your attention but we just discussed one today that was pretty specific with summer school and the detail to which what types of students we had to make sure that we invited so in some cases we do get very specific um in this particular situation that we're talking about now I'm with Jason or Mr Golden I would be very surprised uh to get the level that I think we would need to make an informed decision and and this is a new one on the Tex book commission what we do know has
107changed from the textbook commission is that they were very clear with the Publishers through the math adoption that they expected materials that had every Tennessee standard that's and and so they they're a different entity from the Department of Ed and and I don't think they've had a lot of examples of of having to do this Mr Welch just to clarify with the textbook commission itself we're not talking about legislation though State legislation and certainly not federal legislation so that's not what we've been talking about but there is just a muddy the water a little bit further um an amendment to a bill that appears today or maybe at actually a few days ago to be making some movement and it does make some changes to the age appropriateness material Act of 2022 okay let me
108ask it this way then I guess does a state textbook commission have the ability to change federal law or the Bill of Rights on the US Constitution not based upon the law today thank you Mr Mitchell thank you um have there been any additional um um complaints filed for other books past the ones the six I guess that have been reviewed in the LA this we do we do have run review going on right now the boys War so we'll we'll and that when do we anticipate that review to be complete I don't have a date um the committee is reviewing it okay so so yet we're going to so we're going to have yet a third committee recommendation to that if we if we don't take action on we're gonna and I know that
109that book is being challenged as instructional material um so it it will not be challenged as a library book it's being challenged under our other policy for instructional material it's a piece of Whitten wisdom so under the newer law it's it's not subject to a the board doesn't have the burden to make that decision question mark correct so it would be the same as our previous um policy for reconsideration it is not mandated by state law either party after the uh reconsideration committee meets and makes their recommendation either party can appeal to the board um but if no one appeals then the committee's decision is final Mr Cash yeah I just wanted to add I think we finished May 8 unless they change that because it's it's starting to move right along now so it
110could change and just FYI board members uh Miss Glenn does have a copy of the boys War here if you want to pick one up okay all right and just for clarity's purposes that challenge is about it being used in curriculum not to remove it potentially remove it from the library is that correct thank you good I think we're ready to move on to new business um Miss farmer would you like to take the floor thank you we have uh four items for you tonight the first one is a donation we're appreciative our Our Community Partners and Gibson guitar gave a donation of $47,375 in August of last year and so we need to pick that one up now we'll pull the funds out of fund balance which is what should have happened the leftover
111balance and that is $ 32,7 759 no questions on that the next two are intent to funds you recall you approved our five-year Capital plan and these two are related to it the first being uh an intent to fund for asphalt roof HVAC and Water waste water treatment plants um and that amount is 11, 169,000 no questions on that the last again is part of the fiveyear capital plan um and it is related to technology and the total for it is 12,225 60 that's all I have on those I do want to tell you as we um briefly say that I told you I'd give you an update as we went along and through the budget process and so as far as our um revenue and trying to close the gap when we first presented
112the budget the Gap was 9.8 million just as a reminder uh we had the March sales tax come in it actually the percentage increase has gone back up a little bit and so um that Gap currently now is at 7.5 million so we were have been able to to come up with 2.3 um and closing that Gap and so I just wanted to like I said I told you we I'd try to keep you updated as we go along um and as also as a reminder that was most of it was related to sales tax um and that would have been we received it in March but that was for the month of January that's all I have thank you all right and we have next on the agenda board policies for first reading Miss
113osbrook thank you so the first one is 1.15 this is a new policy um board member conflict of interest board members as you know we um are tsba policy subscribers and um this with that subscription recommendation of tsba uh they have received uh quite a few questions around the state on on the ethics policy code of ethics which is the next one so they are recommending that um we have two separate policies one which is the new one 1.15 Deals Only with the conflict of interest um and this is their model policy and um then 1.16 is the code of ethics policy the majority of those changes are removed moving uh the language to be placed into the new policy I will also um remind you with the 1.16 code of ethics policy we are
114required the board is required per state law to um submit a code of ethics policy if it is different than the tsb's uh model code of ethics policy and we would submit that to the state ethics commission um if we adopt the changes to this code of ethics policy it would we would not need to make a separate submission it would be in compliance with state law um so I wanted to explain to you why there's a new policy and changes to the code of ethics our hope is um it makes some of the questions easier to find answers to makes it more clear between the code of eth ethics versus the conflict of interest law okay all right um theor Miss OS I'm sorry Mr Wimberly has a question I'm sorry I can't pull
