001like to call the August 11th 2022 meeting of the Williamson County School Board um to order and this is a work session meeting uh before we get started I want to thank Deputy Mark Gorman for being here uh Deputy Gorman appreciate you um one of our new school board members Dron Beasley is here Dron welcome and then we have Bobby cook here Bobby cook is our new uh board attorney and more on that later so moving ahead let's move to the items on the consent agenda Mr golden thank you madam chair I did want to point out a couple of pieces to that we uh the first item well actually it's B this uh or C rather the uh updated meeting dates we had an error in the November dates there's a conflict with with
002a County Commission meeting so we are asking that we change those dates it had to do with Thanksgiving and the commission meeting schedule um also the annual agenda is on there with some highlights and and um and then finally uh the fall zone easement it but that's Elementary the county has a plan to improve uh cell coverage across the county and so they're putting a cell tower uh on the park property and the fraction of it if it fell would clip the edge of our property so there's an easement to allow for that do you have any questions about the consent agenda certainly open to it so there's an easement to Mr Mitchell yeah guys please remember to raise your hands Mr Mitchell thank you mad chair so so are you saying that the easement
003is in case the tower Falls that's correct okay all right now the that Tower is actually designed to collapse straight down if there is an issue but strictly speaking they have to balance that the exact distance and it hits the edge of our property so if we needed a use of that sliver of property what would be our recourse well if you all approve this we're not going to use it we the the the wisdom is just leave that piece alone and It ultimately serves the community and so we think the wise thing to do is is grant that because it is part of the Strategic plan of the county do they have the author so cell cell towers I believe are they do they have the authority to imminent domain or not you don't
004think so I think the utility they're not cons yeah yeah thank you any other questions Mr Brown a board retreat um as I think we usually do on an annual basis would that be something that would be on this annual agenda or would that be ad hoc we typically work ad hoc on the board retreat and and um when we have a new chair I'll I'll work with uh the new chair and schedule a time we usually try to give I'm estimating minimum two months notice somewhere around there uh to board members and usually check their calendars to make sure we find a time that can maximize that and that's that was early December last year if I recall yeah I think that's right okay we had we had two I believe last year one
005in the summer and then one in December thank you hi mram Mr Haw um how are you going to let us know if you have a question are you going to text me I'll send you yeah I'll send you okay great thanks okay all right so no no further questions on the consent agenda then um let's settle in for the superintendent report um we have 45 minutes on the agenda for this this report and there are two items number one is the review of the May 2022 teacher survey results and the second one is the math textbook adoption update um so Mr Golden in the interest of time do you do you want us to do you want to tell us why don't you just tell us when you want to take questions okay so
006that you can get through your presentation and thank you madam chair I have a PowerPoint that um based on the review of the May 22 teacher survey results we're actually going to give you a little bit more information kind of a after the summer update related to that with that content in there uh and then Dr Allen uh and his staff will give a a preliminary bit of information related to the math textbook adoption process that will be happening this fall so Brian if you would can you pull up my PowerPoint so so y'all uh he he's going to pull it up too it's an actual slideshow I just got to say we had an unbelievable start of the school year you're going to see some photos as we go through here just a great
007just a great start last Friday uh but as we get started we haven't met since TCAP results came back or at least we we maybe we had a special called meeting we were number one in all four main content areas Ela math science and social studies we've been trying to look back and try to figure out have we ever actually done that knowing that there's some school districts in Tennessee that just have one Elementary School you know very small school districts that sometimes perform really well our teachers did an unbelievable job last year with our with our students and our students in turn did an unbelievable job on that we are measured really in two main ways by the state one is is achievement and the other is growth this is achievement data we're talking
008about uh that we are number one in the state and achievement the growth data comes out um Monday if I'm not mistaken the state's currently got about that information and bargoed uh if that comes out and is released by the state on Monday I'll briefly mention uh how we did at the Monday meeting um but I am so proud of what our teachers and students did last year and and really just topping out in ways that we're not sure we've ever seen before uh you'll also see the into course exams first overall among districts with high schools now if you really drill down into the data when we talk about in course exams sometimes middle schools are at the top because you will have students taking algebra one in middle school and some of those
009are the highest performers in middle school but ultimately when you look at the high school end of courses for all those Ela one algebra one on down the line again we were first and I I I don't know how to describe it any any more than that we got a long meeting so I'm not going to you know bring out balloons and get it that excited today but y'all it's incredible uh what our teachers and students did last year um we're going to have some photos as I said as we go through uh as students start the school year um but the May 22 May 2022 teacher survey you all know that a few months ago you asked us to conduct a survey of our teachers and we know it's not scientific but we tried
010to keep the the core of the question simple as teachers were finishing out the school year and that core question was do you feel valued by School administration by parents by central office by the school board in the Williamson County community and you can see that about a third of our teachers who received the survey responded and I want you to see the results and of course this is going to be posted but I'm going to speak to it briefly as you're looking at these numbers the values the the feeling the feeling of the of being valued among teachers was number one from their administrators and I'll tell you I'm actually glad that that's where it is because they're the ones that they work with on a daily basis next they see their parents quite
011often and this is Elementary by the way and I'm going to have a middle slide and a high school slide um but frankly if you look at us central office and the school board we've got some work to do in letting our teachers know that we value them and you can see those numbers uh at the elementary level uh we go from 78% and they're feeling valued by School administration and parents the folks they see regularly uh and it drops down significantly to central office and even more to the board uh so I'm going to speak after the these next two slides about where we go from here uh my life experience is when you're interacting with somebody and they develop that trust they're going to feel valued more uh and so I would suggest
012to you that the more we interact with the people who are serving students the better off they're going to be the more they're going to feel valued uh and the and and the more we're going to be able to to grow this but that's just a general thought and a general feeling but we actually have some tools that are coming in place that I believe are going to give us some good data uh to to help grow that and do a better job of supporting our teachers Middle School likewise basically the same Trend the numbers aren't exactly the same but it's the same Trend highest trust level with their school administration substantially less at the central office and less for the board High School same Trend they feel value by their school administration substantially less
013central office and less for the board so in a in a way I'm ENC encouraged by this because you know that we asked teachers this at the end of the school year as they were finishing up uh and that's set a baseline for us for where we go from here uh uh I know that Laura Clayman the president of the w CA is here uh and you all interact with her regularly uh and I interact with the building representatives from the WCA regularly uh we know that that communication needs to spread uh with with with all our teachers so where do we go from here we have contracted with a Gallup organization uh and we are going to implement the Gallup q12 Employee Engagement survey you can pull that up on a on a search
014engine uh and there are 12 specific research-based questions that analyze indepth job satisfaction Gallup has done this across many Industries done this across a long period of time uh we actually have a meeting scheduled uh just in a couple of weeks August 22nd with Gallup to start working on the details of that implementation and I want to thank Vicky Hall for for driving this and uh and making sure that we that we have this tool in place because this is research based because Gallup has longitudinal information we know that what we learn from our teachers is going to give us tools to do a better job of serving them uh and you can see some other points I'm not going to read through uh all that except to remind you that this is going to
015include all employees we did a teacher survey in May per year request and we think the wise thing to do is to make sure we do this uh with all our employees so I'm going to tell you a little bit of why this is important as you see a few more great photos of the beginning of school we've had an increase of about 500 students so far uh uh over over the end of first month last year you you know that we budget typ Ally for end of first month end of the first four weeks sometime around Labor Day we've had an increase of about 500 we we budgeted for 930 if I got the number exactly right uh right now about half of that Gap is kindergarten and our projections for kindergarten kindergarten early
016childhood and prek start this Monday and then what we typically see is there's there's some growth from now till Labor Day especially as folks are moving in from states that start their school Labor Day uh so we continue to grow uh we'll have some really good nail down numbers in about a month um and I also mentioned that we're adjusting some bus routes based on ridership and I'll touch on that just a little bit with our bus drivers as well this is the time of year where projections meet reality and I I know that uh um Jen you and I were talking about this last night if I'm not mistaken uh where there might be a bus that has a has a flood of students more than they expected uh we're counting bus numbers and
017so there are some adjustments uh even car lines are adjusting right now as uh as part of the start of the school year but I want to talk about Staffing and I I mentioned to you uh one of the reason the why of of of of the importance of serving our teachers this year we hired 561 new new teachers and Vicki got this information for uh for me and the breakdown I think is very interesting we are quite balanced in teachers new to WCS who are new to the profession who have been teaching but are coming to us and even from out of state that group is pretty balanced that's not happening everywhere in Tennessee we're getting a lot of experienced teachers coming to us especially this year uh school districts across the state and
018maybe the nation we don't have that data at teachers leave we netted more substantially more than we lost to retirement people moving out of state people leaving the profession um I'm I'm encouraged about where we are but y'all it's it's a growing Challenge and you're going to see that as as I hit these next few spots but before I hit to that before I hit the next slide I want you to notice that last number I have there 561 teachers 106 of those were from our classified positions the grow your own program those are those Gap fillers it's not the tool that's going to save us but it's a tool that's helping and we know that when we hire those folks they are not that different from brand new teachers and we need that extra
019support to help grow them in the profession as well but one thing that is unique Statewide in Middle Tennessee is we have a larger number of teachers assistants and other classified positions filled by individuals who already have undergraduate degrees and so the the the window for them to get a teaching license is a little bit wider open the timeline's a little bit shorter because many of them already have graduate degree I worry about this being a sustainable program because if we have cohorts that get a for example a special education teachers license are we going to have enough for the next cohort are we going to have enough for the next um so it's something we're watching very closely but I want to point out you compare last year's new hires 403 to this year
020561 I have an item on the agenda related to a request for increased Staffing in human resources and in payroll this is one of the reasons for it the volume of our new hires has gone up substantially more than we've projected and we need more Staffing uh in in those two departments so where are we as school started we're weekend we're in good shape with teachers statistically speaking we're at 98.5% fill rate how many of y'all have seen the reports on the news the crisis in the classroom some of those news reports just about every school district has had in in Metro Nashville has had a story on Staffing for teachers statistically speaking we're doing really well and I've got some specific numbers at the elementary grade level middle school and high school with our
021vacancies for every spot that's represented by one of those single digit that is a big deal we're at 98.5% Staffing for most any business that's good it's good but every spot that's missing a teacher is a tough spot um so I specifically um want to mention those special education positions uh that continues to be a challenge you all have known it for years uh those of you who've been on the board a long time it continues to be a shortage um but uh but we continue to work hard on recruiting uh and that demand is going to continue to grow uh for us to continue for us to continue to to to fight those battles to to get folks to commit I will tell you that when we did our new teacher induction we did
022an elementary day and a middle and high school day a secondary day it felt great we had so many smiles from teachers teachers are excited uh we had support from um from our coaches we have District level coaches that are committed to some to every teacher new to the profession those are two great days a couple of weeks ago as teachers came in just a very exciting time we have some really dedicated professionals across the board brand new teachers are emotionally committed to what they're doing and the experienced teachers remain emotionally committed to what they're doing uh and I got to mention briefly we did a celebration for Willie Dickerson just a couple of hours ago at Franklin High School for her 50th celebrating her 50 years in education in Williamson County alone she's actually
023in her 51st year working uh the the impact of a teacher can't be understated there were a lot of tears and they were mine uh I was having a hard time hearing those stories every teacher is developing those relationships with students as as they continue to grow them so that's where you are with Staffing teachers here's our biggest pain Point I've hit three points uh in our classified Staffing that I want you to be aware of and we talk about these regularly just about every time we talk publicly we talk about these three items and I want you to see some numbers on it um student Support Services teachers assistance special education teachers assistance um we have 693 of those positions budgeted and remember we have for we have 43,000 or so students so the
024raw numbers can feel overwhelming we are at 91.5% Staffing we're still struggling finding special education teachers assistance uh I think it's going to get harder before it gets easier uh so be aware that that's that's a a key recruiting point for us that we're thinking about this coming year bus drivers uh you see the numbers there but I want to point out a couple things we have at the start of this year a bus driver assigned to every single route but we don't have enough substitutes people will be sick that's where the Pain's going to come with with with bus drivers I'm really proud of what Mark and Gary and uh and and the transportation department has been doing over the summer um if you have any questions um they can give you some specifics
025of of what we're doing with uh recruiting driver training driver testing uh to to uh to fight that battle and I got to mention this one thing Franklin Special just to put it bluntly has his historically taking one of our drivers every time they had a position to fill I'm just telling it like it is they aren't filled right now so it's a it's a universal struggle right now for bus drivers thank your bus driver parents if you're watching this the work they do is incredible they get up earlier than just about anybody in the morning and then they come in in the afternoon uh they're not working for full 40h hour weeks it's it's a it's an emotional commitment uh and it's a physical commitment too if any of you all have ever tried
026to do that kind of work so we're real proud of our bus drivers if we had that many more that that are in the budget we'd be able to eliminate some of those first and second loads but our first priority is to get substitutes um finally cafeteria staff you see that we're 70% staffed for our part- timers 39.5 positions are open right now of of of 132.5 that are in James rid's budget um it's not as bad as that because we have 150 full-time positions so on average three per school high schools have a little bit more but we continue to struggle especially for those part-time jobs that are necessary for the service but also for the Food Service budget um so I felt like it was important for you to see where we were
027as we started this year especially since there's been so much discussion uh uh in um in the local media about Staffing there are our pain points so as we finish we're still seeing some of the smiles at the start of the year I was able to go to a couple of schools uh that first day it was a great event I hope that you all got to see some of the media reports on it if you haven't looked it in focus and some of the neat stories uh that that were published related to that first of school I encourage you to do so uh just a great day that little one's not in school I don't believe but I do think her sister was telling her bye for the day one interesting and fun thing
028to watch was those kindergarteners that first day who came with their older brothers and sisters were not happy because kindergarten doesn't start for two weeks so they'll be thrilled as Monday hits so with that I want to tell you all that it's going to be a fantastic year uh certainly open to any questions uh you know about the teacher survey and about where we go from here uh and then uh if if there are none then I'll turn it over to Dr Allen Mr [Music] Welch thank you Jason can you go back to the teacher survey slide just any any of the three back to the High School one the first one that's fine um so this is scary we've got talk about our our greatest asset that we we have as a school system
029I think would be the teacher in the classroom um and we've got fewer than one and four of our teachers in Anonymous survey telling us that they feel valued by this board um I mean that's a huge problem obviously and and not the only problem you look at some of the other things as well but uh you know first and foremost physician heal myself and I'm um not not good I I just no positive spin on that that's that's a bad number right there um so it's nice to have the close ended because then we get can point at it and go what's the percentage and you got sort of a hard you know that we can talk about but are there any verbatims that go along with this any open-ended responses that sort of
030tell the story behind that 23% and why don't they they feel valued and teachers did have an opportunity to make comments um some of those are personally identifiable um you know when we number one it's an unscientific survey but we encouraged teachers to to to be aware that that it was Anonymous when they entered it um so I know that Vicki Hall and her staff have really drilled down into some of the details of that um so Vicki if you would speak to some of the trends that you and I talked about there were there were quite a number of and not you're know we did have a pretty good feedback in the comment section I think generally speaking the thought was that um there was some some out of touchness going on between the
031board and honestly central office with what's going on in the building so just kind of as an umbrella to tell you that that seemed to be kind of the general theme I wonder if we might be able to get a hold of those verbatims and sort of see for ourselves I understand that we would have to remove anything where there was pii um in it the the other thing I'm wondering with it is um how much of that data do we have and would would it be something that that we could run through um a text anal analytics software uh you know one of the things that you know using mind when we've got large data sets from quantitative data and you try and get those Trends um because you can you know certainly spot
032things as a human but there's also you bring your own biases into it but when you kind of run it through some machine learning it can pull out uh what are the major themes what is the sentiment that's going on some things like that that sort of help point you in the right direction as well yeah that's a good suggestion I know I where where keywords are pulled out with with uh numbers numbers of times that keywords have been shared that yeah you know you can certainly do uh keywords and you can develop some uh word clouds and different things like that which are very uh simple but there's even some things that you know run off of the uh IBM Watson or soth and adds sort of that AI to it and really sort
033of says you know here's the key findings and Trends and that and that it's um not arbitrary at that point you know that that supercomputer doesn't give a damn about what you want it to say it it tells you what it actually is and trends like that so I think that that might be something that's um worth looking into as well since we have this uh this data and it's again it's data where uh not to make it just all about the board here but you know fewer than one in four feel valued I mean that's just well it's us too and to to to to Vicki's point it's us too you know about about a third of our teachers filled it out um and it's us too it's it's all the folks at central
034office we do a lot of lot of services in the building we do a lot that folks don't know about and so we know that we need to communicate that better um so yeah we're all in the same boat okay thank you Mr galberth ra H I don't remember raising my hand but I did have a question um bus routes Jason yeah um had a question come up that said hey we've well first of all how many how many double bus routes do we have I know we've got enough bus drivers for the original but I would imagine I think we still have some doubles we have a lot of first and second loads for sure um if we were fully staffed we wouldn't um um so Mark do you have the numbers off hand
035or Gary yes sir we started with 54 plan second loads um for this school year and that's um supported by 209 drivers Gary I remember correctly Mr Anderson has been helping me out with Transportation uh this this uh summer since uh my days are a bit numbered um but but that's that's a few more second loads than we had last year and so you're just you're anticipating you're so you're trying to make sure that you're trying to balance putting a bus driver on every route with having backups when you have predicted absences or unpredictable but predictable absences well as Mr Gold and said we don't really have a lot of substitute drivers at this point everyone's driving a bus right but there are um five people in training right now one of which will test
036this week we hope we got nine others in the pipeline so we continue to try and get more drivers to give us more substitutes or redu some of the second loads the plan second load so how many routes do we have total routes is it 28 28 routes well actually uh if you think about secondary and Elementary it's a lot more than 208 routes it's about double that plus special education but I guess routes at one for one time for second for for primary and secondary yeah um so the the feedback that I got was that hey we ran a double route last year um is do we so we we've been either picked up early or dropped off late um and now we've got a double route again so is it a is it
037a function of shorter routes that can be doubled up um as as as opposed to kind of spreading the wealth and um and letting some other people participate in the in the in the fun of having a having a double route well those first and second loads grow as as we grow the you know the based on Staffing they grow so we do those second loads within the window of time that we have because you have about an hour between Secondary School start and Elementary School start so there's a limited number of areas where it can actually work because of geography uh so if you're in a more densely populated area where you can fill up a bus quicker you are a candidate for the first or second load so we're not staff sufficient to
038say we're going to take turns annually on somebody doing first or second load we're doing first and second load in areas where where there's actually enough minutes for it to work so the rural routes generally aren't doubled uh the Suburban routes more and more they're double makes sense um the and the the other thing from a do we any idea Vicky on where we were last year is as far as um positions un unfilled teacher positions specifically at the beginning of [Music] school we [Music] were sorry just I don't have a specific number an exact number for you um but I can tell you that we are in much better shape this year we were probably we probably had twice as many vacancies last year as we had now just roughly speaking so this is
