WCS Board Work Session 2021-03-11

001as it is necessary to protect public health safety and Welfare Williamson County Schools is officially meeing electronically in light of the Corona virus and pursuant to executive orders number 16 and number 78 signed by Governor Bill Lee and waiver of Williamson County Schoolboard policy 1.400 this evening board members and staff first we will talk about the consent agenda items uh we have on the consent agenda uh the approval of the February 15 2021 school board meeting minutes and the Franklin High School replacement of gymnastics floor and revised logo multi-purpose field Mr golden thank you madam chair uh on the consent agenda of course the the minutes are regular uh we have on there also a proposal that for uh um replacing the Franklin gy floor plus do replacing a portion of the logo on the

002football field uh as you all know the U the uh name was changed by a uh a recommendation from a from a team at Franklin High and I approved that last year the gym floor is really ready to be replaced but the uh the the logo itself on the football field still has some time so our proposal is to take um the um some of the remaining funds from from the long-term Franklin stage capital project and uh and make that change we have a me a memo on there um on the on the agenda from for Mark Samuels uh I will tell you also to share a little bit extra detail Mark has Mark has the total numbers and there there will be some um money left over from that project as well um but

003there's talk at the at Franklin High about the possibility of changing the power F to a script F and I don't know if you guys have seen um some of their some of their jackets um but that's a that's a discussion they're having as well um so we're open any questions related to that if you have any questions if you'll please raise your hand in the chat yes Mr gber thank you Madame chair uh J GTH Jason just wanted to um I really just want to get a list of of the funds of of all of our projects on a capital basis that we've had this conversation before I don't know that I've asked directly to see um and thank you for bringing this to to our attention when we are using uh when we

004when we're when you're proposing to use funds that are left over from other projects but um i' i' just like to see a detail of all of our of all of our projects and the the leftover funds obviously we can't go over so there are going to be there going to be some funds left over on every project more than likely um even though I know Kevin is really really good U but U but also I I thought we had back when we approved the change of the of the name we had we had a a good discussion about what we were going to do with what what was going to happen and who was going to be responsible for paying and I thought we agreed to share that in some in some form or

005fashion but I don't remember how that um how that discussion was was finalized um we did you're right we did discuss that and I your recollection is my recollection too that we really didn't finalize that discussion um you know the uh the U the the community had the you know had the had the discussion and then the committee made that decision or it really that recommendation and I was the one who ultimately decided based on the recommendation I do want to ask Dr Webb if she remembers any details um of that but um but uh but but more specifically to that comment about the script one of the one of the tentative plans Mark has is to bid it with an ad alternate um because our plan was just to do the the least we

006could possibly do to make the change so there is a possibility of them sharing already Dr web yes thank you Mr Golden there were there were several costs that the school is is is taking on themselves um it isn't uncommon for a school to go through a rebranding process I think naturally with a new uh new nickname and a new mascot that it was a natural time for Franklin to go through a rebranding process and so they have been going through that and transitioning and shifting their branding um internally school uniforms as an example is something that um would have to transition the school has has uh taken on those costs uh they're just rotating through their typical uniform rotation and as that rotation comes up then they're paying for it and uh and using

007their uh General athletic funds to cover those costs uh there are also some things internally that the the boosters are helping fund um some rebranding within the school the school has taken some of those rebranding pieces on as far as the field um and the court um those pieces are larger pieces that the school doesn't have the funds to cover um but there are many you know just thinking about like you know the school letter head and some of the rebranding that takes place on the uh School website those are pieces that the school themselves are taking on I don't see any other questions members if not we'll move on to our next item which is the superintendent report all right thank you madam chair um uh like always I have a PowerPoint but I

008did want to mention first that the paig uh girls basketball team is playing tonight at 8:30 uh over in Murphysboro and one of our Sports writers uh wrote something like the hottest ticket in town or I think there was a quote in the paper I wish I could remember because th those those reporters those local Sports reporters are some of my favorites um and so it's neat and uh it's exciting and if you guys know me you know um I love basketball I mean there's nothing well there might be something better but there's not a whole lot better than going to a to a to a high school ball game I've missed it uh this past year because I've made it a point not to go to mini to make sure we honored that the

009the the space for everyone at least this particular year so uh Tim and Brian if you would pull up my PowerPoint I do want to let you know that uh um you can go ahead to the next uh slide just because I had a title page I'm going to talk about three things and I've been trying to make it a theme in in my presentations to you um these last few months to to give you three Focus points the truth is there's so much going on so much going on that uh um I could um speak all week about it and often I do but not not always to the same exact exact listener um so we're going to talk about some funding related updates some covid related updates and then um um like I've

010been making it a point to do these last few months uh give you an update on fostering Healthy Solutions so the funding related updates are going to be a little bit uh deeper than simply funding but um I think it's important for you all to get a grasp of some of the detail that we discussed just in last month last week's uh budget meeting where we hit where we hit some items and Rachel um farmer actually gave you all some updates in the email but I want to hit some of the high points so you and the public can see this so next slide y'all so we had a discussion about all the Esser stuff the uh Elementary and secondary schools emergency relief um funding that that we've been getting and I now remember the

011acronym uh and then there was a question specifically about FEMA and teema so I want to hit I want to hit some key points that um that I'm hoping are just in time uh discussions and and answer to some of the questions that you all had um just last week as we had that first um budget work session so um Esser 1.0 you can see up there the total that we got in that first batch last spring we spent the vast majority of that funding for Food Service um and one one of the uh one of the conversations I had with our food services director um back then in late spring early summer was I don't intend to ask the board for any more um Federal funding uh um re related to food service and

012that you were going to need to find a way if if uh if you ended up in a deficit to to work out of it um and so when we brought that item to you in November the intent has been and was and continues to be for them to work their way out of it and one of the discussions we had last Thursday was about whether they're capable of it so I gave I wanted wanted you guys to have at least a couple of bullet points related to that um the we we we uh we asked for that approval for funding up to $2 million Rachel projects um about a $1.2 million need um based on based on where we are now to what we're projecting through the end of the school year it's a

013projection um we don't really know for sure but that's that's where she's at and I also wanted to point out the the Food Service history of fund balance um based on my experience with the food service department uh I know that um most every year they have a fund balance and they're actually required um under the USDA rules to carry not more than a three-month fund balance not not a basement a roof uh for those funds so what James has often done James ridi uh at the end of the years when he's had a fund balance is he does capital projects He does you know he does some improvements here in there so with with this year uh that so many districts are going through and we we certainly are um my expectation and and

014James and Mark know it is that you will start the process of of uh of of repaying those funds that were necessary for this Enterprise fund uh to to to survive this year we talked about a lot of this back in November um I'm certainly open to any any detailed questions you all have um but we did a little bit of benchmarking uh just the last few days uh and uh and and what we what we've heard is that a couple of neighboring districts that we gave a call to uh have had similar experiences in slightly different numbers so Franklin Special of course is is you know our um um our very next door neighbor um and the numbers that we got uh in calling them is that they actually had a deficit of about

015$47,000 in their in their fund and they were covering that and um the expectation was for them to pay it back uh and we've also checked in Rutherford County uh um has has has actually given 1.7 million uh so far to uh to their to their food service in two different chunks a million dollar and then 700,000 and uh and their ex and as I understanding and Gary I know you made that call correct me if I'm wrong my understanding is that that's actually out of some of the federal funding so we're actually doing a hybrid um compared to those two districts um that we checked on um Franklin Special it's all going to be paid back under their plan rord um it's through the federal funds and we did federal funds first with the

016expectation that anything later would be would be paid through that um but uh Mr galber asked a really good question last week about about um what I think of as what about the revenue side what about finding ways to bump up um uh the uh the revenue in especially this this fourth quarter that's coming up and uh and so I did want Mark to give you um um some information information on that related to the plan um I had similar thoughts and you know I'm I'm using language in our discussions like let's pull out all the stops to try to find ways to encourage um folks to to just take a lunch and so when we actually had a our our quarterly meeting with PTO presidents yesterday morning and uh we break that out through

017Elementary and secondary and I mentioned it to all our PTO leaders that said you know we're we're going to be communicating with everyone to hey let us let us feed your children this last quarter uh you know stop stop doing a lunch you know don't worry about that we've got it and because we do get that reimbursement this year for every school launch so Mark I know I don't have you in a PowerPoint but uh but I would like you to hit some bullet points of what we've done both on the expense side and on the revenue side um related to food service thank you Mr Golden good evening board Mark Samuels here what I want to do first is talk about some of the guiding strategies that we've had so far this year what