115these two up when I read them I guess I'm sorry I couldn't pull these two up but when I read them a couple of days ago it seems like I saw Clauses about uh and I assume it was under conflict of interest about board members being expelled by the board under certain circumstances and then be prohibited from seeking office for 10 years um I I don't it it seems to me that a board of education doesn't have that Authority so that is correct it is the um lines 23 through 2 6 and that would be a penalty for unlawful interest that is Tennessee state law um if a board member is found to have an indirect interest and fails to De close that interest or becomes directly interested in a contract you would forfeit all
116compens all um compensation there is a process where as a board member you could be dismissed from the board and not be eligible to serve in the same or a similar position for 10 years Miss OS Brooks am I correct that they they there may be a process for for that but they can't be dismissed by the board correct that is correct but that is a that is state law that is at the bottom of this policy from the board do what it says from the board yeah Mr Brown that's in state law correct it is TCA 12-4-12 let's do some expelling oh my gosh it just raised my curiosity now like if it's not by the board then how should he or she be dismissed I would he or she be dismissed there is
117a process set out in 12412 um that it would depend upon the facts and circumstances but but based upon that process if it is followed then you could be dismissed what I want y'all to get out of this less about the dismissal and more about what your conflict of interest is or is not don't worry about being dismissed if you don't have a conflict of interest fair fair point but it still still trying to understand who makes the decision to dismiss the board member well let me pull up 12-4-12 we may want to take a little recess while I do that okay you guys want to take a five minute break real quick while you fine or I'm fine with it just being sent to us on email have to be Sol right now you
118want to just follow up on yeah we can follow up just don't do any conflicts if I may we're not going to break we're going to proceed but you can take a break if you would like if I may Madam chair I think this question is timely because of what happened at the state legislature right it's on it's on everyone's Minds um my my we we are going to need the attorney's advice um what we know about this tsba policy is a lot of this is a restatement of the law and it just simply says what the law says and and so I think there is some wisdom in getting a an explanation as to what that really the process and what that may mean do you does everybody need a break we have been
119going almost two hours if you would like to take one we can we have yeah we've got three more items if you want to just push push forward okay let's do it next one is Code of Ethics okay so the so I'll send that to y'all via email um if we're not going to break the um code of ethics is the uh second piece of these two policies this is the one I mentioned that um this is the tsba model policy if we want to have a a policy that is different than this one we would need to submit that to the um State ethics commission so um staff's recommendation would be to stick with the code of ethics model policy by tsba okay all right I think we're good okay um the next one
120is 4.43 Library materials and you will see in this particular one um the changes are on page two one change in lines 20 2122 is the um steps taken um that the Review Committee makes after they have reviewed the challenged material that Review Committee would make recommendations to the principal and the superintend and then the superintendent will make the recommendation to the Board of Education that is um that change is recommended by legal council and then in number 10 you will see uh some new information and Madame chair if I may I would like for Miss Cleveland to address this this is language that she has requested sure miss Cleveland thankk you for that um first of I'd like to say um I didn't C couldn't say it when we were talking about the motion
121to defer um because it would have been inappropriate for me to put this policy in so personally whether we vote Monday or defer to August but my reasoning for deferring to August was not for disrespecting the committee at all their decision um because I've already I already have my decision that I would not obviously public say but that being said um I I wanted to go over this policy with you and the reason what I added was I know we were talking about um opting out and um I know we were talking about um getting uh slips from you know permission slips from parents and so on and so forth so on my way back from that um meeting I thought okay what we're looking at is transparency we really want parents to be able
122to take control of what their kids are reading and we want transparency so what I came up with and I'm going to use these four books as an example so say we vote on it and we decide to remain on the Shelf at that point the between the principal and the superintendent and legal there is a scripted letter that goes out to all parents in that grade band and basically said the boat the board has voted to these books to on the Shelf these are the books and um and I think is it the actual um the reasonings for it and within that grade band and it goes out to all parents in that grade band so now we're doing the transparency this is what the board voted on so there's no because there has
123been some confusion that there's um I know we've said at the board that not many people would know what books were even out there even though they were for reconsideration so now that whole gray band knows all about the books that remain on the Shelf within that notification there would also be a um how to opt out because right now as I know Donna um presented that their you know parents don't know how to opt out so there'd be you know instructions how to opt out on the step-by-step how to opt out call your librarian your principal or go online and it would show us step by step so this way it's in the parents control which I think should be this is a very subjective um decision the board has to make I'm uncomfortable