039something I mean we we we strive for 100% and we'll and we'll get there over we did we get there last year how long did it take us to get to or did we ever make it we never had every special education teacher I'm talking about teachers we because we have people that leave in the middle of the year we we're never 100% but we I mean we definitely got in good shape we were around 98% last year too okay um but it it took a little a little bit longer to get everybody hired last year than it did this year so we feel like we did we we got out there we got those early contracts um our principals were on their game they went out there and they they got their candidates we
040had a we had a successful career fair and they they got some teachers at the career fairs and then continuing on through the summer so we we feel good about where we are it's where we where we hurt is where it's it's hard to find people it's just hard to find teachers in certain subject areas okay thank you but to that point we know that there's a heavier premium on recruiting than there's ever been um to use a business phrase this is a sell's market so teachers are are looking and they they're getting multiple offers and so now more than ever we're competing with our neighbors Mr Mitchell Mr Mitchell I'm one second I'm making a note Jason just said so um Jason for for people that may not recognize we've got we received the
041achievement uh results from the state and the growth results as you say are currently embargoed um by the state but uh historically our achievement numbers better than our growth numbers can you C can you give a little bit of context around why that is so and I and I may actually um um defer to Dr Allen to give some detail and I guess my I'm assuming that that's going to continue to be the case generally speaking yes so uh the state measures in two ways and they have a formula that's based on a uh um an acronym called Tas tvas it's a very complicated formula I think we'd probably need keevin deck in here to describe the formula and I think he'd probably cover about 98.5% of the formula uh related to it because it's
042a complicated formula um so so the the uh the the state measures two things again achievement is just how you do you know and and then the the growth is measured based on how you did in one year compared to the previous year and they work on that longitudinally measuring how a particular student grows over the course of the school year compared to how they did last year um growth is a critical component uh especially in um it's for everybody but their focus years ago was on some of the lower performing schools we have more and more every year focused on growth because we know if our students grow our achievement is going to take care of itself um and and so they they come out with that formula um I'm going to toss out
043a little a little bit extra you didn't really ask about when this formula was created it was not intended to be a measure for accountability purposes it was intended to give additional data to help teachers and administrators focus on individual students to help them grow uh now it is evaluative there are elements of that um that that that U that the state does include um in in the in evaluations of school districts so so Dr alen can you give a little bit better detail than what I just Shar not really that was very good actually the only thing that I would add is um it really is based on a if I'm looking at each individual student which then makes up a classroom full of teachers which then makes up a grade level within our
044district it starts with that individual student and it's a predicted score for that student on their TCAP assessment based on how they've performed historically in that same content area and based on how they've performed on other tests uh in other content areas so in math for example in their fifth grade math teap the state before they the student even sits down to take the assessment the state says well they scored this and they scored this on the other assessments so we would predict that they would be about in this range with some standard error and those sorts of things if they and I am very much simplifying it but if they hit that Target that teacher that student that teacher would be awarded one year's growth for that student one year's growth is a three
045on a one to five scale a five would be significantly above expectations for that student one would be significantly below expectations for that student so what you typically see is you s typically see some variance over time in what we're hoping for is that it's around a three we're it's static when it's a five and we have oh I can't say it you can't say it yeah it looks really good um so but we're estc static with the three because that teacher has taken that child that individual child and they have grown that child based on what was anticipated or expected based on all their other performances so the theory is over the long term everybody ought to be a three all right um my so uh to the survey real quick do we have
046any previous surveys to Baseline this against we don't this is this is our Baseline and I will tell you because we we we've chosen some research-based survey data um we don't think we're going to be asking our non-research based question again we're the the the Gallup q12 does a better job of asking that the the core of that than than we did and and so on the hiring slide we had 158 we had an in increase of 158 teachers uh hired this year year overy year from last year this year what is the I guess I've noticed that's about a 20% increase from last year uh is that do we have any idea why such a large increase and then also what was our what's the incremental increase in the number of teachers from year
047to year in other words last year we maybe had a thousand teachers this year we have a,10 or 1,30 thank you for that um I can I have a lot of data that Vicki shared with me and Vicki I'm trying to remember the exact number as of day before yesterday we had three 33 45 teachers 3345 um so we've gained somewhere I better better turn it over to you okay we act we added um 100 roughly 100 teaching positions that would include like counselors you know we did a 504 coordinator um those all of those positions about a hundred the other thing that's a factor is we did have more resignations this year so when you have more resignations obviously you're hiring more and the other um the other point is that this is Apples
048to Apples comparison that's that's the number that we had hired at the same time last year so we continued our hiring longer last year because we were slower to get everything filled um but even over the entire year last year I think we hired 591 teachers all of last year even with people leaving and uh coming and going so it's kind of a combination of those things I I want to add one little piece you mentioned counselors you may recall that we added additional counselors at the elementary school level um we have filled all but 1.5 of those positions which adding in something new with that profession we were just estatic about that uh that we were able to fill virtually all those on day one and and my last question Madam chair if I
049might is well I got two real quick the the hiring of the the key subject teachers that were that are difficult do we have do you feel Vicki that you're that you have the flexibility or maybe Jason I'll ask this does your staff have the flexibility to go after in our hiring process our hiring policies to um make sure that we win win these hires if we're being if we're in competition with a the neighbor for this year yes but it's going to change it's it's that constant give and take so so this spring and summer we had a lot of early contracts and they served us well so I was very pleased with where we are but we can't stay with exactly what we did last year we're going to have to change again
050and continue to grow so to that point I would hope that we get some type of um request or recommendations of what we need to do from a flexibility standpoint to be able if you're into a if you're in a hiring position position you've got a candidate you want to hire and that candidate's you know got multiple offers that we have the opportunity to respond or or compete I guess is my point what we found especially this year is that early contract is key think about somebody just coming right out of school or somebody who's just moved into the area and you apply to half a dozen different school districts that the nerves of that that first a offer is big uh so that folks know they've got that they've got that in they know
051where they're going to be and so that that there's a premium on that and my last question is can we get some statistics on central office higher numbers uh open head C open positions that are still in the central office and how many incremental central office positions year over year we've we've had sure we can work on that Mr Wimberly a couple of things about the survey Jason what was the time frame for Gallop um we are meeting with Gallup August 22nd uh to to to do the planning it we don't have an exact date of when we're going to send the survey out but it's going to be this fall we're going to nail that down in our conversation with gallet make sure we get all their ducks in a row they're good at
052this um but it'll be this fall so there are not that many months before we start seeing some results that's correct well you know I would I guess caution against us spending a lot of time analyzing this survey which we admit was not a professional survey particularly as it relates to uh central office and and the perception of central office and the school board uh on the school board uh a third of the people responded they didn't know which I think kind of speaks to to your comment Jason about the farther away they get the less opinion they will have I mean they think of us I suspect as the people who set pay uh pay raises and some of them are aware of what we're doing some you know aren't um the other thing
053is um if if it feels comfortable to to ask Gallop if they have anything in hand that shows kind of what organizations with 4,000 employees 5,000 um if they have any any history on what organizations of that size typically feel about their board of directors because I have um I suspect that that if you asked a private corporation uh employees of a private Corporation what they think of their board I I just suspect they're going to be very similar to this most won't know or you know just don't have an opinion so I I would encourage you to incorporate that in the discussions with um with Gallup thank you I know they do have that data well they have just about all abouta that's right that's right thank you all right Miss Cleveland my questions
054already been answered okay Mr Brown thank you uh I I really agree with what Rick just said I there a lot of my the same thoughts I had and won't reiterate all of that but I just to say that I think the Gallup survey can give us a chance to craft questions that are that drill down further into the why behind that answer rather than just a surface look at it you on the surface it doesn't look good so the reaction is negative but I think we can learn a lot more about is there one particular thing that people are really focused on or driven by that's frustrating them so I think that's good um that we're going to be doing that quickly um can you go back and and tell us what the specific
055question was I mean the the actual question itself yeah and I may ask Vicki to read it but the the the there were multiple questions um but the uh but it it it was broken out by those groups as I look for this do you feel valued by okay was that was that the exact language yes okay I thought I thought we did the exact language okay that's the exact question that's the exact language now again it was was broken up into different questions do you feel valued by your school administration okay and then my last question is on the the um hires the number of hires you showed 157 that came from another Tennessee school yes do we have that broken down by how many of those people came from counties that were contiguous
056to Williamson I can probably get that for you it will take us a little bit of a little bit of time to to get that but I could probably get that for you I'm just curious as to how many of them were are are deciding they live they work in work or live in Murray or Metro or wherever it might be and are deciding just to drive across the county line because it's closer to their home or yeah more convenient or whatever the case may be versus moving from Memphis or Knoxville yeah at this point of course I have anecdotes but it I'm I'm what curious Vicki with the data I don't know that we have a cell in our hiring system that has the previous location but we could look at each individual and
057get that we' have we'll have to go we'll have to go by hand back through it and look at all which is which is fine I'd like to have the data myself it's just kind of getting some some time to actually dig into that and do that but um we can definitely take a look at it thank you and it's it's not urgent from my perspective just more more curiosity yeah but to your point most of my conversations with new teachers they were one of our neighbors yeah the year last last year Mr Cash answered the questions I had is there anyone else who who has a question in the first round okay second round Mr galbert thank you U we didn't mention it tonight but I I just thought about it how do we
058know how many families are participating in the out of County tuition I don't know that number Mark was looking up in the in the sky trying to pull something I think I don't okay just wondering if we can we you know what we'll email you all that that's be that'd be great thank you I think that's everybody I would just like to add that um when we do get some some data from this Gallup survey that might be an input for board goals so just keep just keep that in mind um moving on to math textbook adoption update thank you madam chair uh we are going through the math adoption cycle this year and especially because this has been a topic that's been discussed a lot uh over the past year or so um we
059feel like it's important for you all to get a overview of the process with some timelines and so I've I've asked Dr Allen to speak to that tonight and my expect is that we'll be giving you small updates over the course of the next few months as we go through this process so Dr Allen thank you Mr Golden Madam chair members of the board good evening um just about every year we go through a textbook adoption cycle um for a particular content area um some years the state will push back the cycle of year but just to by and large every year we go through a different content area as Mr Golden mentioned this year is math um the textbook adoption cycle provides us our Core Curriculum so I wanted to to make sure we
060kind of clearly Define we've had some conversations at policy about clearly defining what some of these things are so the the textbook adoption cycle um allows us to choose curriculum from a state approved list that you as a board will approve it's our primary curriculum we're require where we are required our teachers are required to use that as their primary resource you'll often times hear supplementary uh instructional materials those are materials that would be selected by an individual teacher or a building or a team of teachers the teachers choose those materials to use in addition to their Core Curriculum where they find that they're not able to meet the depth or complexity of a given standard so they'll purchase supplementary materials those supplementary materials have to still abide by all the rules and regulations and
061laws that are in place for all of curriculum but just to clearly Define those two tonight we're going to give you an overview of the textbook adoption cycle that that helps us um select our our Core Curriculum um and um that we're required to use um the textbook adoption process this process is critically important critically important that we get it right on the front end um for one reason that process has to last us for six years by and large sometimes again the state will push things back we'll end up using the same materials for seven in with math I think this year will be the eighth year that we've used our current math materials but by and large we use the same instructional materials for six years it's a it's a big cost on
062the district so we want to get it right on the front and Dave I want to jump in right there yes sir we're hitting the eighth year of the math adoption the the state has changed the math standards in the meantime so we are righte for a a a new math new math textbooks that's correct we're ready um there's also an extensive training that goes along with the purchase of new instructional materials um we pour hours hundreds if not thousands of hours into the training of our teachers on how to use those new instructional materials and it's also critically important so we stay focused on on using those Core Curriculum those core primary resources um and that we consistently train our teachers to stay focused in those materials so as Mr Golden mentioned we want
063to take you on that Journey with us this year um tonight we're going to give as Mr Golden said we're going to give you an overview um but each month it's our hope that each month we'll tell you where we've come from in the process we'll tell you where we are in the process and we'll tell you where we're going in the process um here here's what we think you'll see we'll think we think that you'll see that um State policy and local board policy do a really good job of aligning and laying out exactly what we have to do this is the same policy by and large that we followed for years in selecting our instructional materials it lays it out step by step and we follow it step by step we think what
064you'll also see and be surprised by is that there's a really small list of approved instructional resources that we can select from I think you'll be underwhelmed by the number of Publishers that we get to choose from um we think that you'll see that it engages a lot of stakeholders our teachers provide the primary and largest amount of feedback in the selection for example as the assistant superintendent of teaching learning and assessment I don't have a vote we really rely heavily on our teachers it involves them as the largest stakeholders it also have we also form a textbook adoption committee per the policy so as part of that that textbook adoption committee we have teacher leaders on that process we also have parents that are on that that textbook adoption committee that actually get a
065vote that's then recommended to you as a board to to approve or deny it's very transparent with our parents we have several evenings both days and nights where we make the curriculum available that where we make the Publishers that are up for adoption available so that parents can give us feedback on that um and then at the end you'll see that that as you already know that you get a vote on that so it's a you we think that you'll see that's it's a very transparent process that engages a lot of stakeholders we think it's important to engage you every meeting in this process so that so that we give you an opportunity to give us feedback on the process if there are ways that we and we welcome your feedback if there are ways
066that we can better communicate when dates are coming up um where where um our community or our our families can can review the materials we welcome that um we'll present all that information for you we'll take your feedback along the way but we'll show you the journey that we're on and I think it's wise not just in a math textbook adoption year but I think this tonight's meeting will be a little bit longer since it's a little bit of an overview but we'll be as short as we can in each of the meetings coming up so that you you know exactly just in time what to expect moving forward so that you can provide us good feedback as we move into that process so tonight I have Jenny Lopez she's our curriculum director she by
067and large leads the process to make sure that we follow all the deadlines and timelines so she's going to give us an overview and uh we welcome your questions when she finishes uh her Powerpoint and we'll be able to answer any questions you may have and if I may Dr alen I'm going to add one one other General Iz ation Tennessee is somewhere around 14th 15th 16th in total total public school students per state there's just a few publishing companies typically they do not provide do not produce materials for our Market we are looking generally speaking at materials that are produced for the largest purchasers so I'm again I'm overgeneralizing but I I just want you to know that that really puts an additional premium on our teachers really drilling down to how closely the
068materials align to the Tennessee standards right good evening thank you so much for your time I'm going to make this very quick I think Dr Allen gave you the big picture so I'm going to go through and just provide a little more detail on those um the the overview tonight is just seven slides and it's going to uh present or describe the textbook adoption cycle uh from now until the end which will be in April when we actually when we have you vote and then we report to the state what our selection is so on this next slide this is from todoe they provide the adoption cycle so as you can tell we're at math which I highlighted up there that this is a year for math as you can see it's a six-year cycle
069again that changes as Dr Allen said it could be they we're in it for you know I I know that already we've had Ela push down so we'll be in the ELA cycle for seven years this math math cycle is intended to be six years as they all are um so as you notice I'm going to point your attention to the First Column the state materials adoption um portion of that is in was 2122 there are about to wrap that up um so they'll do that in October it'll be wrapped up for the state portion that comes to us then October 20 of 2022 and we'll spend from October 2022 all the way through April 2023 so it'll be 7 months that we go through that adoption process and then the following column is when
070we actually imp implement the material so we'll do implementation 2324 for the first time and that is a huge lift as Dr Allen said just in terms of uh preparing teachers and and all the training that goes with that so now I'm going to focus a little bit here on where we are so this slide really tells you where we are today so the Tennessee textbook um and instructional materials quality commission those are the folks that really look at the materials that are submitted by Publishers and they look at them and review them and vet them against a rubric that's created um in conjunction with u tdoe that Rubik is created so they look at all the submitted samples and they make a recommendation for approval to the State Board of education on a first
071reading which was today so basically they have the list of books that were U submitted and then they they say okay we approve these or we recommend these for approval so that's the first reading now Publishers have a chance to come back and say wait wait wait we want to resubmit we want to make some corrections and resubmit what was not approved so they have until September 6th to do that so it's a pretty quick turnaround they have to do they'll appeal to the textbook commission's um recommendations and then after that the finalized list the approved list will be released October in October of this year so we're hoping now as soon as that's released we get it normally that's in October last time it was in November because they they they they went a
072little bit longer so but it's supposed to be in October when we get this list once we get that list our work begins until we get that list we just kind of sit tight and we just we look at the list I already looked at the list that's being recommended there's lots of holes lots of gaps everywhere so hopefully by the time that uh some of the Publishers resubmit we'll have a more concise list of what's available so this is our timeline that we're going to walk through this year it begins in October and as you can see the fall is going to be really really busy as soon as we get that list in October um we begin um we we actually put together a textbook committee and that is actually comprised of parents
073and teachers we have those names submitted by principales they'll submit a teacher name and then we'll select some some parents from um from the district each school is represented in that committee and that's really an important part of that we want all schools to have a voice in that adoption process the committee is actually um composed of three different teams there's going to be a a an elementary band a middle school band and a high school band so we will do that between October and November those names will actually come to you and you will approve those names that are on the committee uh the next step is for me to request from Tennessee Book Company we contact them and we request samples they provide six samples of each approved curriculum that we request from
074them we get those six samples those six samples five of those go out to school so we Str strategically select five schools that are in different parts of the district that is really for teacher review and committee parents that are on the committee get to go there and review those materials now I said we we we actually request six sets the six set is actually set up in here in this room and we set it up in here and it's open for public review so that's what happens with that one extra set um each um selected school then submits a plan that includes when they're going to be open for teachers to come and look at the materials what times what dates where they're going to be um displayed so that and then I make
075that information public to all schools throughout the district so I say okay here's for here are the schools that have all of the materials so teachers can go and look at the materials and so that um the parents that are on the committee can go and look at the materials um once we have the materials we will also release we will make um public uh opportunities published and we'll do that in different forms so I work with Carol B song's department for them to release that as as many ways as we can to let parents know that it's available that probably happens we should get them in December sometimes they don't trickle until January and we can't start till then so we do wait till we have all of them on display to begin and
076normally that's like beginning of January so the next steps um are um to review the collection um teachers review the collections at like I said at their schools or a school nearby then we ask teachers to make a recommendation that recommendation is made to the textbook committee so if I'm at a certain school at any given school I let my Committee Member know what I think about um the the textbooks what what I what what I'm wanting to re recommend and then they actually cast their recommendation on a Google form and then I take all those recommendations I aggregated by school and I share that information with the Committee Member that represents that school so as a Committee Member they know what teachers at their school that they're representing want and it is up to