018we've done first of all with the guidance that Mr Golden has given us we have we are very much focused on the cash flow on achieving that cash flow and maintaining the cash flow on a fund balance we do not anticipate needing um the 2 million dollar as was stated and we're very hopeful based on our uh progress up until covid hit last year with the the new pricing we had that that once we get back to normal operations we will be able to pay back this this uh uh 1.2 million if that's what we end up doing certainly within three years or so um so our guidance strategy then through this has been we're going to cut cost but we're not going to raise the prices and we're not going to we're not going

019to cut the quality of the food that we provide nor the the um portions that we provide these are pretty important to us because we want to uh to continue to encourage students and parents to purchase the meals from us so we've wanted to maintain the the level of quality through this well what have you done first on the expense reduction side we have looked at our non-food conser uh consumables paper products PPE cleaning supplies and that and have really looked at how how we can buy less expensive items the interesting thing to me is um Monday night when when uh the Marriott conference setting um manager was reporting to the commission on the on the conferencing Center one of the things he mentioned was exactly what we've experienced in in this particular area begin

020of school year just gloves that we use uh for um serving for preparing food and stuff was $30 a box uh in in September well now it's $120 a box and and we have experienced that as well so so our cost cutting in in in um um consumables has been a challenge on food again we're not going to sacrifice the quality of the food that we have but we have taken advantage of specials that we can get when vendors offer them and we also have made decisions on the different type the packaging of that food comes in same quality food different packaging that's cheaper so those are some of the things that we've done in those two areas a fourth a third area within Food Services is our equipment we're holding off on equipment repairs

021as best we can um our in-house staff is doing some if there's reasonable parts neate with that but if we can defer some of that stuff we will some things we can't for safety reasons we have had to replace some ice ice machines uh this year that's a safety issue for for food handling purposes um but we haven't done any um um facilities refreshes as Mr Golden talked about and and and that's something that really does tend to to in improve um revenues when they happen throughout the industry and lastly on on on the expense reduction our staffing we really have tried to limit our staffing this year as best we can right now we have over 57 part-time positions that are vacant um and and and our payroll shows a decrease this year over

022last year that that uh um shortfalls in Staffing comes at a price particularly when we're dealing with covid procedures within the schools which are pretty logistically intensive in this case but that's what we're doing from a from a St point of trying to increase revenues to date what we've done most of the elementary schools are doing classroom feeding it's it's brown bag lunch that we provide what we've tried to do to entice students to uh um um want to buy them from us is we've offer we offer four different Entre a day now those Entre rotate throughout the month or so but it's four different Entre with with some level of allart associated with that obviously if we're into classrooms we can't do the full spread of the cart that we can but we've tried

023to encourage that um other school districts we know of has have only done one Entre you would ask well why would you do four rather than just one well it doesn't cost anymore to do four and um in trying to entice the students and the parents to purchase those meals having that op having those options um is more inviting so that's what we've done there allart sales have been down in a couple areas and just the number of of students that we have the opportunity to sell um Mills to has been down for a lot of Reasons online um sickness and quarantine uh the times we've gone to remote so all theart sales are down in another ways but we have tried to do some bundling particularly in the snack bar areas so make it

024quicker for for students to go and get those we've also as a student will come through uh picking some allart we've encouraged them well if you take this fruit these veggies right here then that'll qualify as a USB da um um reimbursable meal um we can't force them to take that many cases they don't if they don't intend to eat it they're not going to put it on their tray and we can't count it as a meal unless they actually put on the tray uh but but we continue to do that um and then lastly our PR efforts Carol's group has been very helpful in helping us do some InFocus um um stories throughout this year we got another one that will be coming out probably the Tuesday after spring break with the InFocus uh

025to encourage people to come in buy the meal from us as Mr goolan said earlier um and and let us take that burden off of you those stories also have the information on meal kits and other things for those who qualify for those meal kits so it's good to go out from from our our ability to increase more revenues as long as we're doing U um in classroom things that that that's a bit of a challenge but we do have an opportunity going into next year uh to to do breakfast at more schools than what we're doing this year we had wanted to do that this year but Co kind of put that as a as a back seat so that's one thing that we're looking at also the summer camps that are being offered

026this year that's 15 days of food service opportunity this fiscal year with one more being in the other year so we are planning to help out there with both breakfast and and lunches uh we don't know how many students are going to come those numbers you you may hear about you know tonight or soon uh we don't know how many of those actually would purchase a meal but that's an opportunity that we're we're looking at as well and it's one we don't have normally and then likewise we would uh um do a public relations on those opportunities U particularly in the summer but also um um breakfast coming up hopefully in the fall uh so any your questions that's all I have so Madam chair I'm fine with whatever you prefer either either answering questions

027now related to this or let me finish two three in the FEMA tea and just answer the the federal funding update at all at one swoop Nancy you're on mute thank you um are there any questions right now since we're taking a deep in the cafeteria fund all right thank thank you madam chair I'm I'll move to the oh sorry there is a hand oh hand Mr galberth thank you madam chair Jay galberth uh so I talked to thank you for that Mr Sam Mills I really really appreciate it I Rachel and I have had a couple of discussions since our last board meeting and um I understand where the I understand the numbers better now I really appreciate her walking walking through I think we both understand better um she's still she's still learning

028that I mean not all this was under her watch so um so lots of lots of Grace to go around but um you know when I look at it I the picture that I paint is is just is just a little bit different than Mr Samuels did um we we actually we actually gave uh Jason we we we gave a half a million dollars in in June of last year out of uh out of our out of the general purpose School fund uh and plus the half a million roughly um was a little over both of those were a little over half a million but they that was given actually in in July of this year and so that's a million dollars and that fund balance went from 1.2 to to 300,000 in the year

029even with us giving a million bucks so so they lost a million n last year U and then so far this year outside of cash flow issues just on a on a revenue minus expenses basis um we've lost about $400,000 and and then we've got the propped up by the by the money that we gave uh obviously and there's an $800,000 there is an $800,000 receivable kind of a rolling receivable from this 30 days of revenue from the USDA um what I mean what I'd really like to see and um what i' really like to see as us re as us get that that loan repaid um at the end of the fiscal year or by August um with at least the the last month's payment U that was received up from the US a

030if we could if we could limit the amount of amount of the loan that rolls forward i i as soon as we get paid back that would be that would be fantastic um because you know going forward who knows what the USDA is going to look like and and hopefully the um but if we did that there would still be if we gave them 1.2 million um we'd still be giving them a half million you know 400,000 is uh additional to to fund their fund balance but the the concerning thing about the fund balance is that you know when you looked at that list the historical fund balance is three to $500,000 but but there's around a million dollars in prepaid balances where where parents put money in the in the balance and they're they

031hold that money in and and technically that's a liability so uh the fact that we have less money less cash in the bank than than liabilities to um to families is concerning to me I think we should we should just evaluate that process going forward to see if we want to set the set the minimum fund balance as at least the the amount of money that we owe back to parents potentially not I mean they're going to use it in they're going to use it for for food more than likely unless they graduate or lead the system but it's just you never want your your asset your liabilities to be more than your asset at the end at the end of the day um but I I'm really I really don't understand why we're not

032proposing a an increase in cost if we're going to have a have a loan outstanding um Can can you help me understand Jason or or Mark why why we wouldn't think that um that rais I mean just a a penny on or a dime on meal across the hundreds of thousands of meals that we go that we that we serve in a year would would go a long way and I don't think that it would change demand very much well we actually I'll have Mark speak to that in detail but we actually did have that conversation about Demand versus price and uh and what we determined was the appropriate thing for this year was to keep it flat um and uh and and Mark you can speak to some detail of that yes sir thank

033you um just one part of the reason uh in this time in order to um try and hold on with the c customer base we have and to expand that customer base if we can continue to provide the quality at the pricing that we had last year which which seemed to work very well for us um and and take the time to get out of um out of the situation we are that seemed to be a better approach for for our customer base um as as opposed to throwing on another price increase which would be um basically right after the school year that we had a price increase and I will add one of the things in my mind at the time was um getting folks back into habits uh you know that that they