124about making subjective decisions and um and especially as you heard after the high school kids were talking you know it just it you know it just it's very difficult it's very difficult for everyone so this way full transparency all the parents know in that grade band what books were un challenged and now there's instructions how to opt out and what books are so if there's any questions and the parents can go back to those books and say okay you know these are the books I don't want my kids you know doing we have the system to be able to get have that capability so I really felt that this was a good way to you know I think it would help our decisions a little bit better if we're undecided about a particular book not
125you know you I know some people have you know strong opinions one or another but if you're if you're not sure this is a good way to ensure that the parent actually has control of what their kids reading so I really believe in this policy Miss Clemens thank you madam chair um I love this so thank you for doing I love the um educational element that really in the transparency of it um the change up above in c u i mean in 7e where we're kind of and this if it's just me then we can let it go but I really liked hearing from the committee chairs and um in this process of of when we communicate and ask questions and then they um answer um but from what I see we're going to kind
126of remove that and of course we always love to hear from Jason but but it's fun to hear from the committee chair you know and and being able to ask them and hear their experience so um I that I think that's what we're changing in 7e and I like the way it was but I don't know um if anybody else has any so if I may I'm G to put a little more to that so what would be changed is instead of receiving um a committee report and that being sent directly to the board it would be sent to the princip because it was originally sent to the principal to superintendent golden and the board um it's going to be sent to the principal and superintendent golden that same report that report will just be
127sent from superintendent to the board you will still have an opportunity as board members to hear from that committee at work session to answer those questions um have them at the voting meeting if if you want so it it will just be coming from one individual instead of coming from the committee as a whole does that help with that okay good well to that point on the Practical side I I would expect to to pass on to you that information I receive I I I too agree with you hearing hearing the committee chairs shair the last two was was very valuable and so that that'd be that would be my expectation as well okay Mr Brown yeah I'll be very brief I think your CH your suggested change is excellent okay Mr Welch um I
128no issues with it l logistically have have we thought through the implications and talk to the principles about how that would be handled the volume of emails and checking it and is it workable uh short answer is yes uh we we have a system in place where we can send out emails um by groups and so we do have the capacity to do it um it it will it will follow the basic communication structure that we have I mean less the email server issues that that I know we can do I'm thinking the the checking the amount that that comes in and responding to it and then the potential out outs right is there what is what is the the workload that we're adding on in this case and have the logistics been thought through
129well it it it's hard to know but we know we do know that we do have that responsibility if anybody opts out that we that we do need to honor it um we've actually talked about um brainstorming over how adding detail to our uh to our website you all know that there's a web page for media center and you can click on that and do do a search uh for for any title for the library we're talking about how can we how we can make that a little bit more robust as well to make it easier for people to find those items um if we get if if if we get those no matter how many we get we'll have that responsibility to to do it I just I wonder if this might be better
130instead of putting it in policy to have it being something that the board dictates being done procedurally in order to give some flexibility on how it's handled and and managed that would be only my concern is is creating this this logistical burden but I I I like the concept that that you've come up with about the the transparency but if if that's not a concern um then no reason for it but but that's the thing that kind of comes up every time we we do one we'll just do this and things that seem very simple often are not and to your point Mr Welch we um in talking through with this have um spoken with Steven wac who um meets with our Librarians and our lead Librarians very often he has um discussed um with
131our lead Librarians this piece um the notification piece and um so far the feedback has been very positive um our Librarians now help our students and families with um opting out of books MH um as you probably would not be surprised it doesn't happen as often as we might think it does but they definitely um are already doing this there are also um Library teachers assistants that can help with that process as well so I I do think there'd be a flurry when this was sent out but I I think we can right now we believe we can manage it and that team is is work working on a simple form that can be submitted electronically to to to solve some of those logistical issues but yeah it could be that that there's a number
132at the same time that they'd have to process through is Cleveland um to answer Mr Welch too we did go back and forth about that between policy and sop and um I several times and the reason why we came up at policy what we felt is um the whole thing is transparency and if it's an sop it's not really transparent if it's in the policy any parent can look it up and see that what we are doing is transparent and that's kind of how we came to the decision Mr Beasley uh Miss Cleveland I love the um the the um wording the language that you created here um and I'm huh in other words she said thank you language and I'm all all about being U total transparent um but my question is is that