077them to them make a decision on how what they want to recommend to you so then the adoption committee members make a recommendation that comes to you and that'll be February or March depending again on how quickly we get the books and the review February March we make a recommendation to you as a board um you as a board will vote um to approve or not approve whatever is recommended by that committee at that point once we have the your approval we submit that um to um tdoe and we'll let them know what that is we actually post all of that also um on our website that that is that is required and then the after that it's the purchase the training the implementation and we actually work with in partnership with Publishers um to
078do that to to put a really great professional development in front of teachers to help them Implement those materials so teachers are trained on the implementation of the of the adopted textbooks and the instructional materials in May and that goes all the way through the summer and then we spend the first two years um really working and digging deep into the implementation of the materials so that kind of describes the work and it sounds like really easy um but it's actually a lot of work it takes a long time and it takes really it takes just a lot of feedback it takes people and teachers and the community really being invested in that process because it's a like Dr Allen said it's a really big deal I was a math teacher and when we had
079new resources that was like heaven right like that was a big big deal so our teachers look forward to it they look forward to new resources especially after being eight years in one resource they're looking forward to something that's really well aligned uh with the standards and just having that opportunity to really uh be invested in that so thank you so much I look forward to coming back as as often as I can and just reporting to you what's going on that month how it's going and and those will be short little reports so the next slide is just for your own information this is um Tennessee code this is what we follow when we look at at what we do I read this thoroughly I read it a lot then I look at our
080own board policy which also details the process so we follow all of that and this is um this is provided for you so you can look back at this and if I could just add one thing first of all thank you Mr lez it was excellent description the the convers the teachers the conversation that the teachers have when they're going through this process is incredible a huge focus on which of these materials will help me as a teacher help the students learn the standards what the what the standards are asking the students to know and be able to do and if you're thinking about math if you're if you're I mean and I get I I get trapped in this too Miss Lopez is an expert in math that's her her her area we had
081a conversation today well how many different ways can you teach math well there are Publishers on this list that teach uh that that teach through learning the conceptual understanding of the math first and then the algorithm versus and that's a big deal versus the opposite to that versus starting with the algorithm and then helping students understand the conceptual understanding of math I give you that one example to say it's complex and when people say that anyone can stand in front of a classroom and teach they are wrong the experts that have been trained on how to do this and the conversations that they have um are incredible and I would welcome any of you to join any of those teams as they have those conversations about which of these materials will help me help the
082students learn the material the most I hope and believe that we'll have more parents coming this time uh and and looking at the process uh We've often had even in this room those textbooks out for review and sometimes had two or three people come and look so we're going to continue to talk about it publicly Mr Cash yeah Mr Mr Allen this this process is the exact same process we used for ELA correct yes sir what happens if we have a late uh Comer to the curricul like we did with wit and wisdom good question well the the beauty of us having you involved at every meeting you all would know that but my recommendation would be that if additional materials are provided that um we believe that our teachers would want to see because
083in the long term they would be the best materials to use for our students we would make the same recommendation to allow our teachers to see those materials as as long as we still met all the deadlines um uh per the policy and state law we feel like as we lead this process as Miss Lopez um makes ensures that we meet the deadlines and follow the PO the the policy and the process our job is to make sure that we have the absolute best and most comprehensive list of curriculum materials available and approved through the state so that our teachers can review them and and make their recommend so so much of that is driven by the State schedule you know Miss Lopez mentioned a couple of times you know the February or March those
084those kinds of issues so if if the state gets us something the The Hope and presumption is that they that they're giving the leas US locals time to look at it well we're going to get our our approval of books in October from the state correct that's the projection we hope we hope we hope we we should get him in October for the ELA was in November it is a super tight timeline right so any variance and when we get any information really throws us for a loop and then it's it's you're really tight on the timeline to get all of it done but we are hoping for October it looks like they're in line to go for October so we're I'm I'm I'm going to go in the assumption that yes we'll get it
085is there is there anything in policy or uh anywhere else that gives a cut off time period from the state or because all of a sudden a new process shows up and has rushed through yeah yeah there are deadlines Dr Allen if um the state the state's given us well I'm trying to remember if there's anything firm a specific date I think they give us projected dates yeah as I read through all of that I there are really no dates on that on that um on any of the literature that I've read from the state they provide us information like they're providing us information all the time through newsletters this is our timeline this is what we hope to do so we get that information all the time from them but that is not to
086to your question there there is nothing published that holds them to a date so no policy no no law no regulation no just they telling us when they expect it ex exactly exactly especially when it comes to those small points that we're discussing there really isn't anything in policy and law that gives us firm time thank you Mr Brown questions uh first one is aside from it just in the policy dictating that a teacher or a parent is is put on the committee is there any further detail given or Direction given as to qualifications that that parent has to have or that teacher has to have I mean obviously you're going to have a math teacher if it's a math textbook but is there is it any more prescriptive than just parent or teacher um
087I'm speaking off the top of my head on uh on the parent um there really is nothing there really is nothing for the parent it's just it has to be a Williamson County School parent um and so but for the teacher there are guidelines for the teacher they have to be certified a certified a Tennessee certified teacher they have to teach that content and by the way those are I I failed to say that but the only teachers that can cast a recommendation to that committee are the teachers that teach that content only so we don't allow for example English teachers to cast a recommendation for math so you have to teach the content and so to be on the committee if you're a teacher on the committee you have to have taught the content
088for three years you have to be currently teaching that content that you are representing that committee for and you have to be certified Tennessee certified teacher well I I will add Dr Webb um I will add I we did this eight years ago you and I did at at Centennial and we did choose only parents who were math professors or who had math you know just like the people that submitted their names you know we we chose people who really stood out yeah and and I think principles really do try to find a good match there's nothing in policy that states what those parent qualifications have to be but I know that principles usually you know go out of their way to find someone who is really passionate about the content or the adoption process
089so that's definitely taken into consideration although it's not in policy the teacher qualifications are in policy but not the parent except that it has to be a Williamson County School parent okay I appreciate that and second question is what's the rough estimate of the cost that will incur for adopting this curriculum I'm tossing now $68 million we budget it yeah we budget it I think we are at $7 million on the Tex foot budget now that's not just math there are there's growth in that budget uh there there's there's loss and damage books in that budget there's lots in that budget outside of math so math is roughly it's going to be roughly about six million and then about another million for the rest of what we purchase every year and that's built into the
090annual budget as an assumption that's correct okay and it's in the it's always in the budget ahead of the of the year that it's implemented because we have to purchase them in the spring right thank you just add Elliot you're next but just adding on to my comment I remembered it was a Belmont math professor and a TSU math professor professor Mr Mitchell thank you madam chair um just to reiterate what I heard there are not any timelines nor there are there any deadlines that are coded in state law is that a true correct or our policy all right that's right that's correct or nor are there any Tennessee Department of Education edicts on these timelines or deadlines no what does come to us from tdoe every year they do provide timelines like they'll say
091the timeline the the deadline to submit your uh your approved resources for your district is this timeline and they give you a form to fill out so they do as they go along in the process they do release timelines to us that we have toide their guidance or they they're deadlines they're deadlines and we always meet those that we've we've met as you know when I when we went through the ELA adoption process we met all of those guidelines provided by the state but at this point they have not published what those not yet are for the math no they said April is so to make sure we're clear typically the tdoe does administratively set deadlines for the local school districts correct to to get approval that's correct we just don't have those yet and
092and I'm I'm being reminded that they were so efficient with their grading that their release their timely releasing releases of their new grading skill right that was well now we've got about a week ago we have the State Board of educ ation in the Tennessee Department of Education so what you're referring to is the State Board of Education made a decision on July 22nd related to the grading scale this that we're discussing is driven by the State Department of Education two different entities okay fair enough thank you um have we and and we've decided that we're going to buy instead of build is that what I'm hearing that is correct correct okay thank you any other questions Mr cash yeah to piggyback what uh Elliot was talking about why not build our own math is
093a lot uh and it's a lot of research driven processes to to to master standards and I'm going to put it in short terms and then uh Miss Lopez invites you they're professionals who do this who and we don't have those professionals to to to do that we have professional teachers we we have hired for professional curriculum writers Miss Lopez what I would add to that is it it gets really complex with the number of resources that you need for math you know for math there's there's that that piece that's just uh the introduction to the lesson the actual lesson plan but then you get into how much repetition a student needs right so this student needs to see it a different way you may need several handouts or several different opportunities to practice it
094is really timec consuming to build that we have amazing Professionals in our district that I think um just like we did for science and social studies that that may or may not have that um that desire to do that but but here's but here's where I where I'm thinking with this we we struggle to staff with enough Math teachers to do something like this we would need to pull a lot of math teachers out of the classroom and we would pull some of our best Math teachers out of the classroom and you're talking you probably would need a team of 10 to 12 Math teachers to build that and you need an entire year to do that uh so it it really becomes difficult when you're talking about the shortage that we're facing and in
095certain content areas certainly math thank you and we did that with science and social studies you know years ago were in those adoption Cycles we actually had some pretty detailed discussions at the time how far do we want to go with this and we at that time said you know what Ela and math it just it's just not not wise for us to do do that I don't see any other questions M Lopez thank you thank you our next item on the agenda is the operations report Mark short Samuels thank you madam chair good good evening board welcome back to the first week of school um as uh Mr Golden mentioned we're having kind of the typical first week stuff we've got students getting on the wrong bus students getting off at the wrong bus
096stops students not getting off the bus at all CU they fell asleep and the driver had to pick them up when the driver made their clear bus uh check before they pulled away from last stop so uh that's changes we have run into some some issues that we are correcting as we speak in terms of buses having too many students on there we're pretty well convinced that um um that we're we're we're seeing changes in parent decisions on to send students to school on a bus Vice ride the bus I mean Vice being a car rider line you can you can decide what you want on on on on those things but um we are we are working through this and it's just the typical first week kind of stuff um I mentioned already the
097uh um people having training and the number of second loads that we have so we do that uh on on Planning and Zoning Allison's team are analyzing these routes and they're making some changes some going and affect tomorrow some going to affect Monday these the ones we've got to already um these types of things continue typically through August and September uh so so that will go on uh Mr galber she's already working on on your question I may have an answer to you tonight before we leave on uh out of County tuition takers uh on construction I sent you the the update this morning I apologize for not getting that out last night on balance our construction is doing well um the turf feels that a lot of people have some interest interest in are
098are going along well we're at the point in both where we're gluing on um numbers and hash marks and logos and that's got to get done before then the infill gets done and it's weather dependent it's got to have dry conditions so like today wasn't a good day Kevin's still pretty optimistic that we are going to get sun Summit High School finished uh by by next Thursday before summit's first home game on uh next Friday so that's the priority right now and then independence will be the next and independence first home game or next home game is uh is is a week or so later um the wils lane and Cox Road work continues with foundations going in the ground and walls already coming up on wils Lane the traffic light projects I'd love to
099be able to say that all three are finished right now but as you saw only two are completed Independence has completed and gone through its flashing stage and so that one's working the henek uh um Lane Lewisburg Pike one it's in the flashing mode now which the jurisdictions usually do for a week and then then they go to fully operational we expect that to happen Monday or Tuesday of next week and we we had a firm commitment on uh Mast arms for the page crosswalk and and signals of the end of July they didn't come in and now we have one for the end of August so we're still tracking that but those are working along fight page high school phase three work continues with steady progress and if you go to britwood middle school
100if you don't know what a shot Rock pad construction pad is they're putting one in now and it's pretty easy to see I will say that the adjustments on the car rider line at Brentwood Middle School that have been done since Friday have had some significant positive impacts and just a big shout out to Gary Hall and Eric Gardner on getting those Portables fully ready to go before school starts Ed um I will tell you that the teachers that I've talked to that are in though they love being in apportable in their own little world so um things are going well there the maintenance side Adam and his crew is is dealing with the typical first week of a delug of work work orders coming in from schools needing this needing that um and so
101they're working through those things their top priority is is finishing up the Portables that were delivered late and that's what we continue to do on the Food Service side James has had a bunch of applicants for the vacancies that Mr Golden showed on the on the part-time work and um have made a bunch of recommendations to HR who was working through those to get those folks on board um we've only had a few parents complain that they did not hear about the elimination of no cost meals despite all the publicity that went out there but we're um making sure all students get fed free and reduced signups are going strong thanks to the communications that gone out Carol's department and and from the principles themselves and we're very grateful for that um we we don't
102have any participation numbers at this point because it's still a a um short week uh but um should have those next next month um so the last thing I was going to talk about today since this is my last operations report I wanted to give you an update on the Energy savings performance contract work that we've been doing now for I got to interrupt Mark so Mark is retiring in early September y'all uh he's been here I think 16 years 17 just just over 15 15 years he's been unbel an unbelievable asset to us uh and I want to acknowledge that since he since he touched on it so mark thank you for your work um and uh and I got to mention a couple other things just to just to follow up on what
103you mentioned before you hit the Energy savings number one did you all know there's a bus SA feature that when the driver turn the turns the bus off a buzzer sounds and the driver has to walk all the way to the back of the bus to hit the hit the button to turn the buzzer off it ensures that the driver checks every seat so one one item also Portables we don't have all our Portables operational yet for the same logistical reasons that so many companies are dealing with but brentwoods um are operational and that's it sorry Mark thank you and thank you for putting up with me ripping through Ops reports in five minutes per the standard that was set during covid I guess so my last comment is is on the energy program that
104we've had to date we've saved over5 A5 million doar over the past five years in the most specific um program and that exceeds the guaranteed amount that train guaranteed they would save us by over 370,000 amounts now Mr galberth asked some time ago what the ROI is on this program and energy projects are evaluated not by a typical Roi they're evaluated by the simple payback time for the financing that was gained and the money and energy that saved so if you save more than the guaranteed amount then you're effectively shortening incrementally maybe the simple payback amount or time period And so in effect you're you're improving the Roi you're meeting and exceeding the ROI so that's kind of where we are right now with the program that we're entering with with train but that doesn't
105account for the Improvement in the learning environment that these types of things the programs we've done the Investments that we've made uh do now there is no metric that directly connects learning that my colleagues to my right are so so interested in and um overall energy consumption and energy savings but there is a metric called Energy utilization intensity that basically is a metric to compare how good one building is compared to the other and it basically all the energy that's used in that building divided by the square feet in that building over the course of a year and you come up with a number when we started this program a little shortly after I got here but before I got here our eui as a district wide was a value of 80 880,000 BTUs per
106square foot per year as we stand right now 15 years later it's 33,000 BTUs per square foot per year now this is this is like golf low number is is good that's about a 50 50% reduction in energy consumption utilization and cost over the course of that period of time because of the type of Investments that we were able to make because you provided the money the County Commission provided the money and we made the decisions to put those investments in things that are going to outlive um the simple payback period so basically what I wanted to say tonight is thank you very much for supporting that all those phases that we went through given that money there and just know that at the end of the payback period which we got another 13 years
107or so to go we'll probably have about two $2.8 million of annualized savings that will continue on because of the Investments we've made that money is being used right now to pay back the terms but it goes longterm so your support of those programs the County Commission support of those programs has significantly reduced our energy utilization across the district as Kevin and now Eric is builting those things into new schools as we go along and as Adam and his folks are watching them and maintaining them and keep them going and Madam chair pinning your questions that concludes my reports Mr Wimberly I just I would just like to say that Mark you've you've gone through this this energy utilization project with a lot of passion and a lot of leadership and the the results are
108quantifiable and appreciated so hats off to you thank you very much thank you sir Mr Mitchell thank Madam chair uh Mark two questions and then a comment um I had a a constituent who uh comment to me today who's recently moved into Williamson County from Florida said that his um want I think 10-year-old who uh goes to Thompson Station Elementary said from the time she gets on the bus until she gets home it's 10 hours is that is that a normal expectation for an elementary school student did I hear you correct sir 10 hours 10 hours from the time she no not on the from the time that when she gets on the bus to go to school till the till she gets back home in the duration she's yeah so she's away from home
109for 10 hours um so we're in school at least 6 and a half to 7 hours um by by board policy we can't have a student on a bus longer than an hour and a half by practice we keep it under an hour so I don't know how to answer your question I'll give I'll give them that and then this is again just the first week and they're they but that they were commenting and I think they're talking to the principal but they felt like I guess they're com was they felt like it was a long time for their child to be away from home well our our buses aren't air conditioned so if coming from Florida they're coming from an air condition bus I assume maybe it feels like it's much longer yeah uh
110well they were more talking about the time the other the other uh question I have is the safety features on the bus that you is that on all of our buses or is it I was trying to remember what year that was instituted do you all know I'm I'm not sure yeah of course we have about we have a 15 to 18e life cycle of buses depending the last three years are are vary a little bit I can't remember when that feature was added but it's been there more than 10 years I'm not 100% but that's just a backup to the standard procedure we teach you walk your bus you look underneath seats you look at all the seats uh primarily before you drive off from the last stop um just to make sure no
111one's sleeping so yeah well that's good to know and and my comment was the same the same par from Florida said that the their children were all commenting that that we have much nicer bus drivers than they had in Florida and and that one I'll accept that one sir and the and I think it was a 10-year-old that also said this must be a they must have more money here because the food was a lot better I'll take that one too thank you Miss Cleveland yes um Mr Samuels how many Portables do we have at BR middle now eight and are those at some point do those go away when after the first or second phase and kids get moved up into the three-story buildings or those Portables going to be there for the whole
112duration till the fall of 2025 or when it's opened sometimes sometime during the second phase the site will probably be clear enough that we can get some of them gone so they won't be 100% there'll be still some until the actual completion yes ma'am I wouldn't they're going to be around for most of the two years I think okay as long as the teachers are happy about it so far the ones that I talked to are pretty exstatic they have their own air conditioner and and um I get the feeling that the administration maybe doesn't come into the portable so much but I don't know if that's correct or I know they're a lot nicer than when we had them in elementary school that's for sure they are really nice thank you yes ma'am I
113don't see any other oh Mr cash thank you yeah on the uh children on the bus I just got an email before we started the meeting um my bus driver said that she's going to be quite a bit later because there's been uh students added and she's picking up High School Middle School dropping them then going to the elementary school and the kids um they're on the bus well they've got off around uh 5:00 couple of days I I know it's the first week and everything and they're making adjustments but there like you said Jason there's a lot more students riding on the bus it seems like yeah and when we when we plan this this first week especially is going to drive that elementary schools release at 350 um so when you factor in
114getting to the bus getting on the bus um getting out of the parking lot especially some of those rural areas it's around 5:00 right well what what they're doing is they put the kids in the cafeteria yeah and uh that's where they're waiting mhm Y and it depending on how the high school and middle school drop offs go is how long it takes for the elementary to get home there will there will be some struggles throughout the year and a lot of it's going to be driven by substitutes there are those anomalies with traffic here and there that no matter how you are there's there's those there are those issues but if there's if there's a delay at the high school middle route in the afternoon well frankly either one it does affect Elementary Mr