034might have gotten out of um but to your point it's a value judgment it is a value judgment that we made and and it is it is in part because um I determin that they're capable of paying it back um you know whether whether it's overtime or otherwise well but there's there's no plan to pay it back there's no plan in the budget to pay any of it back this year um and they and they've lost two million two almost two and a half million dollars in the last two years so um I mean I I I get wanting to to satisfy your customer base but they've they've essentially had free meals for this for this past year so and we've lost $2 and a half million dollars so I just I mean are we

035we're running a business and and right now they've been bailed out um by big brother and I'm and and it's it's not anything against anybody it's just the fact that it's supposed to be self- sustaining and it's not right now so um and and we're and we're we're adding on $250,000 for a for a 4% raise in the in the proposed budget um so I mean that's compounding right so just I I mean I really I know we're we're approving this on next Monday night and um I mean I'd really like to see the the projections of what a of what a cost increase would um would bring in in Revenue because that falls directly to the bottom line one one point right will make sure we have that one one point of clarification is

036we're we're approving it week after Monday night isn't that correct yes so we have have a little bit more time between this work session and our our formal monthly board meeting that we normally have Mr Wimberly has a question uh yes thank you um for people who have tuned in and listened to our long discussion over this in the budget meeting and then I've listened tonight it's a little bit confusing we keep talking about they uh and the cafeterias as if they were not our C cafeteria IAS so Jason could you give like a real short overview of why it may appear that way when it's really not that way that's a great question so we actually have four budgets that we look at annually one is the general fund two is the cafeteria fund

037which is a separate budget because of USDA regulations three is our school age Child Care Program what we call Sac and then four is we have a capital budget um review every year and it's really because of the Accounting Standards We Are All One organization uh Mark Samuels is not part of the food service department but he is the supervisor of James remidy who is the director of The Food Services Department uh and so we are one organization it's just that it's a separate budget because of the federal ranks okay I forgot to say who I am I'm Rick Wimberly saying thank you thank you I don't see any other questions on food service all right thank you thank you madam chair um um Tim or Brian whoever's working the thing move to the move

038move back to that so Sr 2.0 we actually have this on our agenda tonight um I just wanted to point out that our proposal includes the bulk of that covering uh the bulk of those funds um um covering technology and uh and we're also covering some of the FEMA funds that are actually on that fourth bullet down there be uh that that we had originally submitted to FEMA uh that we mentioned last week we don't we we don't um expect to get uh so uh so that's that's erer 2.0 I also want to let you know yesterday I was in uh the middle of the uh Commissioner of education's uh conference with superintendent and um we had the stop the press's comment from uh from from the uh from the Department of Education that the

039US House had just approved what I'm calling Esser 3.0 uh and and I've looked this up there it's about a $1.9 trillion do relief package the scope of it is just incredible if you if you pull up some of the secondary sources on what it's covering uh and uh it's not been signed by the president yet but what we hear is that the expectation is that he'll sign it tomorrow so the house passed um Esser 3.0 uh and they're using different terminology at the federal level uh what the commissioner told us is you can EXP effect approximately 1.9 times the total funding you received in Sr one and sr2 per District so we were estimating that we we think we're going to get about $5.5 million in Sr 3.0 assuming the president signs that that

040that bill that he was promoting um and we also have heard without any real details uh that that um that the restrictions related to that funding are largely going to be related related to what what's being described at the state level as learning loss um so we don't know any details yet but um I think technology is going to be a big one we have heard specifically from the state department of aded uh that it it will it will include summer uh funding summer schools and uh and what they're calling summer camps that we're actually going to talk about um just after this uh and so there's more to come you know one of the things I've been saying for a year is things change super quickly and here we go it's changing again uh

041more information coming that we'll be working on over these next few weeks to try to figure out where we are with that Sr 3.0 uh and and um one worry I have and I don't know the answer to this it's just a worry it it's just based on experience not on anything specific to this is what this means um when um when at the state level they're going through Be My Hope Is that um that that that these funds are available to the local schools to to to supplement uh uh be to address those losses that that that were intended and that it's not a replacement fund I don't have any reason to believe it is it's just a worry uh that I have in my mind at this point um and then the final

042thing I want to mention is I I I mentioned this already just a tad but but the FEMA tea that um you see the numbers there and I say not a significant impact I say that's not a significant positive impact we submitted every imaginable thing we could um that we've that we determined could be related to the Emergency Management um when when this whole thing started uh and um and then then of course we see the the amount that they've actually approved for us so a lot of those items that we put in there um were actually um rolled into our requests for Esser 2.0 uh to address some of those things that U FEMA team ended up not covering so that's it for that for that um information related to related to Federal funding

043I and Madam chair any questions I'm open to Mr is your hand up uh yes thank you uh Rick Wimberly here just to note uh that the president did sign it into law this afternoon oh thank you for that um we we'd heard they were shooting for Friday and I I missed the the announcement I'm an old news guy I keep up with those things I can't help it those are all the comments good all right all right thank you madam chair let's move to the next slide uh Tim and Brian next thing that has some funding elements to it is WCS online um I want to point out um that that a couple of specifics related to what we talked about last week um we actually include a total U proposed payroll increase for

044WCS online over last year's budget of a little over 1.9 million I thought it was important for me to specifically mention that because you all know how how hard it was last year when we started almost from scratch with WCS online we had some High School courses but nobody was doing that exclusively um and uh and it's it's been a a horal wind of us putting putting something together uh to do the best we possibly could with WCS online um we've talked about this here and there over the last few months uh that that uh that our proposal in um in this year's budget includes creating something that even though it's this year it's still officially a program that that that meets the needs and makes this a long-term viable program y'all there's expense involved

045with this um our strategic plan did not call for this to happen this quickly but given what we've experienced and given and given the the amazing progress that our folks did uh with WCS online this year I'm convinced that it's here to stay and it's a it's a viable service for our for our community but it needs to to get this support um so this is a significant budget addition this year um and I also have another bullet there one of the big questions that some of you have asked and we we've heard from time to time uh from our community is um how's it going to look different next year from this year uh and so I I I made sure in addition to the specifics of making sure that that we have those

046supports in place with counselors etc for the for the online students rather rather than rather than other schools doing a little fill in um the our plan includes the middle school program to be synchronous and staffed appropriately with teachers that is a big deal if you think about teacher lure at the middle school level uh the content areas are um need need that specific license uh by and large there's some older licenses that go up to sixth grade that are Elementary but by and large you need the content areas for uh for for middle school and we just couldn't do it um with our staffing last year but this proposed budget takes um is designed to take care of that um and I really want to make sure that I give you a a few

047more nutshells about how WCS online next year is going to look compared to this year and so I've referenced Dr Webb in uh in this item and would like her to speak to that thank you Mr Golden I'm very happy to report uh some updates for next year with WCS online as Mr Golden mentioned some of the biggest changes that we're going to experience especially instructionally are coming at the middle school level uh we're transitioning to synchronous uh instruction for Middle School it's going to mirror uh a similar fashion to what we've done uh during remote learning it also mirrors what's been taking place in WCS online for elementary um so it' be very similar um also in this transition to synchronous instruction also that U families will see a transition from a a majority

048of our courses being taught using um resources from uity to being taught by our teachers through schoolagy having full-time teachers in middle school and having that synchronous bell schedule not where students are sitting on Zoom an entire class period but they're check they're checking in and receiving direct instruction each day each period for various amounts of time as appropriate based on the content from uh WCS teachers live and then the content will be pushed through Schoo it'll be teacher created content for majority of our content areas for Content areas where we may not have uh full-time teachers um like in uh a special there may still be some uity content that we utilize but our Target is to have all full-time teachers um teach and synchronously all part of the WCS online middle school program

049again mirroring what takes place with um with Elementary um so also uh we have some transitions that and changes that are taking place with our High School uh content we're not content but our high school structure we're also shifting to try to shift more full-time teachers to WCS online we know that from our teacher feedback um and from our observations that the teachers who've been able to um be feel most successful and most grounded in in their instructional day have been those who are teaching in one platform or the other either I'm teaching traditional or I'm teaching online those who um had the biggest load to carry or those who kind of balanced between the two High School content areas are really tricky because of all the different courses that we offer in Williamson County