133um I read three out of the four books that are being challenged and is the will there be a classification on these books as in these books are only available for juniors and seniors or do we have to offer these books to all high school um students I think that may be part of the probably advice from attorneys if you all look to make a motion to make some restrictions um so that that depends on the board vote ultimately and I think and I may not have what you're asking but I think what you're asking is would the notification [Music] be from all schools all grade bands yes because the way the majority of our libraries are set up if I'm a student at Franklin High School I can regardless of if I'm a freshman
134or a senior I have access to the same books so we have to tread very carefully right because we can't offer one book like you know and say that's only available for seniors unless we vote on it and that's that would correct be careful with that right if if I may answer a piece of that that I think I can answer in the context of this proposed policy change the notification would tell the families whatever the board had decided okay um whatever that may be and then they then they have the power to act based on being informed of that decision what what the board can do in that context is probably more of an attorney question and it's a question I would not answer because of the uh closed session we had at the
135last meeting um if you would like if you wouldd like to just give a call we can definitely walk through it okay thank you for the clarification um we have Mr galberth but in yeah so I think you just answered my question Miss alsbrooks but um so am I correct that if that if a book is um is challenged at a at a particular school then any decision that would be made is a districtwide so whether the whether the book is removed or whether the book stayed do we for if it's third through fifth grade or middle school or high school it's a or I guess let's just say elementary middle or high school then it would be applicable to all that schools that's correct that's the way this reads we'll let we'll let the
136the the the whole grade band districtwide know about it gotcha thank you Miss Cleveland and I um to answer your question when you're talking about restriction grade I think this is this takes care of that because since all parents in that grade band say 9th through 12th all parents are going to know they it resides in the library and so they can opt out so there really is no need to have restrictions put on because now that it's in the parents control to put those restrictions on themselves do you does does that make sense totally totally clear okay thanks thank you yeah just to get a real quick clarification on it too so it's the action taken by the board so this would be uh report if the board that the book was left in
137also but if the book was taken out regardless thank you blank book was challenged board made this decision it's great thank you thank thank you Miss Cleveland okay our next item is dress code okay the um next policy is dress code um I'll give you a little bit of legal guidance and then um I'm sure there will be questions but do want you to keep a couple things in mind as we were reviewing this the first one is um gender neutral dress code um it is clear while well let me step back while there is not guidance from the US Department of Education Office of civil rights there is however guidance um in case law um and and it is clear that it should be gender neutral so you will see terms in here um
138and minimum safe attire that is written whether a male or a female wears it the other piece that I want you to um be mindful of as we were talking about this is it's also very clear from federal case law that dress codes cannot be explicitly discriminatory either in how it is written or how it is enforced so you will also see that language in this policy one of the changes um that you will notice from the very beginning is that no longer are we talking about minimizing distractions we are talking about disruptions um I know that is feedback that we've consistently received from parents um and there's a reason for that uh because the cases uh throughout the United States tell us that often times when we are minimizing distractions instead of looking at
139A disruption that tends to um have connotations of giving dress codes uh to more um one gender over another which is what we did not want to do as I'll give you one other piece of information those were the um kind of The Guiding principles as um there was a committee put together you heard Dr web talk about that earlier of principles and assistant principles uh Elementary and secondary I attended those meetings we they literally walked line by line through the policy that you have in front of you um discussing what they see daily um in the buildings and also dealing with parent concerns that have been expressed to the um they took it back to buildings talked to their um parent teacher organizations talked to their um BLT their leadership group talked to student
140councils got feedback from many different stakeholders um and I know I'm sure Dr web will deal with some specifics but those were the overarching two principles that are assistant principles and principles um kept in mind as as this was a very Lively discussion over several meetings Mr wiberly uh what type of student uh involvement has there been both in the development of this and then perhaps seeing it uh since it's been drafted thank you for that question I'd like to get um Dr Webb to speak to that and I may add a little bit uh because I've also had a little bit of participation with students on this Dr Webb thank you Mr wly the principes who served on our committee they solicited student feedback in the draft versions that got to this draft uh
141Mr Golden has a a student uh advisory committee that meets and with representation from the Junior and senior class from each high school we met with those students and uh it was also a very Lively conversation it was almost a figurative uh tap on the back wow you guys are actually putting a dress code in place that uh hears what we're saying so thank you the feedback from the students and I just pulled up uh my notes sheet from uh from their their meetings I think two things were pretty Universal in the student feedback one was that we listened and two was and they felt like that everybody not every person but every person's body should be treated the same to miss OS Brooks's point of that they wanted to see uh the same thing