115Cash some of that that you describe as a result of plan second loads as well in some cases so thank you thank you Mr Samuels I just want to say thank you for all of your contributions I for the past 15 years and it's been a pleasure to know you and to work with you thank you all right moving on to the board chair report just a couple of quick items first of all um Lydia received updates on where everyone is with their uh required by law state training this week and there are about six people who have not met their training requirement for this past year year according to tsba so please reach out to Lydia it's really important to keep up with that and you especially um you know if you've been on
116the board for a while you want to make sure that you've attended those orientation modules and done what you need to do uh particularly before our new board members come on so that you can help them out um so see Lydia if you have any questions about that um the next item is um make sure that you're scheduling time to to be out volunteering at your schools or being at school events our our teachers and our staffs need us right now um I volunteered on Friday and walked into a situation where there was a critical need for an for a volunteer in an office because something that something that had occurred at the school that day so um you know we we saw these survey results and you know although we're not taking them as
117the gospel truth one of the best ways to show that that you know you care about this role and what you do in this role is to show up at the schools and help out and then uh finally I want to introduce Bobby cook who is our new board legal counsel um and uh you all may know Bobby Bobby was with us last August um at our meeting that gained some um worldwide notoriety he was there and he served as our attorney that night um so the what I would ask and uh Jason tell me if this is correct is that if you have a question if you have a legal question call Dana first and if it's about a par parliamentary or a board man matter Dana will decide and whether or not you
118need to talk to Bobby or not correct she'll she'll refer you to Bobby that's correct okay so Bobby do you have anything you want to say I'm looking forward to serving with you all okay well thank you and thank you for being here um looking at the time I think we have the a lot of these new business items are are fairly short so let me look let me pause here and see if anybody has any questions about the board chair report doesn't look like it okay so let's move to some new business items and then we'll plan to take a break at 8 so new business 2020 3 School Board budget uh there there are a number of Grants to talk about um assistant superintendent farmer thank you madam chair we Mr Golden when
119looking through what I was presenting tonight asked to have it kind of broken down into three separate groups grants operations and then capital projects and so as Miss Garrett said the first section is dealing mostly with grants that are carryovers from the prior year donations or grants where we received funding but did not spend all of it so in order to be able to put it back into the budget this year to finish it out we're going to have to vote on each one of these via Amendment and the first of those is the carry forward reserves these are actually donations that were received for various items including one that we've carried over for a couple years um donations that were for the superintendent banquet and have a small amount left on that one then
120we also have money um that is from MTSU that we get for dual enrollment that is a carryover and then finally for donations that were received by the willos and so the first is the carryover reserves and the total for it is $21,995 any questions no questions the second we have is the safe schools Grant carryover uh we have received this uh for the last several years in the particular for this one um Mr Fletcher has been going through and a lot of the money has been spent on safety glass at the schools there's still $202,450 two that we need to go ahead and book for this year and he already does have um plans on how he's spending that related to uh radios bases within the school to give better coverage any questions no
121questions the third is a middle school stud stem Grant we received 40,000 last year we were able to spend roughly 30 million I mean 30 30 million 30,000 of it so we have $10,000 $8.20 as a carryover uh for that and they also have um already had plans on how to they're going to finish spending that Lydia would you mind tapping that screen behind you sry any questions board members no questions Miss farmer next is our Governor's give Grant this grant actually was awarded in 1920 the 201920 year um and is related to a cyber trailer security trailer that CTE is in the process of purchasing um as you've heard I said it last year and we are continuing because of the supply chain issues it has been a slowo in having this trailer fabricated
122and so um we're bringing again this year but delivery again should be hopefully is going to be in November $71 17,42 I don't see any questions Miss farmer the last carryover we have is related to transition Grant carryover reminder transition are our student support service students that have graduated from high school and are transitioning into the workplace uh the funding for this particular Grant runs from October to September and so this is that last 3mon portion that covers partly salaries for for us um related to teachers for the transition program and so we have $34,636 that we need to to book for this year no questions the next and final Grant is a new grant that the uh Central cafeteria fund has received it is USDA awarded a supply chain assistance grant that's going to
123help offset um some of the food cost it's $825 , 28421 this is specifically for minimally processed foods Mr redti um has talked with us and pretty much knows that this is going to be his milk his milk money for the year it it is a lot of M mil money but that's about not quite that most of it um but most of it will go for milk that 21 cents is key I don't see any hands raised as farmer thank you this next uh section was operations and Mr Golden already spoke to a need that both payroll and HR has found um an additional positions and it's mostly related and being driven by um the hiring that we've had summer school played a large part again this year um we kind of know now
124what we need I think we both thought both departments felt like that um we might be able to wait but have reached a point where it's truly critical for us to be able to continue to provide the services that we're providing at the level that we provide them um and so we're looking it specifically three three jobs um a recruiter and an investigator in human resources and then also another payroll accountant we were requesting to use undesignated fund balance um to cover and the total cost for those three would be$ 26456 and again that includes all benefits that go along with the salaries so if I may add a little bit to that you all this is unusual this early in the budget year um but I alluded to it in my presentation the volume
125of Demands on both the human resources department and the payroll department were extra ordinary this summer and we anticipate it's going to continue um one of the items that uh Miss Hall has worked on with her staff is restructuring with an added emphasis on recruiting um the the investigator portion is Title 9 is is eating us up especially this spring because the door has been open in a very different way through the federal RS so so um again I'm asking for something unusual early this year but we know that both those departments need some more staff Mr galberth do we I mean given the fact that we have um that we have excess funds from lack of full Staffing is this process just to get those when we when we get new new positions do
126we have to ask for the money we come back generally to ask them so that we can add them into our PCR and into them okay the because ultimately we've got enough money to pay for this but we have to ask correct thank you thank you Mr gabith you're right ultimately the chances of this affecting the budget beyond the existing budgets pretty slim I don't see any other question Oh Mr Mitchell thank you madam chair so Jason is there a reason I guess and Rachel we didn't budget this um what three four months ago when we were putting the budget together well yes number one we've seen a lot more changes especially this summer uh the the recruiting process got more aggressive this summer than it ever has been and you know we start our
127budgeting process in November December we we bring to you our budget proposals in March the County Commission starts looking at it at that point especially this summer it became apparent that that that the volume spiked beyond what we projected so what what makes you feel like this is this is a a long-term change as opposed to just a seasonal or a you know result of our over of the current economy and the and the employment the you know the hot employment market so so I can I can tell you um from from the HR standpoint the investigations have been they've been a struggle for a long time and Title 9 has really pushed us over the edge we went from seven Title 9 investigations last in in 2021 to four four 51 last year and
128it's just it's very time consuming and there are a lot of of of steps we have to follow that are very particular to those Federal Rags so the investigations piece is large and then the recruitment part is also because we we've combined with that role of recruiter a lot of other things like grow your own there's a lot of grow your own the management of almost 2 student teachers and you know the early contract Parts there's a there are a lot of of of other parts to uh recruiting if you will that are outside of what you would normally think of as a recruiter and as far as the title nine research is concerned is there a reason we shouldn't just just Outsource that as opposed to hire in and staff have we looked at
129what is the cheaper route oh what there's so it' be much more expensive to Outsource it um under the Title Nine regulations they have to be we have to have a Title Nine coordinator we have to have investigators decision makers all of them have to be trained specifically in Title 9 so we would be looking at um additional legal expenses if we were Outsourcing so the less expensive route would be inhouse so but we're only talking about investigators here Dana so correct we're we're not talking about coordinators and everything else and and have we actually done that analysis to to see actually I I mean from from the training standpoint the investigators and the cour coordinators can be the same person so these two we have a coordinator that does coord that is she's the
130sole coordinator for the whole District then we also have an investigator um but then we still have regular employment cases and matters that have to be investigated with all of those things falling on one so to answer your question I haven't I'm sorry I haven't run an analysis on that I don't I don't um that hasn't really been anything that we've contemplated that's the that's the answer to your question we we have not done an analysis on on independent contractors for that okay and all right thank you Mr Brown thank you and it's not so much budget related but you when you said that we gone from 7 to 51 that raised a flag for me without getting into specifics obviously what what's the nature of those complaints that are having to be investigated um
131I'm I'm I'm going to give the a brief overview and then you can give them a more specific the regulations on how these are investigated have have changed and so the identification of Title 9 complaints and the the our requirements have have changed and so it's open the door for more complaints that must be identified as Title 9 when in the past they might not have been and then if if you would fill in and then they have to specifically come through the title n coordinator and there's a process that we have to follow um that we are required by Federal Regulation to follow so that's that's the primary reason why more is coming up to the district level so as an example if there's a bullying allegation of a bullying Behavior based on sex
132then it's no longer just an issue for an administrator to deal with it the it it comes up to the title 9 coordinator so would it be fair to say that most of this is gender related sexuality related well I don't know about I don't think so sexual harassment yeah so um a couple of years ago you heard about Title 9 on college campuses so um sexual assault um stalking rape that that was and there was a process set out we now mirror that college process in K through 12 so um it's a lengthy process because now both sides have due process protections um that we've got to make sure that we are in compliance with so in addition to um some of these previously would have been handled under our discrimination policy um but
133now with the regulations um a couple years ago it's just increased so so what qualifies as a title non violation has been expanded significantly by by by rule or by interpretation by federal regulations by regulation and in this time in this case um generally regulations are guidance but in this particular case they have the same um they are codified so they have the same effect as law okay thank you please go ahead moving into capital projects the first item we have before you is the request to transfer uh some money out of contingency it's related to Ravenwood high school and originally in the the budget for it uh in the 22 classroom Edition it was $265,000 that was served as a placeholder within that budget knowing that it that items could come back higher but
134that went ahead and put that into the budget as you know all projects are coming back higher now than they had been and so it costs have gone up and uh we need to increase that budget line and so we're requesting $25,000 to do that in order to be able to complete the project and again those funds would be taking from contingency that's going to leave within General funds in contingency $173,800 is related we'll say the next two items are going to be related to East Elementary um also known the Cox Road school that is currently being built the it budget for this particular um item was not funded uh because the funds were used that would have been part of that budget were used in the actual being able to award the contract again
135contract bids came back higher than what we anticipated and so the funding that was already in place went ahead and went towards that so we're now coming back and asking for the it uh budget as well as Furnishings um and also some offside offsite road work we'll get to that one but for this we're wanting to pull $400,000 out of contingency um again the it total is 1.6 but for now 400,000 coming out of it to go towards that that's going to leave within rural then uh $1,687 21 any questions so then to go along with that um we have an actual resolution to fund $4 million um again we will be pulling this from our fund balance and that breakdown for that 4 million the need is to fund the additional part for technology
136of 1.2 million furniture and fixtures to finish that out at 650,000 and then there is some off-site road work that has been requested and we're budgeting 2,150,000 for it no questions oh late breaking question Mr galberth Jason what's been the mood of the of the County Commission as we're as we're getting these inflationary increases thank you for asking that question um we we go through two processes with asking for Capital funds one one is the pro Project based through our 5-year Capital plan and the second is the annual Capital requests that tend to be maintenance issues safety issues in technology annual needs roof repairs that kind of thing um I was told by uh some Commissioners when we went through that latter process this year that they were going to be making a motion to
137reduce the funds very clear good professional conversation that motion did not pass we actually were fully funded this year in that second piece um however I do see some pretty substantial indications that it's going to be more difficult over these next few years to get Capital funding because the cost is going up so much um we don't know what the future holds what we're talking about right now is finishing up projects um but I think we're we're going to be going to have to be very careful and thoughtful about what projects we ask for over the next few years because the costs are going up because the timeline to get things done are going is going up another issue related to that is um we know that they are making a change in how they
138go to bond market which funds many of our requests uh they um the county for the last few years has gone to the bond market twice a year there's an expense related to getting Bond counsell and going through that process so they've decided to change that to once a year uh and so that's going to affect our ability to project cost because we have in the last few years split these cost up as we went and we had a better grasp of what the costs were now we're going to have to project earlier uh so I think a combination of all those things are going to make it important for us to um to to to be very thoughtful especially about our 5year Capital plan knowing that the costs are going up um final comment
139related to that is uh um well it dropped out of my head so I'll leave with that well I did hear I heard a commissioner I can't remember when you were there and I can't remember when it was but say something about the the how much he thinks our 5-year Capital plan was going to increase and and I and I I think you directed them to the fact that we we come with that annually and y'all are already looking at at the at the increases related to that that's right we bring that to you all in November um and the mark and his staff have and Eric have already started analyzing the the projected timeline of what we've seen in actuals per square foot to plan for the future when when you all see the
140numbers it's going to be a lot higher and Common Sense tells me it's going to be more difficult to get funding final thing I was going to mention is I think it's especially relevant in the context of rezoning because it's going to be more important for us to show that we've hit capacities at many of our schools before we're we're going to get those additions uh in those additional buildings next up we have the Summit High Edition which mirrors um Ravenwood again a 22 classroom Edition and we're coming back requesting additional funding to finish it as well as due to weather conditions and when the project was started uh we had to install a shot Rock pad that cost $80,000 that was not in the original budget so requesting 282,000 um this would be coming
141out of um undesignated fund balance I don't see any questions the final uh resolution that we have for you tonight is phase four uh of paage high school and as Mr Golden said this we're coming with this one a little earlier because we're trying to get the funding uh before the County Commission before they go to bond market in October and so this would be phased for the um it's an intent to fund request for $6,500,000 and we would be requesting 8 million for your own knowledge um this year in the current year and then the remainder the 185 in the 23 24 school year so if I may add to this one one of the questions I asked Mark and Eric was is this the final amount of funding to complete 100% complete the
142page high school project Eric I'm paraphrasing barring some emergency yes and then this will be the final funding get the get page just completely almost 100% rebuild at a much greater capacity Mr Brown for phase four uh Eric if Mark I don't know if you have that off the top of your head Eric doesn't have a microphone Eric knows this off the top of his head 24 follow of 24 so to to be opened and ball 24 to receive students that's right okay that assumes we get the money and can can uh get started on it spring of 23 and again we're about 8 10 months ahead on on this request because of the conversations with Bond counsel I don't see any additional questions so we're going to take a 10-minute break here uh be
143back at 81 no excuse me um 8 8:15 please thank you e e e e e e e next up we have board policies for first and final reading Miss OS Brooks yes yes the um first one for first and final reading is 1.102 board members legal status and the addition is um a new law that passed uh public chapter 809 that also states that you need to be a qualified voter and resident of the county for one year prior to qual to the qualifying deadline for running as a candidate any questions Madam chair real quickly these these for first and final just as a reminder our board policy says if it's editorial in the nature if it's editorial in nature or if there's an urgency to it it can be first and final these
144are Law changes uh so that's why we're asking this for first and final and we traditionally have these during this month if we're going to have some with new law changes that's right do we find the source of the static okay everyone please be gentle with your microphones all right uh next up emergency preparedness plan so this um addition is on well there's a um in lines 25 we all of our schools have um aeds so just a editorial change there and on page two um public chapter 936 now requires remote learning drills at least once every school year um the drill has to accurately reflect how students would transition to remote learning but the student shall not be asked or required to transition to remote learning at any time during the drill that is
145from state law so um we will be doing a tabletop exercise with um administrators so that we um could transition and it would not disturb instruction with students Mr Welch related to the AED um I know we were also looking at stop the bleed training that we were going to what I'm sorry we were looking at stop the bleed training early oh bleed sto the bleed training and then sort of Co disrupted a lot of that are we back on track with that um we are doing uh um some of that um bleed stop training um the aeds just as an aside oh you didn't have any questions related to that so Gary if if um um Mr Welch asked about the stop the bleed training could you speak briefly to that we received kits
146have stopped the bleed which shows if someone got stabbed or got shot that they would that they have these kits to stop the bleeding to be trained we have all these kits in the schools our nurses have them they've been fully trained on them they're putting them with the aeds in the schools our buses will have them but they're not going to get them on the buses until we fully train the bus drivers on how to use them in case of an emergency okay thank but it was a [Music] grant report cards and grading systems yes um with report cards and grading systems you will see a new numeric grading scale that uh was part of Statute and then adopted by the State Board of Education at the end of July on um the next
147page just some clarification that this grading system shall be uniform throughout the school D District as yall are aware we currently have two different uh grading systems also um w grades points out how those are calculated so they would be calculated each grading period and with each semester exam and that um are the changes with the weighted grade then onto page three some additions of uh Lottery scholarships that are part of state law that we would have our counselors provide information to our students um regarding the lottery and it would be age appropriate information depending upon the age of the student and then the last change on page four is the lottery scholarship day where um schools teaching students in grades 8 through 11 would conduct a lottery scholarship day for students and their parents
148so if I may Madam chair this is a significant change and it's happening quickly because the State Board of Education passed a rule change on July 22nd um our grading policy has traditionally been a little bit lower from a num perspective than the state lottery scholarship grading policy 93 for an a with them 91 for an a with us as an example however our failures have been exactly the same the new state policy drops their grading numbers below our existing one but most especially at the failure point from 69 and Below to 59 and Below we can't have a grading system for us where we fail a student for a credit in high school and then a couple of years later they go and apply for their Hope Scholarship and they should have gotten credit
149for that per the terms of the Hope Scholarship so we need to make an immediate change especially at the failure level so that our line for an F is exactly the same as the Hope Scholarship structure so when a student goes to apply for the Hope they've got the same standard Mr Wimberly thank you Jason you may have just answered my question but beyond the Hope Scholarship what are the other impacts or significant impacts on students and families by changing the scale um number one I'm going to mention the Tennessee promise which is actually Mr Cash and I had a conversation this morning about this and both of us were trying to come up with that the Tennessee promise is another scholarship program that that could be affected by this and Dr Webb if you
150would speak to speak to the other additional impacts on students P thank you uh those are the two main uh changes for the state of Tennessee of course the overall GPA impact act which actually would be on the plus for students um with this change it would um their their GPA would more easily reflect an a than in the past you know so the numbers have shifted so that is a plus for our students as far as their overall GPA and its impact U with us going in line with the um state scale uh but otherwise other than what Mr Golden has already shared there really isn't an additional significant change the significant change CH is for our classroom teachers who are adjusting their grading practices um and ensuring that um our grading our daily
151grading with of the state standards continue to reflect Mastery of of the work and that Mastery now is at a 60% okay thank you Mr Hall uh thank you I was just going to make the point that Dr web just did that overall from our conversation in the policy meeting uh the big takeaway for me was that this benefits students and likely increases the number who will get the lottery scholarship so big kind of a drastic quick change but a positive one at least Mr Welch I'm trying to think back to the last time we did this and if memory serves I think the reason we had changed to our our current grading policy pre this at any rate was we had kind of looked and done some analysis of what other districts even Beyond
152Tennessee and other states were doing and and the rationale for that was because we send so many of our graduates out of state that are competing to get into colleges and scholarships and and everything there that we wanted to be in a position that that they were competitive um so not just kind of apples to apples within our borders but but also competing for whether it was ivy league or or wherever else that way so I I guess the question I have with this and I guess really a moot point since it's being dictated from us from up on High um is there any concern about that if if that was the rational that we changed and now we're being forced to change away from how is how is that being impacted for those students