050we really do offer a a an ideal list of of any imaginable course within content areas electives and CTE and AP courses we offer a vast variety and that comes with a vast certification and expertise with all those different teaching content areas so though our Target in high school is to shift more high school full-time teachers we know they're all not going to be 100% full-time um but we're shifting as many as possible we're also uh strategically attempting to place as many WCS online teachers with teachers from their Zone school so if I'm a centennial student who's taking um WCS online courses we're making every attempt to get you in with with Centennial teachers who may also be teaching online it just has adds that famili familiarity it also increases the likelihood that I may

051be in class with somebody I know and who maybe have a relationship outside of the online platform U so we know that that would be a positive for them as well we do anticipate though with certification areas still having many teachers that are teaching a blend of WCS online and traditional coursework uh to shift every teacher to high school with all those vast certifications and course offerings uh it would be quite expensive to do that we're we're trying to live in the middle uh another year to accommodate the students who need WCS online as an option but also U make sure that they have the content that they need uh for everyone in WCS online really working uh speaking now K12 uh curriculum team continuity is key moving forward uh and it's certainly how we

052do business in our traditional buildings and so when I speak of a curriculum team I'm really talking about teachers who teach the same content area the same grade level um with with students who are who learning at at approximately the the same level so a curriculum team would be sixth grade ELA or Biology one um or uh third grade so those are our curriculum teams and we're really pushing continuity um and as much common instructional planning uh as possible common Norms common grading practices common structures again mirroring what we do in our traditional classrooms and having this additional time where we we were rushed during covid um but we have now the Strategic time to put in place uh strategic teams of teachers and so that process um is going to be carefully selected of

053who goes on each of those teaching teams and at the high school level as an example where um there are more instructional options our curriculum teams will be common on what platform they use so I'll use that example of the biology one curriculum team likely is going to be made up of teachers from all over the county who are teaching maybe students at their own buildings but also teaching a blend of some of students from around the county that team of biology one will be working to um be as common as possible and they will either choose to teach um using schooly as the delivery method or that team may be choosing to use uity as a delivery method of of the primary instruction it's going to vary from Team to team um and it's

054going to depend on the uh the team itself and the resources that we have available uh we've had so much great success with some of our uity courses um that aligns with our state standards that our our teaching teams really have found Great Value in them so we will be continuing with um some uity courses at the high school level level um and again Staffing support and again I'm going to speak to everyone K12 with our staffing transitions for the upcoming school year uh we really are looking at what kind of Staffing would um a a school of a similar size in brick and mortar what kinds of services and support and Staffing do they need as an example if a high school of 1,500 students in in a brick and mortar building um if

055the Staffing standard for that is you know one one principal or director and three assistant principls and uh three school counselors as an example then we're looking to evaluate is that the appropriate amount of Staffing for WCS online as well and this year in our budget you're going to see that we really thought strategically about how are we Staffing a traditional building and what kind of similar and relatable source resources can we put in place for WCS online we want to make sure that our if I'm an online student I have I'm I have as much counseling support RTI support if I'm a teacher WCS online I have an administrator who is devoted to giving me instructional feedback stepping into my zooms giving me feedback stepping into my schooo looking to be able to see

056exactly what it is that I'm teaching and that is the dedication of that staff um so that's a change that you're going to see in the budget cost money to do that but we really felt like that it's important to to put that staff in place to support the instruction that's taking place uh K K12 really uh that additional staff what includes instructional coaches uh counselors that are devoted to uh just being WS online school administrators assistant principes that are dedicated just to serving students um and online um so all of that takes time to do so of course we're not hiring all new teachers to do this do this work their current WCS teachers who are going to shift as the students shift out of their building there's been a lot of conversation I

057know I've spoken with a lot of teachers and parents and administrators about the timeline of you know when that decision has to be made for WCS online and you know why why is that in March when school starts in August all awesome awesome questions um what what takes place traditionally at this time of year after spring break and I'll give a high school example because their schedules are more the most complex typically what happens in a traditional year outside of covid in a brick-and mortar building after spring break that at that point a majority if not all of the individual student meetings of course selection um all the counseling sessions what courses should be taken the upcoming year typically the target is all that's completed by spring break after spring break all of those hard

058conversations and planning uh begins at the school level for August so that the months of April and May really are devoted to putting the core of uh the master schedule together putting teacher teams together so much work takes place within departments within teaching teams across Campus of making the Strategic decision of who's teaching which content areas for the next school year how can we place instructional teams together to really get the the the best working team together by content uh and those those decisions are solidified during April and May also at that same time a master Matrix is put together so if you think about a high school of 1700 kids that's between 10,000 and 11,000 course individual course selections they start a master Matrix to make sure if if uh 800 kids all chose

059an individual class that's only offered one time on the entire campus if possible that all 800 of those kids get that individual class that they need so schools start putting together in the months of April and May a master Matrix of how can we make sure every kid gets exactly that one class that they really really want to take all within that Sixth and seven and eth period day um for those students who can't get into that one singular class then we go back to the counselors again and have that reciprocal meeting that takes place to get the right place uh for each student to learn that takes time it's April and May that that takes place with WCS online all that work is stalled the work that would typically begin in April and May

060we have to push pause on that for just a minute we have to push pause because we have to first before that work can begin we have to really look deeply into which students are leaving each campus which teachers are going to need to go with them to WCS online and how can we make those instructional decision to put those teams together before that work in each one of those schools can take place and it just takes time um that's work that really needs to be done while teachers are still in the building kids are still in the building counselors are still in the building so we can continue to have those conversations so starting for us in uh after spring break our Target is by April 11th to start those conversations about which students

061are transitioning for sure into online what courses have they selected sometimes you know an online student may have selected a class that's not available online it's a CTE offering or it's an elective that just can't be can't be taught and it's not um you know possible to teach it online so they have to go back and meet with the counselors to pick new courses all of those shifts have to take place before that Traditional School scheduler can start looking at who's left now which teachers left who's remaining who's teaching what and then they start that work that would typically take place in April and May of course in the summer our assistant principls and counselors work all summer but at that point in the summer they're really working to do the fine-tuning and have an

062individual conversations with students um hiring those last teachers doing last minute tweaks based on the certifications who've come into a building it's a complex process but our our folks man they do it like clockwork um but it does take time to do that which is why we have that March uh deadline other I've seen other districts around the country and state have already had their deadlines even um especially bigger schools that are working to um you know have the best situation possible for everyone in learning and teaching but that's a little bit of a process a snapshot of the changes that we have taken place over the next few months and uh we're really proud of the work that has already taken place in WCS online but uh we really get Juiced up and excited

063when we look about uh look at what the future holds um not only for online but you know looking at um the fall and and coming back and students getting back into that sense of normaly and um you know we we think postco is right around the corner so we're we're excited for all that lies ahead uh this is Jason again thank you Dr web and thank you for adding that um extra detail about what I think of is a frequently Asked question that we've we've received a lot of these last few weeks about that registration deadline in the in the complexity of it one of the one of the um pieces of information I've shared with uh with parents who've asked um it really it started two three weeks ago was um I don't

064want to make the same mistake again um with what we did in in in trying to trying to accommodate um you know the parents decision when that crisis was hitting with covid um and so the the we're going to talk about Co a little bit um with Gary Anderson in our in our next slide um and but I want my best suggestion for somebody who's trying to make a decision is uh is is based on everything they're here and project out is there is there a critical piece of uh of what might be in um this fall that might affect their child's um safety in the building uh and and if that's if that if the answer to that's yes um could very much see why they choose uh online because right now as we

065as we're these few you know few months away still it's tough to know um for sure how that's going to change um I did want to um hit one other item um Dr Webb uh from from a estimate standpoint about how many so far have signed up for WCS online knowing that we have actually established March 23rd as a deadline we we still have a um I would say about half of our families that need to make a s election and so our numbers are relatively small right now but I'm I'm equating that small number to the amount amount of families that are still trying to make up their mind and they um haven't submitted their their choice yet but our numbers are smaller than we had projected but I anticipate that number shifting dramatically

066between now and the last uh the last day for the deadline and last I saw it was somewhere in the in the 1,00 range but that's been a few days ago that's total yeah total but um we're still projecting we feel like that based on Communications that we've had the buildings that we'll have between 1300 um and 1500 High School total full-time students that's our projection we're not there yet um but that's that that's kind of what we've predicted based on communication but um for Middle School we're thinking 800 to a thousand um based on Communications the tricky part is that I think um you know opinions have changed in a lot of households about when they're going to you know if if they're ready to come back to a traditional setting and as things