142that that the law requires is that regardless if you're male or female and regardless of what shape your body is that everyone's treated the same everybody is treated the same and the other piece that kind of resonated with us from their feedback was that um their their feedback was you know you adults care a whole lot more about dress code than kids do uh you are bothered by things that we don't even notice and um they're thankful that they feel like that this dress code allows them to go and purchase clothes in the store um that are fashionable and readily available and are things that they want to wear versus especially from the female students saying your the current dress code forces us to push the line on what we wear at school because you
143can't go in a store and buy shorts for their age that falls mid thigh um that they want to wear and so the feedback from the students was overwhelming L possible they did get a positive they did give some feedback on minor tweaks and because the last of those meetings just happened uh this week Monday was our last one um some of those tweaks are not in this version but we'll be taking those tweets to the next um the next policy committee thank you yes sir Mr G thank you madam chair um I just want to say I apologize I wasn't able to had a conflict for uh for Monday meeting but I did look at this been waiting um I appreciate the the work that the committee has done I my my goal in
144um in bringing this with with Jen um was was that it could be um consistently applied and consistently enforced and I and I think I I guess I I don't know I'm not sure that I have the same um take on it as the as the student did as far as caring more or or not I think I think what we'll what we'll continue to see is uh what we do know is that students tend to push the envelope of any of any policy and so we'll will always see the um the impact of that I mean the the the thing that I that I saw um that will continue to be an issue I think we are taking a lot of issues off the table where where the where we're not consistently enforcing and
145therefore what students see is that it's inconsistently enforced and therefore when we try to enforce the policy it's it's then unfair or or arbitrary and so that's that's the position that I don't want our our teachers and principes and administrators to um to be in um that being said I think there's a couple of things in here that um I can identify so I'm looking forward to seeing your your tweaks and see if any of those um make it to or or what's addressed in the policy U I guess i' I've got a question that we can that we can address but it was really for for Dana as part as far as we we saw it in the um in the bullying stats as far as protected groups go but um do we have
146some similar it looks like on see is is this page page two um we're talking about um protected classes I think and in the dress code enforcement number one like line 30 33 through 35 um where we're talking about marginalization or oppression of any group and race sex gender ethnicity um but then we we talk about that those same type of protected groups in Char in in regards to um hate speech and the the language is just a little bit little bit different um in terms of race ethnicity gender sexual orientation gender identity like is there is there is that are those supposed to be the same I guess they're similar but I don't know they are similar and so they don't have to be the the same um and the reason for that is
147we are dealing with a First Amendment issue compared to a harassment issue when we're talking about enforcement I'm not opposed if you want them to be the same they came from two different resources um case law dealing with First Amendment rights of expression for students which is the top of the page and then the enforcement piece actually came from the government US Government accountability office it's a nonpartisan group that in um let me see I believe it was hold on was October of 2022 they gave a report to Congress regarding um equity and safety K through 12 education um dress code so that resource is about 60 pages I pulled a lot from it because it was one one place where they really talked about enforcement versus um safe minimum standards a lot of the
148language but I'm not opposed if we want to look at that again at policy and make the match but that's why there's a difference I was just it's just food for thought for and to make sure we discuss at next policy meeting but um thank you very much for this I I really my the feedback that I got from from my my small group of of people that I've interacted with since I opened this um has been has been positive so thanks Mr Mitchell thank you um couple of questions have we had any thought about uh developing uh pictures of right versus wrong thank you for that question Mr Mitchell that was a a recommendation uh on our committee and uh referen both with adults and with students that having some type of uh digital
149rendering almost like when an athletic team goes to purchase uniforms you know there's a generic Digital Imaging that's produced that helps uh understand what it would look like on you know an athlete uh they recommended something similar to that once this is finalized yeah I think that would nice that would kind of help visualize as well what on on and then the second the the one thing that I couldn't see how what the determination is is neckline rules for shirts the neckline rules on the top uh really um the the description is I get the covering I guess guess I'm talking about so I'm wearing I mean I I guess if you're that's right on the front more than more than sides so the the guidance is from the armpits down needs to be covered