153that are moving outside of our state borders for well it's we we don't believe it will be a net negative for students because that that discussion you're right and there were some robust discussions a lot of brainstorming over grading policies and we've done that off and on over the years um the state lottery scholarship structure was a 93 and up was an a ours has been a 91 for that very reason that you mentioned under this new policy they have moved from a 93 to a 90 and so because it's it's a onepoint difference for us we did a quick analysis and we determined it's it's close students are going to be better off having the same grading scale because it's so close we have to change the failure anyway because it's a that's a
15410-point difference that's that's the big change and so ultimately we anticipate this has the potential to be more positive the negative for the students Dr Webb you wanted to add something to that I will thank you for the question Mr Welch a couple things I want to point out on our high school transcripts what's reported on a high school transcript is their numeric not their numeric grade their letter grade so the number itself isn't reported on our transcript just the letter and there are two GPA that are current currently reflected our Williamson County weighted GPA and our Tennessee Lottery GPA um often times colleges and universities will ask for an unweighted GPA which we don't report um but four years from now when our freshmen are graduating and have this in place for four years
155in essence the lottery scholarship GPA will be somewhat of an unweighted is uh GPA as far as the additional quality points are concerned but we continue to have the internal waiting in the state of Tennessee uh that's reflected in the blue line of this policy the three points that are added to the quarters and to the semester exam the other thing that a college or university receives when one of our Williamson County students is applying for colleges across the country and across the globe really we have students um going to colleges across the globe uh they receive what's called a high school school profile uh every high school has an individual one that of course has our district policies but has some additional data that's specific to the um qualifications and the achievements of students
156who graduate from that particular higho School through overall act their AP scores that they uh that they typically get how many students take uh AP uh courses Etc so it's an individual School profile when a college or university gets that college application for a Williamson County School student they get that transcript that I just described they also get the school profile now that is a digital process not paper like it used to be and so every college and university across the country and again across the globe have a their own unique way of evaluating and putting students on a uh even playing field as they evaluate the potential of that academic record of that student they look at the number of AP courses the number of honors courses the number of A's they take into
157consideration you know that scale and and you'll find in our counselors and and counseling Specialists as they communicate with with uh the recruiters for our area it's they it's very unique their process of putting everyone on even playing field to evaluate they don't just look at that GPA that's coming they look at the whole body of that transcript in addition to the application itself so I agree with what Mr Golden's saying I don't think that this is going to necessarily impact the overall um application status of our students um it's a state Statewide um scale uh which all of our students in the state of Tennessee for for the most part are on so I don't feel that there there's a disadvantage to this change I just think it's going to be different of how
158we how we report report um what is unique to us and the greatest Advantage for Williamson County students as they apply competitively is what we offer we offer a wide array of AP and IB courses a wide array of honors courses and our students are exceptionally successful when they take them and they're exceptionally successful on the AC and the PSAT so when that transcript comes and that school profile comes that's something special that a Williamson County student gets that is definitely unique and different than other students in the state of Tennessee they're highly competitive um in a rigorous exceptionally rigorous environment that's the greatest advantage in my opinion that a Williamson County School students have okay since you so you had mentioned IB uh one of the things I was noticing there is the IB
159math is now honors as opposed to AP that's been the that is has been the um the class ification of that course specifically it's that course uh in the progression of IB math um there is a course that you can take in the IB program before you get to an IB level course the name of the course is a little bit misleading but it has been uh an honors uh weighted course just how we've described it as blue lined a little different okay so it wasn't an AP course being called an IB which is now weighted as an honors as opposed to an AP we that's that's not a a ding for taking it that's right that's not a change and that is universal through the international Balor programming right thank you just a quick
160reminder maybe for those who are watching we have an IB program at Franklin High School so it's this the IB references are exclusive to Franklin I don't see any other questions Mr galberth Jason you you answer this question but several people had it um and it was a um they got really excited about potentially about this I mean this was overwhelmingly um seems to be I mean all positive when you're I mean we're we're effectively inflating the the gpas of the of the students but we're doing it in accordance with the with the state um policy so I'm completely fine with it but tell me how and you said that you evaluated whether or not to to make any of this retroactive I know we're talking about making a retroactive back to last Friday but
161as far as some people were saying hey does it make sense that we have one grading scale for for the next year or two or three and should we make it retroactive to the beginning of their of their High School can you just tell me explain why just feasibly that's not possible sure I'll give you the parameter first the the new state board policy says that the old one shall be in place for those school years and the new one shall be in place for this school year so that's the procedural part of it the Practical part of it is the idea of retroactively going back is a practical impossibility we have some students who've moved to other to other states you we've lost track of uh we have U teachers who've left teachers are
162the decision makers on grades um so so there's been a change there retirements um th those those uh grades are already in the books and with the moment those grades are in the books things change and so um and on top of that teachers started the year the semester of those particular years knowing what the standard was and the change of standard on the Fly is not wasse well and I guess to add one more potentially you you you would have had people that could have failed a class and remediated it and all and all of a sudden now you've got two grades in the system exactly right just it was it was wishful thinking I think on some people's part but it just logistically didn't didn't really make sense but I didn't know about
163the about the law saying that it would be an effect for this and actually when you and I had that discussion that was before I I you know I was able to really study the policy where it had that Clarity gotcha thank [Music] you I believe believe we're ready for the next one all right the next one is 6.200 and this is still a first and final reading attendance policy the uh change is on page four of five the driver's license revocation has changed and um no longer must the student make a passing grade in at least three full subjects um so we have removed that um and then the code section that updates it is on page five public chapter 878 any questions I don't see any questions okay the next one is reporting
164child abuse and you will see on the first page um that there is an option now when the alleged abuse involves someone employed by or otherwise affiliated with a school the report uh may be made directly to DCS and law enforcement um and then notify the coordinator um you will see up above our current reporting um by state law is to report immediately to the coordinator DCS and law enforcement and um the last page has the public chapter um included in that any questions I don't see any questions okay so that concludes the first and final reading the next policies are for first reading so these will go through our normal process of a first reading in August and a second reading in September the first one is 2.85 purchasing currently um and you'll see
165on um the first p page currently are um any B any purchases of supplies materials and Equipment it's currently an excess of $25,000 we were asking that that be changed to $50,000 um and that would still require um that there be at least three competitive quotes the other piece that um you'll see at the bottom of page one is we would also allow any part of a bid and if applicable we could accept that bid which is best as evidenced by reasons relative to the purpose of the purchase uh that is a new section in the public chapter that we are referencing at the end of the policy and the other change is in line 10 on page two now um in addition to contracts for legal services and Educational Consultants we now can and
166include um services from an insurance provider and um those would not have to be based on a competitive bid so um we're asking for that to be changed as well and then you will see on page three the legal sites and Madame chair just as a quick double check I think you had said this but I just want to make sure the County government changed their policy last month uh to re to reflect this change in law so we're paralleling them as well any questions no questions Miss SBS okay the next one is a new policy um is ASB bestus management plan this is the plan that we and procedure that we have used Mark the last 15 years okay longer than that so it predates when Mark was here um we do the board
167does have to have a policy on this plan um so so we drafted this one um again it is what we have been doing but we are um asking since the requirement is a policy that you approve this one any questions Mr Brown I think it was discussed at the policy committee but remind us again please why now after having having this having been doing this for so long we now have to have a policy it's Federal regulations this isn't a state law but federal regulations that we should have a policy a new a new Federal Regulation um yes okay thank you I don't see any other questions we can move to the next one miss OS Brooks okay instructional standards is the next one um you may recall I believe um last year Tennessee
168State we included um in this there's a new law passed last year that instructional materials could not align exclusively with common core um it is now a requirement for us to include in policy how those complaints would be submitted so we have um added in lines 12 that that complaint would be submitted per Williamson County School Board policy 4.41 and in addition also added that um complaints regarding teaching prohibitive Concepts um in violation of state law shall be submitted per the regulations developed by the Tennessee Department of Education um that is a new requirement with uh the state board rules um that has been on our website for um I guess that was an emergency rule last year so the complaint complt Remains the Same we just have in policy how those two different complaints
169are handled any questions no questions okay the um next policy is 4.41 um so let me give a bit of a a preface at the end there are two policy that we are recommending deletion for 4.4 instructional materials and 4.42 selection of instructional materials those um parts of those policies have been added to this textbook and instructional materials policy um we did that in an attempt of having everything in one policy instead of having to go back and forth between the three policies so in the beginning um we do have some definitions so that it is clear as we go through this policy what we what instructional material whether it's a textbook instructional material or supplementary instructional material so those are defined on the first page then um we've just I've added some sections to
170hopefully make it easier to read and so the next section will be for the selection of board approved Tex textbooks and instructional materials um that process you heard from Miss Lopez in this um really what has changed is we are calling them board approved textbooks and instructional materials and the state textbook commission does have a new name they are now the state textbook and instructional materials quality commission so that has been updated on the second page um we changed online 20 um what we what's currently in policy is that there would be at least one copy of each text and this is textbooks um what we learned is now sometimes the Publishers only sub Supply online so we updated this so that it is clear whether it's a written textbook whether it is online then
171that information would still need to be provided um for review and um also that the public has to be aware of the dates of the textbooks and the material prior to their adoption just to make that crystal clear the next section is the selection of supplementary instructional materials these are the um supplementary instructional materials they are um selected by our uh School personnel and you will will see um there the different people who can um and that's currently the way it is it's just hopefully um spells it out with more clarity um and then gift supplementary instructional materials may be accepted again that's in current policy then we move on to inspection and review um and this is not for an adoption process this is if um parents or Guardians want to inspect um and
172it may be textbooks it may be instructional materials or supplementary instructional materials um so we have uh procedures for inspection of that material um the next one is care of the different materials and textbooks again just added in the um heading there on page three um we have in our current policy that fines may be assessed at the discretion of the principal this gives some clarity um about what the principal can or cannot do it also provides the principal um has that also reserves the right to wave any fines if that is appropriate so this next piece is the Recon consideration and this would be re reconsideration of board approved textbooks instructional materials and supplementary instructional materials um this takes into account the new law which is uh public chapter 1085 and this is uh
173what you have probably heard as the Age appropriateness act so that act sets out a complaint filed it's a by a current WCS parent or Guardian employee or student regarding any of those materials and here is the process what you will see in blue is if the is what differs from our current process um per state law and number four materials shall be removed immediately if they were created to align with common core or marketed or otherwise identified um and that's like I said state law we did add the um ad hoc Review Committee it would be um appointed within seven working days and um has representatives from different areas that may include um office staff central office staff classroom teachers parents and may also include students then on the last page so you'll see
174on the last page lots of black because that is our current reconsideration policy um with the exception that that Review Committee their decision would be final for up to two years or if it's appealed it would be the decision of the board may be binding for up to two years and the board May determine um if we you are removing textbooks instructional material or supplementary material you would make the decision of whether that was for one school or if it would apply throughout the district so um that is and again this is first reading that is um textbook selection and adoption so that's a lot to take in hopefully we've looked at it and read it before now uh Mr Brown thank you going to page one of the policy um line 12 and then
175the paragraph that follows um everywhere that it says board approved in this context seems like it's out of place because it's it it's referring to selection and something can't be board approved if it's not selected yet so I wonder if we want to strike board approved in that paragraph because it's referring to the selection of textbooks and instructional materials in first sentence second sentence the responsibility for board approved textbook and instructional material selection rest with the local textbook selection committee so this is referring to the selection committee before it ever gets to the board so it would not have been board approved yet so there are times and Dr Allen and I can definitely look at this again but we did put this in for some clarity because there may be some times where there's
176supplementary um material instructional materials that are previously used textbooks um so we wanted to make it clear that these are the textbooks that are approved by the board not something that you know was used previously um and where I think this may become more common is like the adoption of w wisdom some of those books May remain no longer being at at when the ELA is selected again no longer um the board approved textbooks but they may still be in circulation and used but we can we'll go we'll look at it again because you're there may be places it doesn't make sense and if I think everywhere okay sorry go ahead I think everywhere else that it says board approved and that I can tell so far it's appropriate I just think right there it's
177not yeah the um the the next section on page two selection is supplement supplementary instructional materials to to Dana's point I think it was the language was designed to differentiate between those two sections actually Mr rly and I had a conversation about that too we're going to look to see if there's another phraseology to to to be able to distinguish between those two sections because that was the intent yeah and I get I get the idea that we want to make sure that people understand that ultimately this process rests with the board and that there's Board sign off but um we're also laying out a process that happens before it ever comes to us for approval as well so it's all kind of captured in the same policy yeah the intent was to separate those
178two sections but when it says that over and over again it does seem like a cart before the horse kind of question Mr galberth um Dana can can you look at uh on page let's see page three line 17 can I'm sorry can we I think we change this language on the next policy um as far as it it says it almost leaves open the the opportunity for a nwcs parent or Guardian employee to um to file a complaint I think the other one was more prescriptive I think it said that a complaint about Library materials may only be made by a and here's the process so I think we just need to make that change on on this one too if you agree yeah I will take a look at that I think I
179think I added current um to this piece after our discussion Monday at the policy meeting well just see because it seems because it is it correct that you have to be a current WCS parent Guardian employee or student correct correct okay so I think it just need if just look at the other policy because I think it says that you must be a WCS parent guardian and then when you when one of those people files a complaint he's the process so any other questions no additional questions okay the next policy is 4.43 it is now specific to library materials um and you will see the um on the front page school librarians are responsible for that Library collection development we do Define Library materials in that first first paragraph per um new um State Law
180Public chapter 744 the library material shall be reviewed to ensure content aligns with state law and the library collection has to adhere to the following criteria again are we're talking about the age appropriate act um in addition the new public chapter requires a WCS employee and in this case school librarians are responsible for periodically reviewing the district's Library collection to make sure that that collection is in line with the standards then the next section is complaints um Again by a current WCS employee student parent or guardian and you will see in the changes one change I do want to note is the library materials would be um the principal instead of the central office would be creating the um Library materials Review Committee um obviously the librarian would be a part of that representatives from
181classroom teachers and it can include again one or more parents it may include one or more students the Review Committee has steps that they take after receiving the challenged materials they do not have a the final decision however they make a recommendation um and then that recommendation for any further action is sent to the superintendent and to the board in um section number eight board members shall read Library m materials review the recommendation presented by the Review Committee and then you make the final determination board members about whether that material is appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students I will tell you um the requirement for the board to read the library materials was a recommendation by our lead Librarians um I will also tell you in case law that has sometimes
182gotten the boards in trouble because they've made a decision based upon political um reasons and so it obviously makes your position stronger as a board member when you've read the materials that are being challenged yeah Danny you asked I was just going to make sure gotten them in trouble if they haven't read if they hadn't read them correct so um if it is determined that that material is not appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students um and not consistent with not suitable or consistent with the educational mission of the school then board members you can vote to require the school to remove the material from the library collection I do want to mention one thing there is another public chapter that requires the state textbook and um to make by December 1st
183it set out in the stat in the public chapter by December 1st they have to provide some additional information and some additional rules and regulations that process has not started yet but um in looking at the current law and setting out this procedure um tsba is recommending this process in light of what they believe will be coming from the um State textbook commission um again don't know exactly what that's going to be but do know that by December 1st um 2022 there will be some additional guidance uh for schools to use when reviewing the materials in the library collection Mr Wimberly uh one question and one suggestion is you know the the textbook uh decision or whatever guidance that'll come out later this year aside are we trying to comply with state law that that
184that um through board that you know through the U what this policy does is anytime anyone files a complaint uh without a lot of action in between other than a committee review the board has you know almost administrative responsibility to to um render a decision on whether the the book should be banned or not is that consistent with state law do we have to do that in other words so that's a great question um so public chapter 744 um requires that the local Board of Education adopt a policy for developing and reviewing School library Collections and there's a couple things the policy must include it must have the procedure um for the development of a library collection that's appropriate for the age and maturity levels there also must be a um procedure to periodically review
185the library collection and a way for this body to receive and evaluate feedback from a student a students parents or guardian or a School employee that is the piece that sets out the reconsideration you are receiving feedback from um one of those people I listed regarding um a material that may not be um suitable so so Dane I want to add a little bit to that um as we read that new age appropriateness law it specifically says um the local Board of Education or Public Charter School governing body makes that determination so it does put the burden on you all but it doesn't establish a process in other words uh with the instructional materials it goes through a process right and then if the complaintant doesn't approve it wants to appeal the decision by in
186that case the committee then there is a due process where it comes to the board I get that but in this case it always goes to the board correct that is correct that's right yes but is that a requirement of state law or is that the policy that the policy committee is bringing for I'll I'll let you answer that since it's a legal question I have my reading of it but I'll let the let the lawyer answer if the local Board of Education governing body determines that the material contained in this so the challenged book is not appropriate for the age of maturity levels or consistent with educational mission of the school then it has to be removed so yes you are the decision maker in this process so what does the committee do recommendation
187recommendation okay got it and that that's the state requirement yes sir so my suggestion would be um that if our policy is going to be that board members shall read the library materials I wonder if we shouldn't put that in our standards and our ethics as well that when you come on the board that's part of what your commitment is uh to to read these books and this could be a heavy lift particularly if we get into high school books could be that's that is very fair and that was part of the discussion at the policy meeting but I I have written that down for um September so we can have that discussion at the September meeting the original Bill said that board members had to read it by the next board meeting so at
188least it doesn't say that anymore whoa yeah I um I mean I think if if this policy is going to exist then board members should have to read the whole books but just as a quick double check Dana if I'm not M oh I'm sorry the comment was there's always audio books says the librar Dana just just to make sure we give as much clarity as we can am I correct that this new law does not require a committee review that's something that we have in there with a recommendation but it does require the board to be the decision maker that is correct okay so the committee review is a recommendation from us so that so that there's some that's exactly right Mr Brown my question but now that Rick's brought this up I'm going