067in our community as I know that Gary's going to give us an update on here in just a few minutes but as our community situation improves I think many of those families are holding off and changing their mind and um are looking forward to being back on campus and just to give you all perspective as a reminder we have about 5,500 or so uh currently in WCS online um also um long term uh I've concluded that we really do need to have an online school um numbers are are are really a critical piece of that because the state limit on for an online school is 1500 uh and so so that's something that we're going to go through the planning process on um and determine what's the most appropriate structure and we've alluded to this

068a couple of months ago um was a Ka um best because of how the how how students are enrolled versus a you know versus a high school is Is it wise for us to have two schools versus one because of numbers um so that's part of what we're working on really for the long term and we'll get a little bit ahead of some of our uh action steps for of our for for our U for our strategic plan as well so Madam chair I know there's a couple of hands up and I want to make sure we honor those I put my hand down Jason actually asked the or answered the question I was wondering about estimates based on registration so far okay thank you I don't see any other hands up at this point

069oh Mr Wimberly you are uh I guess I'm a little bit oh Rick Wimberly here I guess I'm a little bit torn about whether to wait until a CO report or or uh address it now but it seems appropriate to address it now uh Dr Webb has done an outstanding job of U explaining the changes and talking about the challenges and setting up the the online school um but however um it it's hard for me to believe that there are that there there's going to be a lot that will happen as as far as health and safety between now and the 23rd of March that would cause people to change their minds um or anything material that would cause a large number to change their minds so um so my my my question is and

070is okay what if we delayed it by a month I know that would be a challenge but what would we be trading off if we gave it a another month now I'm no expert on such things but it seems to me that uh things are happening so quickly more people are getting vaccinated etc etc etc that there could be some materially some material new information that would be available to to families uh by April 23rd that's not there on March 23rd because I think it'll be from that period where we will see the most significant change um as people get through that second vaccination and as we're able to to see Trends and as we see what's happening to this supposed this Plateau that has occurred is is that going to be eliminated that's going

071to happen in the coming weeks but not by my opinion but not by March 23d so if if you didn't have a choice but to do it extend the deadline until April 23rd what would that do to us Dr web I'll let you add address that with the practicalities thank you Mr Golden so it it probably sounds like on the surface an exaggeration but I want to want to say with full transparency and honesty that it isn't that we from the time that the registration closes for students to make their selection on on March 23rd until the first day of school we have every we have every day scheduled of the process to to put in place um you know that that indication that I gave with that explanation of what takes place just in

072a high school as one example in the months of April and May so we would be without us without knowing who the students are uh and the teachers and there's all those human capital changes that have to take place associated with the decisions that are made by by families we would be delaying that by a month um in which we're already delaying that process for a Traditional School by several weeks so adding that month would um make me very anxious about whether we could get all the human capital changes um all the certifications the backfill of hiring teachers and the those added positions that we're going to need after we we shift um I would be very hesitant and nervous that we would be able to start school on time in August for our traditional

073and our online students uh in addition one piece we haven't talked about is all of the back backend work that takes place with our instructional technology department to make sure that once all of the scheduling is complete there's an added layer that happens with WCS online that's much more complicated than what my simple mind can really probably explain but our instructional tech department uh really has to work to bridge if I'm one teacher across the district but I'm teaching students in in multiple schools there's a lot of backend work that has to take place to make sure that we've manually kind of made a technology Bridge from all of those different students and all those teachers from different places to our uh WCS online course and then link all that to all of our applications

074that that part is an added part that wouldn't typically happen in a school year because it happens naturally one teacher one school with kids all zoned to that school that part also takes a tremendous amount of time um so my my recommendation would be um that we we head forward with the the deadlines that we have now have some uh individual conversations with families that are still trying to make that really tough decision so we can help advise them with what they're struggling with um and stick to the deadline versus um the the possible consequences of not having everything in place um in time for the school year to start in August and and this is Jason if I may add a little bit uh I had these conversations with Dr Webb and Dr Royer

075back in January and my basic ask was was stretch it squeeze it as much as you possibly can map your days um figure out what's the best we can possibly do and uh and and that the result of that was was the landing on March 23d um I do have a concern that there's there there may never be a perfect date um for everyone and Mr rly I appreciate your comment about a month because you that question really emphasizes what we've been talking about that so much continues to change uh um every day um what we do know is um that that there's going to be more change even after April uh there there's going to be constant change um even you know probably leading up to the fall um Gary is going to speak

076to um at least our best projections of of what the what the health authorities are looking at in in some of their standards related to quarantine Etc um you know that that that I think are influencing families um what I hear from families the the the two big questions um that that uh that are on their minds and this and this is just two big ones I think every family's unique um and is it going to look like qu we're still dealing with the quarantine in the fall and then second what about mask those are the two big questions um that uh that we've gotten uh Rick Wimberly here well I'm sure we'll talk about that when we get to the covid report so what I think I'm hearing you know Dr web say that

077if we were to extend the deadline that it could easily um uh make it impossible for us to start a school year on time okay I get it so but what can we do to to help these individual families make their decisions if it has to if the decisions have to be made by March 23rd I mean what what the extra effort that we can apply to to um to help them that's a great question and Dr Webb alluded to it direct conversations with counselors and um and their school administrators um what I can speak to generally is uh we're going to make sure that we we we that we do what we can to keep students safe no matter what that looks like at the appropriate time um but but from a from a

078personal standpoint let me tell you the the fact that I'm struggling with or the facts that I'm struggling with as a parent um the school counselors and the school administrators are are are are there and have had some of those conversations with individual families already okay thank you we have a question from Mr galbert and then I have a question thank Madam chair Jake alberth so I guess um um thank you for the question Rick and I appreciate the the I guess the the sentiment on the what the delay means but I mean granted we we were in emergency hair on fire mode this past summer and were able to to get everything done and we didn't make the elections until way too late so I'm not I'm not trying to not trying to re

079redo that but unless and we can talk about this at the again with the covid restrictions but if we're not going to if we're not going to delay the start then parents need more information than they have today around what what the what the restrictions are going to look like and and and it comes from both sides so we'll we'll talk we'll talk about we'll talk about that but I understand the um I understand the process the fact that it's the day after coming back from spring break is kind of tough but we'll um we'll deal with it um but I understand that it's the day after our board meeting which is strategic I so I I do understand that um the um but specifically on the o on the online WCS online have we

080have we uh surveyed the parents to to ask what why you know ultimately why they chose I know you've had lots of communication with parents over the over the period of of time but do we know why they chose online and what what their what their um thought process is are the the main the main concerns of of why they would want to choose online again for the fall we have not done a formal survey but we do have some basic information Dr Webb yeah I I was going to add you know it it really does vary from family to family with the impacts of covid and immune compromise to just a preference that they were waiting for WCS to have some kind of full online option before covid and this meets their family needs

081to families who didn't really prefer WCS online until their kids experienced it and then this really does work for their family it is really all over the place and um to Mr Golden's point we didn't ask specifically the reason um because we're going to let anybody who wants to take it Go and so we haven't pulled it you know officially to your point uh the other thing that you mentioned which I think is a great point and I've talked to some families about that very question you know we pulled it off super quick last time why can't we pull it off super quick now I think that's a very realistic valid question and I often start with reminding them that we didn't have a smooth start to WCS online we didn't start on time um

082we literally and this is this is a reality our staff worked I was on Zooms in the in the middle of the night with staff trying to make things happen literally working tons of hours around the clock around the clock weekends evenings middle of the night to pull that off it was a feat in itself that we celebrated even though it didn't feel good to a lot of folks because we had problems we celebrated because it was a lot of work for a limited staff that wasn't who was also trying to get traditional schools off and running our timeline now as you saw with some of the strategy that we're put in place with Staffing um we we couldn't with a shorter timeline there's no way we would be able to shift all of that

083human capital from other buildings and be able to backfill it as appropriate and shift all those pieces just really take time to do well and do right uh and we really feel like at this point we don't have a we don't have a reason not to do it right you know I would have a hard time looking in a parent in the face in August and saying I'm sorry we couldn't start on time or I'm sorry we had all these problems that we could foresee and we didn't didn't fix I'd have a hard time as a parent listening to Lee web across the table trying to justify why it wasn't done to Williamson County Schools quality um what we've proposed here is a timeline that even with this timeline we're going to be working seven