150uh strap over the shoulder no width requirement on the strap that it needs to go over the shoulder it can tie behind your neck it can tie to the Garment um and that those U restricted body parts should not be shown okay that's the restriction thank you yes sir okay oh Mr Beasley yeah all right I have one one question it's on line 40 um it's just a a recommendation uh that I have that I have it says the students who are out of dress code will be removed from class until the violation can be resolved so I didn't know if there was any thought about um having maybe two two faculty approach the student to remove the student from class before a conversation is H had about um inappropriate dress in school because I'm
151trying to protect the teacher as well as the student because the student or the teacher could say a teacher said something inappropriate to me about my clothing oppos if you have two faculty there then they could say no this is exactly the way way that this subject was approached um and also it removes the child from the actual audience because often times when a child has an audience they may act out a little different than they are whenever they're maybe alone in the hallway with the two faculty members I don't know it's just an idea of the approach that we're approaching the I see what you're saying and let me let me let me pose the question a different way talk about the process by which a student is notified that there's a a violation
152thank you for that thanks for the the question as well this the enforcement aspect and the identification process the adults and students both spend a lot of time on that um a lot of conversation about the uncomfortableness that an adult feels when you walk up to any other person to say I can see a part of you that I'm not supposed to see essentially it's what you're saying with this dress code there's an an element of vulnerability and uncomfortableness regardless of your age that accompanies that the students spoke about that uncomfortableness and also spoke about the their concerned for their for the adults in their building like we recognize that's uncomfortable um so we've talked about a lot of implementation strategies and really talking about as the as the committee what are those best practices
153and enfor foring this that we can collect and uh submit as almost like a not necessarily a standard operating procedure but as a common practice or recommended practice in implementing this one Committee Member said I appreciated that uh uh someone on my hallway if a student was out a dress code there was an a folder with something to take to the office and and I would just have that student could you run this to the office for me real quick and there was someone at the office who received that folder and then would say hey come in and then would have a confidential conversation with that student about dress code and just about all those little um nonchalant ways of getting a student removed from a setting that doesn't cause me embarrassment that doesn't make
154me feel like my teacher staring at me um that really protects the student and the adult in those situations so our thought is fin let's finalize this code and then have a uh recommended processes that we could say these are just best practices to share with schools to share with teachers uh may vary a little bit depending on the age of the child too uh because it's an uncomfortable thing it's an uncomfortable thing as to to to even address that with an adult who we supervise adults who often are sometimes are at of dress code um so that it's it's sensitive especially with a dress code where the Restriction is certain body parts that we don't want to see so when someone's out a dress code you're essentially saying I most likely I'm someone can
155see something that they shouldn't there's a extreme vulnerability and sensitivity associated with that thank you so you're saying that there is a once we get this finalized and there will be a a process in the manner in which the student will be approached and have a confidential conversation okay thank you Mr Mitchell thank you um your your comment M Webb just raised another question for me so we I know we've had I know you have an adult or a staff dress code as well has that been reviewed to make sure it's at least as detailed and strict as the student dress code uh student dress excuse me faculty dress is often a conversation with an our mou we'll have anou draft to you next month uh I will go ahead and um give you a
156spoiler you will not see this amount of detail in in that dress code um it's it's simply a sentence that uh references U business casual as the expected attire so so we feel like if we feel like um that business casual can never be in violation of what of what in conflict with this particular description yes this this this student dress code um is uh far more loose than what you'll see in our mou which is the basic standard of business casual attire yes okay my visual of it is in a VIN diagram business casual is a smaller Circle completely contained in that larger circle of this draft all right thank you all Miss osbrook we can go on to medicines okay and the last uh policy for first reading is medicines uh 6.45 the
157what you're going to find are some um language changes on the um first page and then we do have some legal changes um on the second page with starting with lines 11 through 17 then uh down at the bottom with students with pancreatic insufficient insufficiency or cystic fibrosis um and then one more on page three with students with adrenal insufficiency you will also see the legal references uh 2 through six have been updated to reflect the um state law and um Board of Education policy changes and we would recommend this has been vetted and I worked with uh man Mandy Thompson with our nurses to um go through the changes um we would recommend this on first reading for approval okay thank you Miss osbrook I don't think we have any comments or questions so
158we can move on to tenure recommendations of this oh sorry Mr Welch is going have a do we have a definition of medication in here I'm looking so at the top we have non-prescription or prescription medication right um I don't know that there is a definition I guess what I'm what and and this is based on an incident where would uh things like supplements fall into it so if it's a supplement that's a vitamin it is not in this policy we do have an sop um that deals with supplements but not a board policy because supplements are not in our state law or I think it's worth us double cheing to make sure that e either that that's a term that's widely known or we have some kind of description for that I got the