189to ask it if if the if the textbooks textbook review policy that we have in place that we're tweaking now but that we've been following has a committee structure that makes a recommendation that we then up or down vote on why wouldn't we mirror that with this I mean the the law I get the law puts the burden on us to make the final decision but we're also making the final decision on the other one too if there's an appeal you all Dana correct um Phil fill in if I've missed something sure you all are obligated for library books to be the decision maker but the the law did not add that specificity to um to uh in the uh textbooks and instruction materials so what we're recommending at this first reading is follow a
190similar procedure to what we've had in place for years with a decision by the committee appealable to you for you to be the final decision maker leave that part at as is but just put the full burden on on you for library books because the law places that full burden could the the policy ultimately for both of them have that same procedure that's required for Library books yes that's a possibility if that's the will of the board we could have a policy that does that right now what we're recommending is keep that with an appeal where somebody could choose to take it to you for textbooks because because that's still within the law as a possibility yeah ju just a suggestion for consideration is that if we if a committee is going to be formed
191on this library book process then we could form a committee that we believe is equipped and capable of making us a recommendation that we would be com comfortable and confident in or that you know rather than it necessarily being that we have to do the work of a committee I think that what I'm not putting words in your mouth Rick but it's almost like you were suggesting that an administrative this is putting an administrative responsibility on the board I I think it does um the U but I agree with you I like the idea of the Review Committee if we've got to do do that we've got to get recommendations from someone from the professionals they have to be involved well we're going yeah we're having a committee anyway according to the policy so why
192not have the committee be constituted in a way that we would trust it whatever it brings forward not necessarily we would all agree with it but that we would trust that it was able to do it that's just one observation going to um the first page of the policy um items one two 3 four just a suggestion or an observation that maybe number four is redundant um because it's essentially said already in number one uh the second sentence every effort will be made to provide materials that present many points of view concerning the problems and issues of our times Etc um essentially Point number four is saying the same thing so just an observation that maybe that could be stricken Point number four thank you so and so that just so y'all just so board
193members you know number four does come from um Board of educ the Island Trees Union Free School District case that we have discussed so that is that is the purpose um for that one the additional um every effort will be made is part of our current policy and I think Mr Brown your point is it says the same thing T us we'll look at that so A couple of comments and then Eric you're next um so I I think the intent of maybe we need some clarity on the intent because I do think the intent of this legislation was for the boards to approve and vote on on books the difference between textbooks and instructional materials and libraries is that libraries are places of voluntary inquiry and so I just want to raise the concern
194that it's also an administrative burden to our teachers and staff if they have to get involved here and review these books um you know we we've seen in other districts that that the boards are the ones that that are voting on these issues and and I I think that you know when we when we look at policy we always try to look at the unintended consequences of a policy and this to me this policy and this this new requirement is just ripe for unintended consequences so um I think I think you know this may be the new school naming policy of this of this year you know that you know you may have to make some adjustments to it as you go because um it it just seems like that you know it is the
195intent that the boards make those decisions and we've got you know we have we could potentially have resourcing issues with this so Eric next thank you um so piggybacking on that I I think Joshua made a great point about having the committee and trusting them and I would just sort of add to that too when it comes to us directly I think it politicizes the process and that instead of having professional Educators and teacher representatives and everything make decisions now you have elected officials and you have it overlaid with partisanship now being added to um School Board races so it it just sort of really makes a I think the unintended consequences is is a is a great thing to bring up um uh Laura mentioned well there's always audio books I just want to
196say I don't think it's practical to say the board can read everything that that comes up um I I was at that when they talked about the original one where it would the original hearing and and testified at it where they talked about you know bringing it up for the next meeting and I would say there was a group there that said well we've already identified a hundred books in the library that you know we're going to appeal when this comes up um and they weren't talking about lower level books uh some of these challenges you know I'll bring up let's talk about two books that are are going to be in our high school libraries already uh you know I think For Whom the Bell TOS of a haming way and then um Dune
197which I think most people would say you know it's Hemingway that's classic literature that's one of the foundations of you know one one of the great books and then um Dune of course that's one of the foundations of just modern science fiction everything from Star Wars was was you know on sort of based upon these books uh um but if we're some of the things we're talking about you know sexuality violence different things like that in the books is it age appropriate uh you know for the grade levels high school you can have a 14-year-old child and so you kind of go in there and go all right for whom the belt hols well um Pia discusses being gang raped by the Socialists having her parents killed in front of her uh being tortured um
198some very adult situations so is that are we gonna say that's not ever going to come up because what we've seen with these past things is is we get sections that are taken out of it out of context and then sent to us uh Dune the baron they write about to you know right to give you the impression of what a what a evil figure that this is an awful right that he's he's a pedophile so are these two books that could come up and be appealed I think very much so we saw Mouse and one of the other distri s that made a very unfortunate decision to pull a a great book out of their their District um and from a practical sense I you know if these come in there things I mean
199Laura and I said well there's all these audio books well that's I was sort of Googling real quick uh For Whom the belt TOS that's 16 hours 17 minutes and dune is 21 hours and two minutes um so I I I kind of go with this that to the point of if we would vote on something to remove it and not having actually read it it s just sort of offends the senses that way especially which I think you make a great point with the libraries this is different from a textbook where textbooks we're putting in front of the child and saying yes you read this this is uh you know let's dropped out and everything else this is you know what we're telling you to do with the library it's your own decision having
200access to it and we're we're at that point we're actually removing the the parents right for them for them to have their child get asked to so we're making this decision for you that we're not going to say you can have it so I see the logic of that that certainly before you ban something from the the public space in the library that you probably shouldn't go and read it but I'm also conflicted with that that this is just it's not realistic in terms of ours even if it's with the best intentions and wanting to go through it and everything else that very much you get three four of these books in quick secession I have several books at home that are half read and stacks of others that are haven't been started yet um
201that I that I want to read but you know the road to hell is pay with good intentions so I'm very nervous about that I'm sorry I'm rambling a little bit here didn't mean to go quite this long it's a little bit of stream of conscious with this um so I I think all of this to sort of say I'm just very concerned about that requirement in here um and it I guess if we're going to go even larger the point of everything coming to the board and it having to make it because it I think it now politicizes uh the process with that um and then the other thing with that is is what we heard from the last uh complaint so much is well this is review is taking too long why aren't
202you making decision faster and it was what 30 books or or something along those lines 40 okay so why aren't you reading 40 books quicker and making review and having discussion on it and back and forth I I you know these are just not uh practical Solutions unfortunately Mr G thank you um I as usual I agree with Eric um that this probably doesn't make a lot of sense um to me having this in here that the board will read I think it's a great suggestion um but it leaves it leaves open too many loopholes to be over overridden if you're a judge um and we're in charge of making the decision um you never want your decision overridden on a technicality and the technicality is going to be going around and subpoenaing each of
203us and asking us if we read all the books and I mean quite quite frankly it could be an unintended consequence that somebody who didn't want the book um removed could just not read it on purpose to intentionally make nullify the the process and so I I appreciate it I I think it could probably be changed to something that we can control and that is the the the materials shall be made available to the to the board for their for their for their reading purposes but um I just think it's a bad idea to to require it thanks I guess I guess I just have a follow-up question you know we just had an election and we had people in this room run on a platform of age appropriate curriculum so who did you expect
204to read the curriculum I mean did we expect that staff would do all the work or did we expect that we would do some of the work ourselves because these bills have always been written where the board is involved and so to me it's it's kind of surprising and I feel like it's a little bit disingenuous to say well gosh that's a lot of work so staff's going to have to do it and we know what staff went through last year with this review it was horrible for them it was it was an unanticipated expectation of their role we complained that it took too long and now we're going to do that again I mean what what is it that that was expect you know what did we have in our minds because we're all
205coming here just thinking okay well that's going to be a lot so you know you guys you guys handle it I mean if you know we're here this is what was wanted and so um I I personally I wouldn't vote on a book without reading it I think I think that's I think that is that's disingenuous I think that's I you know anyway go ahead Sheila oh Ellie did I miss you well goad she I'll yield to you oh but I'd like okay sorry you were on the list um I just want to make a a comment about that I don't think this is intended to put on staff because we already have a committee so what we're doing is it's still going to the committee the committee is still going to be doing it
206it's not just because we if if it's the decision is not to require it it doesn't push it off on anybody body it just keeps it on the committee and strongly recommended to the board so I don't think there's going to be anything pushing anything anywhere it's still going to be on the committee regardless so I don't think it's a staff and I do agree that this can open up a can of worms I mean it could and it could make people um unfortunately because of work schedule because people do work full-time that if they are over inundated it can put them in a position of breaking policy which a school board member does not like to do and I just think it puts that's the unintended consequences and it could be called out on
207them and I think that's a little bit unfair but I I agree with you that every attempt should to be read I think it's our duty to read it but to require it in policy I think is a little dangerous to do person line Elliot thank you U Madam chair so one of the one of the I guess processes in here I would ask is the the way way I read this is the complaints are made to a principal as opposed to the central office uh and then the principal basically U puts together the ad hoc committee uh if you have have first off if you have somebody come and make the complaint to the central office about multip about a book that exists in multiple high schools which which high school principal is making
208the is putting the committee together I guess that that's my point here is that maybe um we we need to clarify that so you don't have a committee per high school or every High if the complaint hits four different high schools at once you're not you're one committee for it or I see what you're saying um the the the the original thinking behind that is there might be something that's appropriate at one school and not at another because there's differences but I get what you're saying you know it's interesting this law and in turn our policy or pretty much any policy anticipates in essence good faith on the part of the complainer right right and so Eric mentioned somebody said they you know they were going to ask for a 100 books to be removed
209um that law wasn't as I read it I don't know that that was contemplated because the volume of that um and so the the law was greatly simplified through that through the discussion process the committee part of it is our recommendation to create some kind of some kind of a review right rather than just complete completely leaving it on on the board with nothing the librarian or the principal whatever so but so that's that's a that's a good thought that we'll that we'll we'll D we'll drill down into because that you're right that's a real possibility and my point I think is the Cod is the verbiage that defines how the committee is put together right and I'm fine with principles recommending to you or something but but uh the other thought on reading the
210reading is I'm fine with with requirement on reading it but uh if we I was going to offer up a compromise to that which would be that board members shall publicly identify whether they read the book or not so if we're going to have to vote on it we should be required to indicate did we read the book that we're voting on maybe is a way to thank you thank you Mr Wimberly why are we doing this at this moment because it seems like there's good stuff here and there's some stuff that may not be so good with unintended consequences so do we have to have a policy immediately I mean in effect the school board's responsible for everything including the library books you know so um yes to that question and what are the
211consequences if we don't we've violated state law and what are the consequences of that there are well you answer that one obviously the lawyer is not going to advise you to thumb your nose at state law um but yes there is a requirement that we have a that the local board have a policy in the 20 by the 2022 23 school year so we need to move forward with it can we delay this no yes I will say we we have an existing policy that's not quite in compliance um because of that appeal nature that that that that puts the burden on the committee can we not go to the state and say hey we're we're give us a little bit more time well that so so that's a second question I think we're on
212track and I think the track we're on is appropriate we're at first reading I'm as superintendent I'm not concerned about that because I believe we're acting in good faith to to to discuss it um if if we're talking about a year from now no not at all I was thinking we just yeah we needed some work and discussion on this well this is it's not ready and I'm not sure we'll be ready without well I don't know I guess I would yield to KC well in in the policy committee let me make a couple of comments in case he may may speak to it if the board isn't comfortable with some of these recommendations my recommendation will ultimately be let's keep it as simple as possible knowing that things may change in December is that
213what you said correct simplify it simplify it simplify it down to the to the to the bones of the state law and that may be something that happens in policy it's you know at second reading and and some of the issues that have been if I'm on or not some of the issues that have been discussed tonight um are addressed in the public chapter so for instance question about um different materials at different book at different locations and having one committee for each one well the way that the law reads is that it has to be at at that students or that employees school so that's why we've set it up the way that we have the complaint correct so it it would not be appropriate to change that I think the piece um that
214I hear the most discussion about is whether or is is the part regarding reading the books and and I think that is a a discussion we we can continue to have at policy do the are the complaints singular I mean from a from a complaintant standpoint if we have a complaint that is that is a group complaint that that was my point that had you know three students four students complain about the same book in in a single if they are all in the same school it could be one committee right right but if they were across different schools it would be different committees which is why we set it up as the principal doing that committee Miss Cleveland just a real quick clarification in the policy committee meeting that paragraph Was said that it
215was the the request by The Librarians but now you're saying it's state law because in policy I remember it was specifically that the no the the the the you all read it is a request by the librarian state law does not require that correct okay what I was talking about was the complaint process and the suggestion that there be one committee for different schools and the way the law is set up that will that piece will not work but yes the lead Librarians are who suggested board members re read a book before voting to remove it from a library so it's not a state requirement to read them no it is not okay that's what I for some reason I was going along thinking it was a state requirement it was at one point yeah
216but it was taken out okay Dan uh about the age appropriate materials right here in uh number two um you know about the the levels of students who may may use or access them and and whatnot what happened to the vetting process that's in there as well the the N it's uh page one line three the school librarian shall be responsible for Library collection development this law law establishes in essence an appeal of the professional librarian's decision and puts the burden for that on the board so we still have that underlying Librarians or decision makers on what they bring in if somebody disagrees then that burden falls on you all so wouldn't it be easier to put a rating scale on books rather than go through this whole process because if if if the Librarians
217disagree or can't consense like what happened last time then essentially that was the the final final answer yeah I don't know that I can answer the rating scale the you know the best comparison that popped into my head is the movies you know where they have a you know committee to review films with those rating scales um we have not had deep conversations about about creating that what we have left it for left we we have focused on that threshold of the Librarians are the ones that have the professional training and experience you know and and and grow to know their communities through their work to make the right decisions um you may recall the presentation that they gave you maybe three months ago somewhere around there about about their process so to us that's
218the threshold um I I can't visualize a rating scale um that would that that we could develop locally uh to do that well I'm just I'm just reading this it's it's supposed to I mean the library collection development Library materials are defined as print and non-print materials created uh let's see the age appropriate I'm sorry I'm on the wrong age appropriate maturity levels of students who may access them so who's going to Define that well ultimately the burden falls on you so the the way our Pol the way our draft policy reads librarians make that decision first but per state law if someone challenges that the burden then ultimately follows falls on you all uh when it says um and this is in C and D uh and Dana read part of D of of
219uh of um for 496 3803 a local Board of Education or Public Charter School governing body shall evaluate each material for which feedback is provided according to the procedure to determine whether the materials appropriate for the age of maturity levels of students May access materials so to me and I may be misstating that Dana I see that as in essence an appeal of the librarian's professional decision because somebody raises a complaint that falls on you under this new law and yes and to add a little bit of addition to that the state um textbook and instructional materials quality commission will put out guidance that defines um age what is appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students and that will come by December 1st the statute does not define age approp or maturity
220levels so they have tasked the state textbook commission with that and Dana that's what you were saying may change all this come December or January or so so going back going back to Rick's question what's the hurry the state law says beginning with this school year you all are to develop a proced a policy that puts that burden on you to make that decision so it's this school year so the to to your point and and and I think Eric was intimating something about this you've gotten two requirements from the state one is by this school year you were to have a policy in place that puts that burden on you to make the decision our existing policy puts the burden on the committee and then it can be appealed to you the advice we've
221gotten is that's a distinction now with library books because of this new law so you've got to do that now the definitions got delayed and some of the guidance got delayed so you have to have a procedure in place before the guidance comes out am I have I described that well you are 100% accurate chines as an aside we're doing drills now uh for uh for remote education and we've been told not to do that thank you for smiling a couple of you you KN you got my point the same ones that looked at me as I read a policy earlier basically what we're talking about is what we expect of our teachers every day you know we expect them to work with the guidance at hand and hold on for more guidance I mean
222it's just this is part of this is part of public Public Schools Mr Brown clarification on the by the 2022 23 school year is that the is that the actual wording by by 2022 23 and and does buy mean at the beginning or does BU mean sometime during the course of that school year I'll answer the first part of that question then uh then may may uh defer to um either one of the the practicing lawyers here um 383b by the 2022 23 school year each local board and Public Charter School governing body shall adopt a policy so that's what it says by that by Statute statutory construction you have to there's no ambiguity to to the word by so bu means before bu means before okay so technically speaking we're a tad bit late
223well that answer that aners that Mr Hall um thanks chair I I just wanted to say that um you know we'll I think we're we've got a good bit to go to policy with this next month again this is not a first and final reading this is a first reading so we're going to go through all of the the steps of this um I would say that we probably have enough to go with some some slight uh revisions or reconsiderations for the next iteration of this policy um but Dana would you agree that that you have enough to work with for that I do and I think um a lot of it is a continuation of the discussions we we had a very robust discussion at the next at the last policy meeting um so
224yes I I'm comfortable we can get to a conclusion by the SI by the sixth time we talk about this we're only on time number two any other questions or comments about this very complex change okay uh next is employment of retirees okay uh this is a new policy for first reading um the first part of the policy is in Black even though it's a new policy because this is um the law that has been in existence uh for many years what has changed is on the second page so I put that in blue even though it is all new um to US public chapter 821 we now have an additional employment option for uh our retirees where they can come back for up to one year as a k through two grade teacher as
225a substitute teacher or a bus driver um and then there are some conditions spelled out the benefit to this is that they um would there's a difference um compared to our 100 what we call our 120 days with our retirees their retirement benefit would be reduced to 70% of the retirement allowance which is better than if they do the 120 days um so this is definitely um a piece that we have talked to administrators about HR is more than aware of it and um is a recruiting tool um I will also tell you this part of the law sunsets so this new provision sunsets and if we get the response that I think we all hope we do do we may want to ask our legislation delegation to extend um this part of the policy
226and if I may add a little bit to this we have this for first and second reading this is already law I'm already taking advantage of it um we've already hired some teachers this year under this provision so you've got the 120 days they've added a new tool in our tool box it's a one will work for retire for one year um I asked Vicki this question she estimated that the net is somewhere around if I'm not mistaken 115% of someone's salary if you combine if you combine 70% of their benefits plus their regular salary with us is that a safe she ballparked it at that so for somebody who's retired come back work for us for a year you make more money than you did when you were here Mr Mitchell yeah so so