084days a week many weeks um Around the Clock still with This Ti timeline um but we're going to do it WCS quality and we feel good about that and uh we we stand behind uh our outstanding instructional tech department unbelievable uh data quality WCS online and their leadership teams there are right now already working around the clock um um we're super proud of the work they doing but I think you're going to be super proud when we fire up in August um and kids are are hitting the ground running thank you I I guess just one one more thing I it would just it would just be really nice as we're as we're thinking about the levers that we can pull and the changes that that that we can make as to as to how

085and the goal of getting as many students in person as possible to know is is lack of consistency the the biggest thing how how many people are just not going to come back until you know until everybody's vaccinated and they feel safe versus versus the ones that are are choosing not to come because the the their Mass requirements and they don't like school the way the way that it is right with with the with all the restrictions so I mean there's so many things but we just right now we're just kind of Flying Blind and we're just having to make assumptions and uh so it it would it would ultimately be great to to have that data but I could have asked earlier so I apologize well to to Dr West Point you know the

086structure we have is it it doesn't matter why you want it now I will say down the road when the discussions we are going to have is do we need an application process do we do we evaluate instructionally is this the best is the best is this the best thing for the student but for this year because of those variables um we're still keeping it open as a as an as an option without um question but I I I get what you're saying so I have the next question uh and my question is is the is the time commitment for a semester like it was this year or is it for the whole year great question semester okay so so you could a student could try it for a semester but they're not bound to

087completing the entire year okay that's right we have a question from Miss Cleveland and then Mr Mitchell that was also my um question is if there's a you know during the summer even actually on top of that during the summer should there be a major shift in our safety protocol call is there any flexibility for people to change their mind if we had a major shift I think there this is Jason again miss Cleveland I think there may be some emergency situations and we've worked through those with individual families um uh we've had um some doctors tell tell tell parents you know what given where your child is they need to be online and we've made some moves immediately we've also had some instructional moves to the opposite direction where uh where where you know

088a student may have been in danger of of U of you know not graduating uh where we moved and those are very individualized from a wholesale move uh that's the challenge that Dr Webb was articulating if we if we move a a large a large piece then then that's the danger that we see in being ready to start thank youell this is Elliot Mitchell District District 3 thanks Madam chair um I'll I'll make just a couple of comments here I'll remind my colleagues that uh counselors who do a lot of the scheduling are not 12-month employees and so uh and the staff that we have in these schools are split 12 11 and 10 months so um to delay this really to Dr web's Point really is a significant impact on on the staff organization

089the planning of uh of what teachers need to be hired what what is your staffing needs so we like to think that you know we have that time is our over the summer that we have the staff needed to make adjustments but that's really not the way our our uh Staffing model is for a lot of the folks that do the planning and the and the setup that are required to manage the logis ICS necessary to as Mr Golden said move aund students out of out of uh online program and into the individual schools because every one of those has their own at the middle school and high school um has and even in the older Elementary grades have their own individual schedule that has to be plugged in and make sure that we keep

090the the class numbers right and that we're able to meet the request of the individual student in the process you know I think Dr Lee will remember you know that we've got parents that just raise uh a lot of complaints around where their students uh study halls are they demand to have their schedule rework because they want early morning or lunchtime study halls uh and and all of that all of those Logistics are are multiplied by the hundreds literally if not not into the thousands uh across our across the schools so I I'm fine with where what your plan is and and recognize the the fact that if we push it back any that it just uh it has a potential impact on the quality of our start our school start year start thank you

091madam chair I just want to mention something that Mr Mitchell mentioned um yeah he's right our counselors are are not on a um 12-month contract and actually neither are our assistant principles they're on 11mth and those two those two groups are the are the main teams uh to do this work this is an aside but there are some districts where principles are not even on 12mon contracts and uh they are really really hurting right now um based on the impact of Co there aren't any additional questions so we can move forward all right thank you madam chair uh Brian Tim if you would pull that back up next item that I want to mention uh is uh our summer camp as the state calls it with their legislation that passed in January uh and what

092what for realistic real purposes of summer school um I want to I mentioned the funding item there but I do want to let you know that we submitted a waiver to the state and it's been approved so we know the how how our um summer programs are going to be struct Ed based on that on the new law that was passed by the legislature back in January uh we've been approved for four- we camps so both our elementary and middle middle camps or summer school programs will be four weeks four days a week uh Monday through Thursday um and what we've what we've heard is that having that long weekend especially on those weeks is a is a is a real posit has a potential to be a real positive thing for for the students

093whose parents choose to do this uh I have some detail there um we've gotten some emails from the state that shows the projected maximum State funding that with that with that number there 4.6 million it's really broken up into three buckets one's the elementary Camp two is the uh Middle School camp and then three is the steam time um but what we don't know is how they plan to distribute that based on actual student attendance uh and the state has let us know that they're still working on some of some of those details um so that's that's the maximum but we we do know that that a that a factor is going to be the percentage of economically disadvantaged students that we have participating in the program but the part of the funding is um

094from um uh from some of the assistance programs that require um economically disadvantaged uh recipients and so there's the that's that's part of what we don't know yet based on who ends up actually in the summer programs but the biggie is Staffing so what we're working on is Drive our capacity based on Staffing and you all have heard I mean it's been a it's it's been a very busy year for our teachers and a lot of them just really need time to breathe so you see the numbers that when we surveyed our teachers how many have said that they're interested in doing this for that four-week time 170 Elementary and 30 Middle School teachers you can see there's a big difference right there right um a lot more Elementary than middle but we are still

095recruiting to see how we can maximize this service I will tell you we're we're excited about how this is going to look in the quality of what we're going to give our students those who those who participate um this is this is more than School uh there there's they're scheduled to be under the state model four hours a day of math and Ela that's a lot more than an ordinary day of math and Ela so it's not going to look exactly like school it's going to be concentrated on those on those two uh core areas um but uh um we're still working on that funding detail but I did want to get Dr Dave Allen to give you some detail about the program itself and where our team is with that um I included this

096in funding because it was it worked for me to include it in funding but the some of the detail that Dr Allen's going to share with you was some bullet points about how this is looking is really about the heart and the substance of uh of this new summer school program so Dr Allen yes thank you Mr Golden good evening Madam chair members of the board Dave Allen here uh Mr Golden gave a great overview there I'll just add just a few details we still are in the beginning stages of putting this together and we're learning a lot as we go as you can imagine this legislation was just passed in January so we've been working feverishly behind the scenes to as Mr Golden said we're not throwing together something so that we can be

097in compliance if we're going to do it we're going to do it right and we're going to make it high quality for our students that are there so we're excited about that there's a great team of people that are working behind the scenes to make this the best that we can so I'm really excited about what uh what lies ahead for our students um it is summer school option for grades one through rise excuse me Rising first through eth graders uh there's a little bit of a difference between the Rising 1 through fifth grade camp and the rising sixth through eth grade Camp The Rising 1 through fifth graders would attend for seven and a half hours a day um it includes Mr Golden said it's a it's a long day it's really a full

098day of school it includes two hours of reading instruction two hours of math instruction an hour of response to intervention training which is really targeted at skill deficits that students may bring to the table for us uh one hour of stream um which we've talked about as uh um in this meeting before one hour of physical activity and a 30 minute lunch the rising six through e8th grade Camp is pretty much the same but the legislation and the funding doesn't allow for the stream component um so it's a 6 and a half hour day for the rising 6th through e8th graders it is a summer program that the legislation requires that we identify priority students to attend first um those priority students we have already identified um by using our Universal screeners which is as

099web at the elementary level and uh star at the middle school level that's the measure of student skills deficit we've talked a lot in this in this meeting about that prior to this prior to the night um so we've identified those students again to the number of students the percent of students that we're inviting meet what we think will be able to offer based on our staffing and the capacity um uh as Mr Golden mentioned both those camps will run for four weeks four days a week starting June 7th and ending July 1st uh the camps are not required uh but we are required to invite those priority students first the priority students have a 30-day period to accept or decline that invitation so we're looking to send those invitations out beginning March 23rd which

100is the Tuesday as you know after we return from spring break so um hopefully we'll be on track to do that it's been quite a minor miracle just to pull all of that together in such a short order um but Kevin deck who's our assessment an analyst is fantastic with the data and can pull just about anything we want at any time so he's he's done a great job on getting all of that together for us that those lists are in the hands of the principles um the invites will be coming directly from the principles the message will be a districtwide message because we're running it as a district camp or a district summer school but the invites the parents can expect the invites uh from to come from the principles at the end of