159fat burners and things like that it's kind of a quazi okay thank you okay yeah Mr Brown and I assume that medical devices are covered or either implied or covered under this um I mean clearly EpiPen is a device but there other there are other types of medical devices that people need or have on their person would that be covered under this as well this would deal with medicines we do have other board policies that deal with like a um AED um we do have willness guidelines um that deal with other devices so depending upon the medical device if there is guidance from the State Board of Education or state regs state law then that's it's found in one of our policies somewhere is there something in particular that you're asking about not really I
160just think there's an increasing number of as technology improves there's an increasing number of devices actual Hardware yeah that people rely on for either administering medication or for apps that they're using to improve their health that are you know they require day-to- day in some cases I just want to make sure we're not so inadvertently omitting something that we need to cover sure so if it is student specific um if it is a student with a disability that needs something um we do have individual health plans that would cover that for the individual student if it is something like an EpiPen there is obviously state law and policy as to that um there's not anything off the top of my head that I can think of that we have not covered but I'll check with
161Mandy and see if there's something that we might need to to look at well and that's mentioned in here yeah as as I read this if if there's a doctor's prescription and there's a delivery system that's part of that prescription it would be covered um but it is worth us having a conversation with Mandy and it might just be that if if it's determined that that's appropriate that we could just say name of medication or device or or you know just add or device in a few places to cover that might be that [Music] simple okay all right Mr goldon 10 your recommendations thank you madam chair uh the the the final item on your on your uh on your agenda tonight is the recommendation from Vicky Hall assistant superintendent for human resources for teachers
162recommended for tenure I want to point out that the last line uh in that particular document is not a typographical error it is a recommendation for ten year for the 2021 2022 school year and it is because of What's called the team rubric another acronym uh the evaluation system for teachers includes elements of observation plus uh achievement data plus growth data uh for for students and what we have found is in the last few years the data runs behind the hiring decision uh so this is a list of teachers who were rehired and Vicki correct me if I've missed anything this is a list of teachers who are rehired for their sixth year who fulfilled all the requirements for tenure and now we know that the final requirement of the data meets this criteria for
163them to ultimately be recommended for tenure quick extra piece years ago tenure used to be you work for three years you rehired for the fourth board approves it you're tenured now it's much more complex it's number of months within a five-year window it's based on your evaluations four or a five during during the windows of time if you have a three you may be able to stay employed without actually reaching tenure just a just a ton of detail related to that uh for us we've had some really good success uh with our with our teachers and with our student performance uh and we have very few of those lowest scores of ones or twos um with with that perhaps too much detail but it's just an it's just an odd thing compared to how simple
164it used to be Mr galri Jason may I ask what I mean some of the the elementary department and and I I guess I saw High School secondary Department seem to have some principles on here uh like tell me explain thank you I know they've been in the I know they've been here for a while just help me with the with the rationale thank you for that under this the the tenure law principles are evaluated under that same team model and so they have the they have the potential to be tenured as teachers not as administrators so if a principal did not yet have tenure they come in from another District uh if they meet those state requirements even though perhaps they might not have actually been in a classroom they can be tenured and
165must be tenured if they meet the criteria uh as teachers but they are on an annual contract as administrators so we don't have a tenured administrator contract that is correct so if you if you let an administrator go um on a because they're on an annual contract but they're so I guess I don't they could return to the classroom so if if if we if we if we do not renew an administrator as an administrator and they're a tenure teacher they have the opportunity to take a open teacher job but and the reason why they're they're classified under Elementary department and not their school because they they are covered under the law under the under that evaluation rubric and might not actually be at a particular location and a tenure for teacher is not you're
166tenured at a particular location you're just a tenure teacher so these so these people were not tenur have not previously been tenured teachers but they have have been administrators they've been they've been administrators for now three and four years and so now they're they're being they're technically being tenured as a teacher that is correct okay under under the new law that didn't used to happen under the old law but under this current law because it's the same rubric the same evaluation system that state sets up they can be and that's new I when I say new and old I'm taking we're to about N9 years in something like that well at least I'm OB observ it I mean it it it hits you every once in a while thanks but it's it's interesting because we
167had that same conversation [Laughter] okay all right I think that allows us to be adjourned all right so thank you so much for your participation