227I remember Vicki you you mentioned that we would for in this new uh option we would pay at the regular pay scale right prevailing Pace scale of the district I don't I was looking I don't see that in here anywhere I will can I answer that and then you may fill in under our mou we have an obligation to all teachers to pay them per that per the salary schedule so we default to that your default to that but we don't I thought on the 120 days we don't pay we right well on 120 days we do actually pay them at at where they would fall on the experience chart it's just that they're only able to work half the time it's the same for this um for 120 days you don't lose any of
228your retirement benefits you keep 100% of your retirement Ben benefits but you can only work 120 days under this new law you can work fulltime and you still get to keep 70% right now if you came back fulltime you wouldn't be able to keep any retirement benefits so but but okay so in in option number two where we have employment contracts for one year line on page one line 26 and 27 I'm reading that we do Define that there's a reduction that that the payment is different than what our our our normal skill is am I reading that right salary paid shall not be less than the rate of comp shall not be less than the rate of compensation well I think that's just that's a bait that's a floor okay we're more than 85%
229anyway I was just wanting to say my question was do we need to call out the pay rate in any in any of this I guess um and and I think I heard Jason say he didn't think so so the the other question I had and I asked this uh Monday at at policy does this cover Librarians and and psychologists and other other but I think I asked about counselors as well um it's it's my understanding that it does does cover those that are all that are certified teachers which that would that would include psychologists Librarians counselors and if I'm not mistaken Vicki we actually have to submit a request it gets does it get reviewed by the tdoe or tcrs um it'll be by a tcrs okay so we we actually submitted some of
230those requests so we'll have that documentation from them approving those for those that are approved it's not automatic it actually takes approval that's right yes and and it was specific to bus drivers and in school Personnel right so it it it doesn't it wouldn't apply to um central office staff say an assistant superintendent for operations as an example yeah it doesn't app that's right right okay um thank you any other questions on that one it's hard to tell with you there you are all right I'll take it um so you made the point on this that you know they could come back and and make more this way um are we actually incentivizing early retirements it's a one-year shot so just to be as I mean somebody could decide you know what I'm going to
231retire a year from now but let me go ahead and retire now but they'd have to double check and make sure that we could certify that that that we can't fill that position okay so there's some extra Hoops to jump through okay but might somebody decide hey I'm going to get my ducks in a row and hope that I can work one more year under a little bit more pay it could theoretically happen so maybe but at the peripheries probably because of the risk of not that's it yeah okay thank you separation for tenure teachers okay um 5. 20 what you will see is strikeouts on page three and that is because we now have this language included in um employment of retirees 5119 that's the only change there I'm going to go on to
232separation practices for non-tenured teachers um same thing on page three the retirement provision is um strike out because it's now in a different policy and on page two new uh public chapter that if the reason for nonrenewal of a non-tenured teacher is due only to a loss of funding then the notice that we provide that teacher has to um list that as the cause for non-renewal and that's uh public chapter six [Music] 78 any questions and and substitute teachers yep substitute teachers so on page two well beginning at the I guess page two um there is an additional um requirement um the retired teacher would have to have the appropriate endorsement and we have lined out three through five because again that is now in the employment of retirees policy any questions no questions okay
233so the the other two policies uh for deletion are the 4.4 and 4.42 um and again those are incorporated into 4.41 and and 4.43 thank you all right um thank you Miss OS Brooks and then we're moving next to superintendent goals and objectives for 2022 23 this is an annual agenda item Mr golden thank you madam chair just from a technicality standpoint these are these are written in as described as system goals in my contract so what's driving this is is the my contract calls for for us to discuss system goals want uh want to thank you all for many of you gave some feedback um just in the last few days so uh um U uh I almost called you Nancy I'm gonna call you Nancy Nancy and I uh gave a modification uh
234of the of the memo out send it out to you this morning um and we looked back at what we did last year we want to parallel that which is introduce to you a draft in August give time to think about it over the course of the next month and then ask for a vote in September so we've we've submitted to you uh an amended and I think more robust def uh description of uh of some some proposed goals and I uh solicit you all uh to make comments and thoughts to to me over the course of the next few weeks and we'll come to you with a proposal in September and again any questions annual goals just so you guys know I'm thinking of this in terms of annual goals Mr Mitchell so I'm
235actively in my real job doing goals and performance reviews right now so this is so one of the things that I've brought up in the past that I found kind of uh disconnected was we have a set of goals for you Jason but we don't necessarily evaluate the success or failure of the goals as part of your evaluation the evaluation format is a whole complete different form and format that is that doesn't really necessarily speak specifically to the goals so well it was I thought it came from T tsba right and it was we were there was a list of those I don't believe it actually I don't remember maybe I'm missing so there's two sections one is observable characteristics and I believe that's statutory that's correct that's right and so that is the piece
236that we have it that we have from tsba you know the right you know see this Behavior see this but then we also have the Jason's performance goals and we also have to decide and Dana will tell us when we need to do this on the waiting of each of those two categories and we have we voted last year the for the waiting to be 80% on Mr Golden's performance goals and 20% on the observable characteristics all right so I'm not remembering it correctly it was both all right yeah never mind that's okay and it's been it's been done different ways but last year we tried to really be consistent and standardize it according to um according to the law and according to what we understood we were supposed to do and my contract language
237related to this is um it's not quite ancient but it feels that way it predates me um the last couple or maybe even three superintendents had similar language the statute requires those observable characteristics we have added into my contract system goals that we describe as superintendent goals that are annual for the for the eval um I will add one other piece that I talk about and think about is our strategic plan so so we really we really have three chunks that that I I'm constantly aware of so so it is in my opinion it is important that the goals that we choose are part of the formal evaluation too because if that's what we're we're we're setting up as your goals for the year then that needs to be basic one of the things we're
238evaluating yes and I um I am to bring to you a proposed evaluation tool the month after the goals are set thank you any other questions I don't see any other questions any Light breaking questions okay Miss Pria so looking at number one just to clarify for my mindset the Strategic plan is something we've kind of talked a lot about toward the end of last year saying on various topics we're going to we're going to wait and address that in the Strategic plan and so that's goal number one and when would that happen is that at our board retreat we're going to work together to come up with that or what's the plan for that well so number one I'd like us to begin with the end in mind on the Strategic plan and so
239it needs to in my opinion it needs to be finished before the end of this school year in that range let's call it the end of the fiscal year however you want to describe it um that's the back end the front end is uh we need a facilitator and what we're talking about is having a committee get together to choose a facilitator and recommend that to the board uh a good strategic plan facilitator sets a schedule multiple meetings various stakeholders with a process based on their professional experience of how to glean and pull out from stakeholders things that matter to them so that ultimately you all can get um for lack of a better phrase a good prioritization of things that matter to our community and all our stakeholders and put together a plan with
240appropriate goals um and what I put in this after some good discussions with some board members is just to refocus on our three strategic priorities um and and that's investing in team quality and Excellence student centered Operational Support Systems and preparing students for the future with specific goals related to that um now I will say some of you or at least one of you does this in part as a profession uh and so uh and maybe more than more than one you so many of you have experience with strategic plans and may be able to describe that maybe even more efficiently than me I think also one thing thing that may not be clear if if you haven't participated in the process before is that there are multiple opportunities for public input there were a
241series of public meetings held all across the district for the public to participate great perfect thank you Mr [Music] galber set priorities it's conceivable to me that we might we might change those strategic priorities in during the during the process so I wonder I mean I we we can talk about it next next month but I think about pulling pulling those specifics out of the Pol out out of your goals because we they might they might actually change certainly open to that discussion my recollection is those strategic priorities predated this strategic plan but I may be wrong I thought they were developed as part of this five or so years ago was it that okay I was thinking so maybe the vision and mission statement we changed the Mission Vision I mean we CH because
242we CH it used to just be Athletics arts and I mean we we added we added a bunch in this um in this last thanks for that I I'll go back over the course of this month and dig back through that but thank you for that suggestion so last year it from August to September there was a good bit of communication about these goals so you know don't let this don't let this Slide by and then oops we got to do this next month you know this is the starting point you know nothing's going to change about the importance of some of these goals when new board members come on because we've been talking about these items strategically for months we've been talking about a lot of them this year so you know don't let
243this go by the wayside make sure that you know you continue to to stay in touch with Jason and and give him your input well in advance of NE next month's meeting and let me share if I may Madam chair share one thought that's been driving me in this thinking and how how I perceive it and certainly open to your to y'all's input over the course of the next month because my contract calls for us to discuss it I am thinking particularly about things that I know are happening this year that need specific attention this year for my annual goals with a focus on our long-term strategic thinking and that's why we talked about the Strategic plan what to do with a new funding that I think maybe a once in a in a professional
244lifetime increase if what if we actually get it from the state uh and then third um the feedback we've gotten from teachers just in May and our plan to address that because we know we're going to have to grow in improving this environment for our teachers so if there's another one like that certainly open to that discussion Mr Brown just to that that point I had made a note about um zoning and capital planning okay being things that are going to be maybe unique well not the capital planning but the zoning would be unique to this coming year um well we don't do it every year I guess is the point but we're going to be uniquely spending time on it U from what I hear you saying earlier in our meeting so maybe that's
245something worth calling out just just a suggestion I don't know how you'd word it but throw it out for food for thought well yeah it could be not just for this year but you know refreshing the you know Zone philosophy or something like that that would last for you know a number of years so I'm just adding on to that yeah yeah all right so next we're talking about resoning parameters for this next year 2023 24 yeah thank you madam chair um over the years I've been involved in resoning U we've run all around the barn uh and and so uh what I have for you in the memo is the most recent board parameters related to rezoning there have been times where we've asked you for none there have been times where we've come
246up with some others um and so I want I I want to get an idea of what you all feel like you um guard rails and standards you feel like you need to place on us operationally I like not having parameters because I like the creativity of us trying trying to do the best we can but I do know I need to hear from you with that so with that I want you to tell I want you to know some basic things I'm thinking about right now number one we're opening two new schools we have to have new zones for those two new elementary schools for next year um from a timing perspective I would like that to be done if possible before winter break so that our principles can get their communities together talk
247about C you know talk talk about um mascots some of those planning things so they've got an entire semester to do that work it's not the end of the world if it's January but my preference would be we get that done before um and we've over the years you know we've we've gone back and forth on those final dates because of the volume of the work that's one number two the Nolanville area needs a very close look and needs some resoning specifically mil Creek Middle is overcrowded Sunset has some room as I alluded to earlier with this with the uh um with the County Commission we have another Middle School on the 5-year Capital plan but I'm not confident that we're going to be able to get funding without us addressing that balance there's some
248Elementary School issues related to that so we're looking very hard in the Nolanville area um and and and then third I've asked um Mark and Allison to look across the district about at some potential anomalies is there something that going on in a particular location that doesn't make sense for bus transportation as an example uh uh are there are there imbalances somewhere where a feeder pattern is heavy on on one school versus another uh and so those are the three big buckets that we've been study in the last few few months and prepareing can you repeat those B buckets again please number one new new elementary schools have to have to have a zone for them number two the Nolanville area where it's very apparent we we need to make some adjustments of some sort
249um at especially at the elementary in middle and then number three are there some anomalies that have developed over time at some spots in the in the uh in the district that affect transportation that we can do better uh or where there may be an imbalance uh in in feeder patterns that that that's developed over time all right I have three people so far Rick zoning is very complex and very controversial and the more freedom that we can give to our professionals who deal with uh rezoning who are outstanding the better off we are I think I've never voted for parameters I have two questions comments feedback whatever um and I don't think these are necessarily parameters that I'm trying to add it's just things that I would hope would be taken into consideration very
250early in the planning process so that we can be transparent with the community to to show that we've done our due diligence on these issues so the first one you mentioned we because we discussed it a little bit ago about looking at the traffic patterns especially I know Spring Hill is probably the same way but as communities are built and the the roads are impacted in a way that a lot of the things don't make sense anymore and particularly with Sunset Middle and mil Creek middle I know there's a lot of weirdness going on with the driving to school and the bus routes so I'm glad you mentioned that and then the other thing is um early in the process getting feedback and this may be something that might become part of the Strategic plan
251or your goals where we're really focusing on getting feedback from some key key um stakeholders early on in the process particularly more than the usual um looking at some of the staff that work in the schools some of the parents that drive some of the parents that ride the bus and having them provide the feedback of what their actual lived experience is so that we can instead of having it just be like a public hearing after the plan has already come out and speaking to it where it feels a little bit like well they've already kind of made up their mind and now they're just checking off a box to get feedback I've seen that kind of spoken about the department of Ed at times where it seems like this has already been planned out
252so I feel like it's a lot more um comforting for parents if they've heard from us early on to to get that feedback as a part of the plan and then of course open it up for public comment what have you afterwards but at least that way some of that feels like it's been taken into account because we do have that experience that lived experience that's valuable so thank you those are my things Mr galberth thank you completely um I don't know if she I don't know if Rick was giv her a hard time for not providing parameters but I I completely agree with the with the getting feedback on the on the front and that was one thing that I wanted to hopefully add to the process I don't know how we I don't
253know how we do that if that's if that's through parameters or if that's just you committing to do it I don't I don't know how that works um I'm already thinking about the house y'all okay whether at the how right survey versus you know I I'm not thinking I mean survey is I mean it's just it's just making it's making everybody feel like they're a part of the process instead of their their getting the the answer um told to them at the at the end of the process um and so the the other thing and I I was actually as you were telling me the saying those three things because I was I was thinking about how I was going to include that in the in the parameters really those are your parameters I think
254that needs to go in this document to tell everybody what the what what we're looking at everything that you're looking at in these in these things so these are the these are the three areas that we're going to look at the parameters I think that we have that that are in this are appropriate the minimizing the impact on the families feeder patterns um prior to construction like all those are are General Norms that you're that you live by when you're when you're reviewing these um but I think if I think if if everybody knew at least up front then we can and we can vote on and approve it that that these are the three areas that we're going to look at I think it because otherwise you're just I don't know I I think
255it's I think it's be helpful to to vote on that thanks Elliot thank you madam chair um so Jason and Mark I'll throw this to you guys the new open Zone law and our policy of of you know once you're there you're there how is that going to impact our ability to rezone because if we're rezoning and we in the process of rezoning we open up 150 200 seats of where we've taken everybody out of yeah and then all of a sudden all the people that were sent to the new school and didn't want to go to the new school all go just go back yeah and plus we've already plus our policy of once you're there you're there and we're not going to resend that I I'm I think that law really kind of
256kind of plays games or or kind of impacts our ability to effectively reson yeah we have we have one year's worth of data that's being entered in the books right this week as we speak for for the impact of that new law one year is worth of data um there is a possibility that 1.73 the policy governing rezoning might need to be tweaked if we get overwhelmed with numbers at some point because in principle I agree with you the idea that that you can have a volume of students attending out of Zone to the point where they push somebody who lives in that zone out of their school is a problem um right now now on paper that's a possibility if you had a few hundred out of Zone students so so what we did
257with this first year was we we we took our projections and we reduced the number of available seats based on those projections but with six years worth at an elementary school that's tough I get I I get your point um so I think the answer to your question is more related to board policy than it is to rezoning Mr Welch thank you um I mean I can tell you what 90% 95% of the the feedback will be on the front end it'll be don't rezone me reone someone else and we all know that um you know so I would say as as much as collecting information we should also make it providing information because we ask for feedback but you know in lie of Ed ation about what the challenges are and why and limitations
258and everything else I I don't know how valuable that feedback is because it's just very um here's how I'm impacted and we're not doing this to impact anyone we're doing this because there's challenges with it um for the parameters I I'm GNA I'm going to say kind of number one and number two I see is mutually exclusive in in a lot of ways um and I know I'm the outlier on this one but the consistent feeder patterns trying to have those a oneto one I think it makes it more difficult for us to minimize the impact on families I think it makes it tougher to rezone and not that you know we should break up uh a school in half a dozen different directions but you know look at Tetris where you're you're doing the
259Big Blocks instead of the little blocks uh or smaller blocks oxident rate and and being able to sort of move them around and what it off more often than not creates is you know you get zoned to your Elementary School well that defines where you're going to go to high school when we sort of go that path and then eventually we get the neighborhoods the parents well you know why am I at this High School on the other side of town instead of that one you know right there that's next to me and the answer as well because 12 years ago this is where kindergarten started and went through that process so if we can split it up a little bit more is I think it's less of an impact on families because you can
260get a little bit more geographically close to the um to your neighborhood school as opposed to having to go through that defined process all around related to that there's been discussion over the years about a concern about percentages and you know how raw numbers how many students from BL blank Elementary School go to this middle MH U how many from the Middle School go to the high school um that's kind of what's excuse me that's been what's on my mind um that's because we it's been so long since we've rezoned but I get your point that there are some other factors besides right simply a a clean feeder right and you know and frankly I'll say this too that I don't think having two or three different schools mixed in up at the higher levels
261necessarily bad thing it allows a lot of students to sort of reset that they they get into sort of different clicks and who they're defined with and everything else and um if it's the same block of kids moving the whole way through that doesn't change it's how many our graduates will go off to a college somewhere else where they just want to be away from everyone and they'll change their hair or name or something else and you know start go byy the middle name or shorten it or extend it or anything else just because it's it's an opportunity for them to reset and get out of that block I think it does that for them in a lot of um different ways as well allows the kids to mix so I just see there's a
262lot of benefits of that including resoning but above and beyond that as well Mr parameters that are up there have been up there for years that's right and really they feel they feel what the needs of zoning uh we're doing what's reasonably possible reasonably possible when possible there's always going to be that uh group of people that are just on the borderline uh we've got them all over where do they draw the line there's always going to be those folks um some some areas have pockets of people that have been going to an elementary school for years that are way out of the Zone uh we've got people that um you know just in the proximity but a little closer to this school why aren't I going to that school you know but when when
263Allison gets all this stuff and I've I've done this opening schools and you know this zoning stuff forever everything you come back with every idea there's a ripple effect and there's nothing we can do about that and it's hired on people um I know one subdivision that got uh rezoned 8 miles away from their house and actually have a school within a couple of miles and they loved it one bus right out there one bus back no no uh waiting around or anything so I mean rezoning is hard uh we rezoned uh what was it out there in uh off of Temple Road oh yeah Stevens Valley yeah Stevens Valley and now there's openings in grassland so they're rezoning there they're just going out of Zone over there every one of them so you just
264you just you can't foresee the needs when you've got this many people a, to 1200 people a year moving in and uh now actually we're getting to the point where you can't find property and whatnot just anywhere so yeah I I'm happy with those thank you Mr Hall thank you chair um Jason did you say or do you recall if we had these parameters in place for the Nolan Bill re on it um I'm trying to remember the Nolanville one specifically these are the most recent ones um I'll double check check that I think the I think the answer is yes okay because my thought is you know I if these parameters provide you with constraints that make it difficult but you still keep them in mind I would prefer to not have parameters because
265um but on the other hand um if what arises from that is we say okay no parameters and you come to us with the presentation and the recommendations and then we start to apply parameters because we see things we don't care for I want to do this as expediently as possible with as much information and consideration for these reasonable reasonable um requests but I I want to know what you and the staff think is the best way to do this because when we say that you minimize the impact on families as much as reasonably possible I think that there are different ways to look look at that you could say it minimizes the impact in the short term but in the long term families may be rezoned sooner than if we made her decisions now