101that thir 30-day period for our priority students if we have seats available and we feel like we we will because we're going to continue to recruit teachers um to to maximize the number of students that we can see over the summer if we have if and when we have Stu uh seats available we'll continue to roll out invites for those students that we feel like the camp would be the best fit for again it's an optional uh summer school program it's not required um but we do encourage the the families to think seriously about it because we are really excited about what we will be able to offer uh just a couple other items um before I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have um we are going to offer this uh summer

102program at cluster sites so um there will be three Middle School sites that'll be in the informational letter that goes out to the parents and we're looking at six to seven potentially seven Elementary sites where we will house the elementary portion um it will impact Encore this year we're not going to be able to offer Encore Encore this year because we're we're fighting for the same Staffing and we really want to make sure that we uh put our best foot forward to offer this program um it is very different than what Encore has been in the past this is much more intensive and focused on instruction um but hopefully we'll be able to balance these out moving forward in the year in the Summers to come where we'll be able to bring bring that Encore

103option back um we are also going to continue to offer Sac uh for child care opportunities um before and after the program if if parents uh would like that option to pay for that service as well the summer camps themselves are free to students we're going to provide transportation both ways we'll even provide transportation from sack to the summer camp back to sack if needed um breakfast will be provided lunch will be provided and I think even a snack will be provided so um uh a lot more to come more information to come for the families uh moving forward I would encourage all of our families uh that are listening and to spread the word if they do get an invite and they have questions there's a lot of detail that we won't be able

104to put in the informational letter that's going out but if there are questions reach out to your child's principal they'll have the information on what exactly the camp will look like the start time and those sorts of thing they'll be able to fill in the dots as we move forward so uh happy to answer any questions that you may have about our our and this this is Jason Dr Allen I want to add one more thing um we have a lot of questions um from parents of students who have IEPs and I want to emphasize that um what those parents know as esy extended school year will still occur um the main focus of extended school year is to to Target um particular needs goals of uh of students with disabilities and it is often

105very specific services so this new state program is not designed for that um we will continue to offer uh extended school year we have a question for Mr Hall thank you Dr on for presenting that I know it's a huge Challenge and and uh sort of the opposite of Dr Dr web's uh timeline uh it seems like yours is particularly challenging and I'm I'm wondering if you actually have enough time to to do the staff thing in that uh small window that that you're left with after uh I guess late late April um do we have any idea what we think the attendance might be have we done anything similar to this before that we can draw from do you have any gauge of interest already that's a great question I'll let Dr Allen fill

106in we don't really have anything to to to gauge from that what what we are going to do is start um by sending the request out to about 10% of our total student body in those in those grade levels um in and you know to to to try to get a get a gauge for who's interested um uh it it's you know we we can make some educated guesses but the truth is we really just don't know um I do know that there have been some pretty small anecdotal discussion among families with questions about it um but Dr Allen I don't know if there's anything else you can add to to what I've got here yeah thank you for the question I think it's a it's it's one that's had us uh um discuss having

107a lot of discussions behind the scenes we we've had some summer school opportunities for students in the past at the building level um what's different about this um is the length of the day um and so uh which is an advantage and a disadvantage right so the the length of the day could be a disadvantage because it's a long day for students the advantage is um it does accommodate those families that have to work um so the the children during those Camp days will be there all day but we really don't have a reference point to gauge but here's here's how I'll answer that question Mr Hall we want to get to 13 students uh per teacher that's the ratio that we're funded at Loosely funded at from the state I could I could go

108on about the funding we're we're we're still learning more as we go about the funding but we we we believe we'll be in the ballpark at 13 to1 and so after we send out these initial invites if we have teachers available and seats available we're going to continue to move up that list because at the end of the day every student could benefit from some from some learning over the summer right and so um our goal is to maximize the participation that we get uh but to directly answer your question we really don't know as we roll out these first invites what participation rate will be at the beginning but we will we will work as feverishly and as hard as we can to get to that 13 to1 yeah I appreciate that effort um

109is there any is there any requirement for attendance once they do enroll I know that the the actual enrollment is optional but is there an expectation or an accountability measure that we have in place then we uh that's a great question we ask uh to commit to the four weeks um but there is no true accountability for this uh it will ultimately be them deci you know the parents deciding to bring their children I do believe that by and large those who who could who commit to it will have scheduled their days and their weeks for their children that they will make sure uh their their children are there um but you know there's probably some variables if a if a child says look I just don't want to do this you know there there

110there may be some of that too but by and large my projection um based on um my knowledge of our families is because of they how they plan schedules um they'll be a pretty good attendance on for those who do commit great um and the last thing it's a pretty big bummer that we're losing Encore this summer um I I hope that we can communicate that out to families as quickly as possible so that if there are other options available I don't know if young scholars is available this year to WCS students but other programs like that that may still be available where folks have really you know appreciated and counted on that option in the past it's a great program hope we can get that back in Future years well to that point Mr

111Hall on counting on it we are still offering sack um but the but the paid Encore program that included a lot of field trips that's the that's the challenge we have with Staffing um so we do intend we do intend to to field sack to the extent we can staff that in the summer so our hope is that with a with a combination of this program plus sack we'll be able to to meet those parent needs um but but yeah a lot of the the fund items that you pay for um we're not going to be able to do this year thank you Mr um you you all have been anticipating my questions because I was going to ask about students with IEPs and you hit that um but I think that families might want

112some clarity on whether or not an IEP or qualify student qualifying for esy would then automatically disqualify them from the summer camps because that's a great that's a super question I interrupted because I got so excited about your sorry because I have more um the other part of that is I know the department of Ed had mentioned that um Mr Allen had mentioned maximizing participation if there's a way to find that overlap and having students with IEPs who would be a good candidate or prioritized for the Summer Bridge camps the department has me mentioned leveraging the Esser 3.0 funding to find ways to include students with disabilities in the Summer Bridge camps so um that might be a way to cover the funding as well and maximize participation there two two really good questions that

113that we've talked about so um number one uh um doing an extended school year through an IEP plan does not disqualify a student from participating there may be some scheduling challenges that that they'll have to work out individually uh and you know Miss AA and and and I I I think most everybody knows that every one of those are individualized um and and some students get very limited services that might be just one day others other services are more you know more more detailed with more time over the course of the week I do suspect that there may be some individuals who because of the scope of the services they're getting it may be a practical impossibility uh to do both um but um the the summer program is not a a fape free and

114appropriate public education analysis that the team goes through it's an additional service that's that that is available but to that point uh if a student arrives and and and has a plan to come and needs additional Services part of what we're going to do is make sure they're there we have to we need to and we should um so for example we're talking about nurses being available on staff um teachers assistant if someone needs the additional U the the additional support um some of those some of those other additional services that you see in an ordinary school day and so when you hear that reference um in the question to user 3.0 for those additional Services what my interpretation of what the state is saying is okay we get it um the money we're not

115we're going to give you is not going to be enough for everything you're going to have to do uh and so we're hoping that you take these new federal funds and fill in that Gap because this is a partially funded mandate that would be uh that would be my interpretation of it and that's me that's my interpretation nobody's nobody said that directly so but I do suspect that when it's when it's all said and done we probably will need to use some of those some of that next next uh upcoming um series of funds to cover the summer program Mr Mitchell this is Elliot Mitchell District 3 thank you Madame chair uh Jason I'm I'm excited about I can see the uh headline tomorrow quote Williamson County uh superintendent declares partially funded mandate by by

116state right um anyway I probably shouldn't be calling out that point um couple of questions on it will these uh will the summer camps have any uh opportunity to count as credit recovery for the high school students Dr Webb if you would well let me let me just actually jump in there because I'll just knock this out this Camp uh uh ends at Rising eighth graders so current seventh graders um so so um there there are some seventh graders taking High School courses um but we usually don't structure those Middle School courses through Credit Recovery um they those middle school students if they if they struggled in a high school course they'll take that course again generally speaking all right um yeah I don't I missed that then and I guess is there if if