266so if you you and staff present something that says this is the best long-term plan and it it is more future proof um I think that that could meet that parameter for example so i' I'd like to know what you think is the best um framework to execute a proposal to the board with well that first one substantially defines how far we go um if if that is a parameter M minimize the impact on families as much as reasonably possible my interpretation of that and maybe I'm reading too much into it but my interpretation is and has been if you don't have to reone them don't um minimize impact as much as possible but you've introduced another thought you know that that if we if we drag it out might might we be you know
267having having a less pain now rather than more pain later um if that's if if the board recognizes that as a possibility um then that's going to you know then I think that opens it up a little bit more so we we can live with these written parameters but know that that's basically what we're looking at um I will say Dan you mentioned one Stevens Valley that's the kind of thing that I that I think's worth double-checking because I know that bus route is long and if it if we can do better with buses to to at least that little bit help our help our transportation should we not move them right those are the kinds of questions that we double checking ourselves on but if it's to minimize the impact as long as you
268guys grasp that that we're looking at that more broadly than just don't rezone them then I'm good with it okay Mr Brown yeah going to the comment I made earlier about zoning being part of your goals and objectives I guess I was thinking of this the proximity of this action in the fall to the overall zoning that's going to happen I think you said next year right next fall um yeah this this this zoning decision would be would impact next fall it would be applicable next fall but I mean the the overall rezoning for the whole District would be taking place next fall roughly next fall right at this stage we don't we don't have a plan to just do a full-blown districtwide rezoning okay when when would that be happening ordinarily we don't have
269any actual schedule for that that's driven by growth um in my 17 years we've done it once um and you know it it was because we had multiple multiple problems because it' been a long time since resoning had happened um so at this stage I can't project that I do anticipate saying we're going to do a districtwide resoning it could happen if there's if there's I said I can't no you yeah you want to make sure you have a year I I just I I I don't see it as we sit here you don't foresee doing a district wide I do not it's okay I guess the reason I asked that is thinking of thinking ahead do we know we're going to have sorry the uh the elementary school and potential new Middle School on
270Cox Road right we we know we're going to have the one in wils Lane um we know these other schools are coming online even after these two um that we're talking about here right is it worth not to put more work on you or the staff or or the board but is it worth thinking about if if it's not a full-blown resoning is that we're thinking ahead to what we know is coming and incorporating that into either this process or shortly thereafter making it part of an extended process rather than having to just find ourselves in a in a quandry and having to come back and do it I think there's some wisdom in projecting that but you actually identified why it we can't do a districtwide rezoning and expect it to stick because we
271have multiple buildings coming at different years um every time we build a new building we have to create a Zone and that's driven by those new neighborhoods that have developed right and so it really stretches out if that makes sense yeah I know it's complicated and I guess I'm just thinking if we can put ourselves in a position where we're not spot zoning this one and then having to go spot Zone something else later if we can why wouldn't we but maybe it's not maybe it's unavoidable well those those these parameters actually give some direction there too if if if if if you're not if you're not going to well minimize the impact on families as much as reasonably possible right I I think one of the things too is that we have better tools
272now we have a better you know we have a great a great zoning department a great zoning software and and also most of the growth is generally much more local than it was you know uh 10 15 20 years ago when you were trying to fill up pig and pig was still kind of out there by itself so I think a lot of that has taken care of some of the dramatic rezonings that we've had I see two big things that have Tak care that one is that the second is the commission has said yes to us adding capacities over the last 8 to 10 years those two those two items have have triggered fewer Z few res zonings okay I don't see anybody else's hand raised so we will move on to our next
273item which is proposed resolutions the first is a resolution in support of WCS teachers thank you madam chair just to jump real quickly we'll have a we'll have a recommendation for you by Monday night on the parameters you've given me some Direction all right so we have three proposed resolutions for you there's the first resolution is related to some requests we've had from some board members uh after the July event at one of the hotels in Franklin with the the uh the the disparagement of teachers the other two that we'll talk about a little bit later are related some to to some tsba issues so um based on the feedback we've received from you uh we we've written a proposed resolution in support of teachers many school districts have done something similar we borrowed some
274of the language from some of those school districts whove done that in the past few weeks since that July event I will also tell you the State Board of Education met today and passed a resolution in support of teachers so there's been a a fairly consistent um Community shout across the state in support of teachers so that's what this reflects certainly open to your feedback because you all are going to be the ones thinking about this and voting on it Mr Welch if I can suggest one change to this I I I I like it but um whereas Will County Board of Education understands high performance schools are necessary to the quality of life in our community um if if there's agreement on this and it's not worth a huge debate if not it's not
275a hill I want to die on but I would I would argue are the foundation to the quality of life in our community that our it's it's kind of our economic success and everything is is built off of our high performing school districts and I would say it's uh is better but a more accurate description any other questions or comments on this resolution I don't see any all right thank you madam chair we'll make that change next okay Madam chair the the next two and we're we're going to speak first to uh uh the what's written is a resolution of the Williams County Board of Education supporting a Statewide review and correction of unnecessary requirements on Educators tsba asked it its um local school boards to make recommendations for Resolutions no later than September 13th
276in part so they could consider their legislative agenda for the coming uh legislative session uh um Mr wimble I've got to give a shout out to you on this um we we we started talking internally last year about conversations with our principles about what we could take off their plates and to use the sports metaphor Rick picked up that ball and started run with it and he's been given the Heisman uh uh through this so you you all I think you've noticed that Sam Whitson and one of his colleagues from the legislature wrote an oped piece for The Tennessean about this issue so this is a a proposed resolution that we will take to tsba uh that parallels what Sam witson and his colleague have done to ask the state however they do it whether
277it's setting up a committee review however they choose to do it to look to see what they can take off uh off the plates of our educator so they so that they can stay focused on their mission and I Mr Wimberly I don't know if you want to speak to it or not but I certainly want to invite you to well I I think about the only thing I can add other than thank you for the shout out is that um um as recently is this afternoon I've got indications from the Department of Education that they uh uh like the opad piece um uh I mentioned that we were working on this resolution they were excited about this I think this movement um has got traction already and um I didn't expect that so I'm
278hoping you know you folks will uh will agree to submit this tsba and that we can get more Statewide uh strength behind find it uh one of the you know I've been asked uh you know some really good questions about it and and one of them is are you saying that we should reduce the qualifications for teachers to teach as there has been some talk about that in some circles and absolutely not um but it it just goes back to the fact that red tape and and and uh can develop in bureaucracies and we have lots of them that may not be necessary and um you know that it's a call on the state to look for those things and a collaborative process um with with Educators and others involved in the districts uh I've
279been asked for examples and my answer is I don't know uh the experts you know uh would would have better examples and kind of the whole point of the the movement is to get them to stand up in initiative and have the professionals look at it and eliminate them and uh I think um it's got potential Casey Casey then Jen thank you chair uh I just want to thank you again Rick for this is this is really helpful um I remember a board presentation a few years ago where this topic came up too about how many hours in the day or days in the school year basically are comprised of federal and state regulations and it's if I recall it was the majority of of of the day and U so this is helpful to
280call that out and I I can't help but um note that we are also talking about some policies that out a few to these to these um you know requirements on Educators as well but be that as it may I think this is a good step to try to get this to the Forefront of our legislators to think about the consequences of some of these things and as much as they put a fiscal note on legislation it'd be nice if they had to do kind of a a fiscal note as far as um what the requirement on Educators would be you know as far as the the effort and time required so again thanks for putting this out there Mr Pria yeah thanks that was that was a great Point Casey about um the fiscal
281note of time that's taken away from serving our students by having to do these things and when Rick mentioned he couldn't think of an example I've seen recently just from this start of the school year a couple different teachers from the state of Tennessee gone kind of viral with this comment about how they're having to go through their class classro libraries and list out all the books and how much time just you know taken away from setting up their classrooms and getting ready to meet their kids um that's just one example of some of the stuff that kind of feels a little bit red tapy and unnecessary I would think so really appreciate you guys doing this thank you Rick and I fully support it Josh then Dan yeah just really quickly um Echo the
282kudos to Rick uh for pushing this and secondly I wonder if it's an opportunity for us to think about here just at the district level the things that maybe we require of teachers or you know processes or what have you that we could even examine and decide that there's some things we don't need to do or have to do that maybe it's just an occasion for us as we're asking the state to do this maybe ask ourselves to do the same thing that's how this started um we found some redundancies in some of our some of our forms uh paperwork um we looked at eliminating some paper and putting things on electronic um levels um uh what we did find and and uh I'm looking over at my team just to double check me on
283this we found more things locally that we were putting on our principles and so many of the things that were on our teachers were at the state level right and I'm speaking generally but that was and that triggered some discussions that got r to start talking about this is a bigger issue than just us I know the vast majority of what's required comes from the feds or from the state I mean no no question which is at times frustrating Mr Cash well done Rick I I I love the way this was written up and uh there's a lot of issues facing our teachers today and they are stressed I've said this for several years now much more can we put on teachers regardless of where it's coming from and I'm I'm glad you you left
284it open like this so people can think about it but our teachers are stressed they work their tails off and it just it just continues more and more uh it it can be right from policy it can be from the outside groups uh you name it but we got to let them get back to educating our children and that's what they're trained to do that's what they love to do and get rid of all this other stuff so you can you can take and think about what stuff means and it's all out there so thanks again I I I think this is great I don't see any other comments then the last resolution is the third grade retention law uh thank you madam chair this is a recommendation from from our staff and me to
285you related to the third grade retention law and really that third grade retention law is a third and fourth grade retention law you may recall that a couple of years ago in this passed a lot of folks were proverbial up proverbially up in arms and the basic answer we got was well we have two years before this goes into effect and we'll have we'll have time to consider and we may tweak the we may tweak the statute well it's going to in effect it's going into effect firmly this coming fall there there is a ton of complexity to the application of this retention law um and I got to show you just a quick visual we're working on a flowchart this is still a work in progress we're going to we're going to make sure
286that we've got it all exactly right we've got a couple of tweaks a flowchart describing the process by which this is the the the the the the matriculation of students um to to fourth and fifth grade is analyzed there's a couple of circles down here that say retain to Fourth retain to third retain to third Our concern is that there will be some students who have to be retained based on this rule exclusively on how they do on Ela and whether they do a couple of state requirements and we think it's a lot more than that uh we think our that there's value and principles talking to parents about the whole child whole all the details of that child's life where they are and that decision ought to be local ultimately and so we ask
287you all as a board to uh to to resolve that this needs to be on tsba agenda to make some adjustments certainly open any discussions prior to Monday um we've got a couple of typos and just a double check on some of these items but um we we want to get this flowchart out um and uh I'll share who's the driver behind it when we publish it to everybody not going to mention that now uh you know this person and uh just but it's ultimately been a team effort but oh my goodness y'all um I'm worried what's going to happen it and again it's mainly It ultimately hits fourth grade there's some pieces that can hit third mainly hits fourth but I'm worried what happens to those students when they're a Junior and senior in
288high school uh when when they're 18 for what that's worth so I've talked too much already Mr Mitchell so Jason do we do we want this this to say to tweak it or I I'm feeling like we want to recommend removing it all together because it's it's not just the 18 year olds or the potential 20 year olds that you're going to have in high school that are probably going to this policy is going to drive dropouts is what it that you're right and and it's and you're going to have a 20- yearolds in high school you're going to have 16 year olds in middle school so we're going to have to figure out what we're going to do about the 16-year-old Middle School student that's driving to school or on the football team or
289or harassing the 11-year-old students that that are of the opposite sex so it's the point is it's it's one of these talk about the Ripple effects of policy and laws this one my my thought is do we ask if it's going to to adjust it relative to the one specific that the policy or the resolution says or do we recommend that they eliminate it completely yeah so um that's a good question and I'm going to uh invite Dr oyer and Dr allent to to speak as well I will say some of the programs that have been developed as a result of this law to prepare for the for the time when the law has teeth have been valuable the summer program I've called it summer school they call it summer camp the truth is that
290summer school has been valuable to some students and I it's been it's in a lot of ways it's been great for some students it's been a voluntary program at this point we we have we have we have um opened it to students to the maximum extent we could staff it at this point so um I like that the that they are funding that at the state level I worry that they are funding it because it's a state requirement and that the funding will go away if it's no longer there so my gut tells me that the that the change in the law ought to be that leas can still make the decision on retention at third and fourth grade but still have that requirement in place so that the state will will still continue to
291fund those programs y'all I I want to invite if you disagree with me feel free I I'll just add just let me just add just a couple of things so um first of all just so in full transparency the reason why I believe that it was brought forward initially is is based on the research that if students aren't on track to read by the end of their third grade um Research indicates that they they'll never make up that ground so I think it's I think it's I think they good intentions behind it uh but to superintendent Golden's Point um we've offer we've identified priority students and offered uh summer school as additional supports and resource resources the last uh couple Summers and and uh it's it's had some success but it's not an automatic fix
292there are interventions that begin as early as the first quarter of the kindergarten year for students who we identify that are struggling to read those interventions are in place they're intensive um when we say thou shall go to summer school or you're not moving on or you have to do this after school these are students that are struggling and are getting intensive interventions uh every day and so I think our team thinks it's a step too far to say you absolutely have to do this and to Mr Golden's point we have conversations with the parents we determine based on what's the best interest of that child and recommend to the parents that they that they come to summer school and we work with the parents rather than needing that mandated through law to say you
293have to do such thing because it's not right we would feel that it's not in the best interest of every child to have to do that the only thing I would add I Echo everything that has been said the only thing that I would add is I think the spotlight has to be on students who may not have their best performance on any given day related to a standardized test and this removes the the discretion of that educator those Educators that know those students in the building who might not be the students that we are able to intervene with and Target really well that Dr Allen just spoke about but simply the student who has test anxiety simply the student who may have medical challenges that surface on that day um and I think that
294that the spotlight on that one moment in time um is a challenge that our principal spoke very directly to that the removal of that discretion and the concern for that group of kids it's it's really two groups of kids um and Dr Allen mentioned the research related to third grade but we also have a significant body of research related to what happens when students are retained information that goes all the way back to as early as fourth grade and some of the the international research related to dropouts it's it's information that as secondary our Educators our secondary Educators look at and say what are what are the risk factors when this kid comes to us as an eighth grader and being retained is one of the highest indicators of that and so it it isn't
295just a chance I mean we have generations of research that tells us that the the retaining can have significantly detrimental impacts on our students so just to Spotlight that piece as well Rick you're next this is really more of a point of question about form if this is a resolution going to tsb's um uh convention then it seems like it needs to indicate that in the res in the resolution we'll make sure we add that okay thank you missia so that that gives me another question so this is to we're we're giving this resolution to tsba to put this on their policy agenda right not we're not sending this directly to the state I see it as duel okay U to let to let the our legislators know this matters to us and we're asking
296them for a change Plus get the state organization up okay and so what you said about the Summer Bridge camps earlier um will this then because am I understanding correctly or recalling correctly that those Bridge camps were in place as a result of covid learning loss and they were funded by the state for five years and then they were supposed to be or or you know we were supposed to take over the funding of those is that cor there's multiple camps and I think the answer to your question question is yes you were correct is that so Dana you may remember so there are three there are three there were three camps as part of the original legislation the learning loss Bridge Camp is the only one that will remain that's by and large uh
297Rising fourth graders that ties into the third grade guarantee if you will Rising fourth graders through eighth grade because they would be required if they weren't meeting proficient to take it to in order to not be retained that's part of so that one's going to stay that one's going to stay that apply so there's overlap with the with the third grade retention law for those Rising fourth graders but there's still the identification of the priority students and offering the camp not making it mandatory for Rising fifth 6th 7th and eth okay the summer school the summer camp that one um uh that one is no longer this past summer was the last for that and the after school mini camp that Camp is no longer in existence so the terminology is the learning loss Bridge
298Camp will be the only one that's moving forward Rising 4 through 8th okay okay thank you and the the and the the teeth in the law is rising fourth students who finished third grade they face the retention issue and then the next grade level if if they haven't shown growth as they rise to fifth they could be retained um I I wonder if there's a whereas you could add to talk about um how the new Tissa student-based funding formula is really focused on that third grade literacy piece as well so maybe this has become a little bit more unnecessary because they're rather going to reward with an outcome bonus the positive side of the students that are in third grade and meet or exceed standards rather than penalizing the students who for whatever reason didn't
299score well on a test one day you know um you could word that better than I just did but that's how I feel talk we'll talk about that possibility let's see where are we Dan yeah Jason how many I've I've read a couple of different things on the percentage of our students that this would affect uh what is that exactly based on last year's um teap we had I think maybe 800 is that what was our total number Dave um I I believe the total number taking the assessment is around a thousand okay 34% were not proficient would be affected by this law so 30 34% of our of our third graders would have been approaching or below which which would fit into the category of having some requirement summer camp and or tutoring so
300with with RTI tutoring and whatnot you don't think we can bring those grades up I think I think we will continue to to to shrink that number uh and to Dr Allen's point with the interventions really from kindergarten on up uh I don't know how how familiar you guys are we talked about RTI where where uh where where we do some screeners to give them additional interventions in what we call tier two and tier three we will continue to grow that there's some value in the in the summer camps that tutoring will be added we think we will shrink those numbers but we also believe there will be some students who hit that fourth grade point and have to be retained and there and then some who managed to slip by and not have to
301be retained under this law rising to Fourth who didn't show growth from third to third to to the from third to Fourth who can't who have to be retained and not go to fifth those are the two points um it's it's not the fact that we're the highest performing School District within the state and 34% of our students are in this tells me that there's going to be some right right and that's 34% that's that's way too high yeah now I will it as a as a caveat students who have a disability that affects their their read in are can be Exempted from that requirement and English language Learners who were in the first two years of the program can be existed can be Exempted from that requirement as well so it it it won't
302be that total 34% who were subject to it it'll be a little bit smaller than that so that but Statewide there's what 95 counties in the state and 140 147 147 school districts you know they you can't just eliminate this if if there's that big of a problem you know we've got to hit that hat on I mean in Williamson County we're we're we're tops of the TCAP testing but what are we doing uh do they need more phonics is that something to look at or do they need more you know whatever that's that's part of it and we've been shrinking those numbers there are multiple tools for for each student what we're saying here is guaranteeing that retention has to be one of them for every single student who's not there is not the
303right thing that's saying this one tool must be used there will be some students who are principles determined do need to be retained right right but to say everyone who's not there can't be that it's it's just not reasonable it it's not good for you can't say that's good for every single child BAS solely on their Ela T thank you is there anybody else in the room that wants to say anything don't think so then you have your monthly reports and miscellaneous information attached in the packet this meeting is adjourned see you Monday night