117these if you have a student that is uh um that you know is at risk of being uh held back due to a particular um shortage of of of grades in a subject or something will these will the these um camps help resolve that requirement great great question short answer is yes um so uh you've actually opened up another complexity to this in year three there are some requirements in the existing legislation and we're starting out year one I'm not talking about a student's third year necessarily but in year three of this program uh there are some requirements that that third graders who don't meet certain standards would have to be retained unless they attended this this uh camp likewise fourth graders if they don't don't meet certain standards will have to be retained regardless

118of whether they attend the camp um now some of that hasn't been hasn't been fleshed out fully uh yet but um there has been some discussion and may many of you may have had discussions with some of our state legislators about about that very question uh for what it looks like in three years okay thank you uh the other uh I think I understand Ood Dr Allen to say the invitations that are going out are being targeted towards the students that we think are in need of this additional help is that my under did I understand that what because you talked about 10% invitations hitting 10% is that kind of our strategy as we're trying to identify the students most in need Mr Golden if I may yeah this the the legislation speaks specifically to

119how we should be identifying priority students um uh it's a combination of screener data and TCAP eventually not having TCAP right now it it puts it back on the universal screener that Universal screener looks specifically at skill deficits that students may have and it puts them in a percentile ranking and so we're looking at those students that have the most significant skill deficit that we can specifically attack um and again it's all in relation to uh grade level content so all of the scaffolding and all the work will be toward um the individual skill deficits that we see with students through that Universal screener aligned to our state standards okay thank thank you a couple last questions real quick what is our what's what's our staffing strategy going to be here if all of a

120sudden the need is greater than than than the 131 uh ratio we're targeting well this is year one and so uh our our plan is to staff with what we can uh in year one and and I see this as an experimental year to get all the Kinks out so to to Dr Allen's Point our our plan is to make it open to up to a 1 to13 ratio B based on anybody we can we can have there yeah there the the requirements are very specific uh either be a current teacher or someone who who did have a teacher license or someone in a teacher licens your program um so we we we're going to continue to recruit um if there's a specific uh if there's a specific need that's just a tad over we'll

121probably make direct phone calls and say Hey you know can you come two weeks and get somebody else to do the remaining two weeks we could do that uh even um I will tell you I had a conversation with uh with my peers in um in in our region and I've mentioned that region before uh and there are some of the especially the rural districts I've heard there's been a really high turn turnout for teachers saying that they wanted to participate uh not so much in the Suburban areas so so and that just raises another thought so if we can't if we can't staff it if I if the demand is greater than our supply then we're going to we're going to limit the demand that's the plan that's what I'm hearing you say that's

122right we will serve everyone we can serve this year okay uh in three years it's going to be more more necessary and required and by the way the state actually defines the the the weekly pay for for teachers at ,000 doll I remember that and and so therefore we have a strategy for how we're going to what what our strategy would be if we have to reject application Dr alen if you would yeah so yeah thank you for the question really good questions tonight about this I appreciate it so we based on an interest survey that we submitted through Vicky Hall and our HR department um that though the number of students that Mr Golden referenced earlier tonight will is enough um teachers to meet the need of the priority students that we've identified right

123now and so um we're we're thinking that they will not all come but even if they did we can still support the need for all of those students identified as priority students with our current uh interest in Staffing um realistically what's going to happen is we'll have some uh students and families uh respectfully decline uh we'll have seats available and we will be recruiting simultaneously students more students beyond the priority student list and teachers um but to specifically answer your question we we we believe we have the Staffing now to support the need for the invites going out on March 23rd and just as a reminder that number is 2600 students yeah yeah I I saw that thank you and and and we're are we required to accept students that are not actively enrolled in

124our district so let's say you have William two two use cases here you have a you have a BGA student or William County student that has been homeschooled and wants to come to it or you have a Murray County student that couldn't get into their program or it wasn't they didn't like it and wanted to come to ours what since it's all state paid or it's predominantly State paid what's our what's our options there short short answer your question is no it's our students okay uh and and I was I wrote this question down when I was thinking about high school and I guess it doesn't potentially have as much uh significance but plans around extracurricular conflicts so I'm in a 4H hour I'm in a 4our class and it happens to conflict with my

125baseball camp or practice or B or football practice right it's all potentially happens at the summer or banned I don't know that middle school has the band that the high school does but that's kind of the well I I'm going to give my short answer we're on the honor System I mean that's that's the short answer and Dr Webb went off mute because I know she wants to address that specifically so I'll speak first to high school so we do continue as you mentioned earlier Mr Mitchell we do continue with with credit recovery in the summer in place of a traditional summer school we've done that for years the times on that are traditionally very flexible sessions in the morning sessions in the afternoon and when needed sessions on the weekend to help accommodate students

126for Middle School uh the schools will be communicating with the individuals who lead those extracurricular programming there's less conflict in the summer for um Middle School than high school but there there are still activities that take place um with those Sports and so it'll be communicated and um we'll absolutely like we have in the past we've had Middle School summer school um in the past it obviously has looked different um in a non-co year we we could have between 250 to 300 students participating in in summer school this past year is closer to maybe 150 um this past summer but we're very accustomed to working around those schedules and our our uh our teachers are are very accommodating and we all have one goal is for kids to be successful and uh coaches and sponsors

127know that really if you're not successful academically it's going to be difficult to be successful in the playing fields that's a good point thank you very much I appreciate reassurance thank you you madam chair questions all right thank you madam chair uh um if you guys would pull back up my PowerPoint thank you Tim so let's move to the next slide next item covid related updates and I'm going to go on to the next slide I've hit some bullet points in this next slide that I that I want you guys to see and then we'll have Gary Anderson fill in some detail uh and and by the way after this one we have one more substantive slide that's uh that's related to fostering Healthy Solutions um some pretty incredible things happened the last couple of

128weeks uh some it it I I got to give you a little bit of detail over and above these bullet points but we gave 2570 first doses um the the the amount of doses we received were 2500 and each file is designed to contain 10 but our nurses were able to because of the way those the the machines um in um fill those files we're able to get a total of 70 additional uh doses out of that um and and I want to tell you just a short version of the story of of of what we went we went through and that's really a reference to the last two bullets in that number one um uh Mike Fletcher as I think you all know um had had originally expected about 2,000 vaccines and we we

129signed up 2 2000 2,000 folks we got notice um from a FedEx shipping that we were scheduled for 500 and um we made some calls and within that night the night we got that notice the health department was able to double our numbers and get us a thousand within a day of that the health department got us an extra, 1500 for a total of 2500 um with within within just a few days uh and so because they been over backwards to give us actually more than we had originally we thought we were going to get um um through through that process uh we were able to get um uh all of our folks who expressed an interest in getting vaccin uh that first dose of the vaccine and I want to very specifically thank the

130health department uh Dr fiscus of the health department is actually leading that effort and uh over the course of this um it was just brought home to me that uh just as we have people doing this work and it's Common Sense there are there there are people doing that work up there too it's not some blind entity it's not some some esoteric group it's actual people doing the work and the scope of what they're doing at the state level is just um O A inspiring uh you all may have heard some of the stories about other school districts who might have lost some dosages um and uh and I know that that was a fear of the health department because that had happened with other school districts administering um and we made it a point

131to have redundancies in our plan I want to specifically uh thank Mike Fletcher and Mandy Thompson U who are who are safety director and nursing um nursing director respectively and their staffs um what what they did to plan this so that we didn't lose a dose was incredible we had a we had a a real moral obligation to the health department and to the to the people of Tennessee to not waste a dose and they didn't um so it was super I will say on the side of this um those of you who who uh on the board who who who who who helped out and gave the stickers and and said thank you to our to our faculty and staff you saw the emotion we had tears we had hugs um it just reemphasized

132to me the the pressure um that that so many of them have been under uh over the over the course of this past year and and it was one of the most uplifting experien I've had uh in and and I can't I can't even count how long to to see that with all that said um that's first dose we actually got the madna vaccine um and uh in the the uh second doses are scheduled four weeks later our schedule um call um sets for those to be finished on April 1st so um Mike Fletcher and Mandy Thompson have started the process of ordering those so that that so that the logistical the incred inedible logistical line can be set up for that second round and I tell you that second just the the the idea

133that every time a batch is sent they have to plan for another batch to come within four weeks on the right timeline is just incredible to me um and then two weeks after that second dose is when as my understanding um is uh the uh the um the um the immunity level uh reaches the the optimum based on those respective doses um second uh second item I want to mention um the positive cases in quarantine I gave you the bullets here and this is just a restatement of what's on our website we report this weekly to the state and we include it on our website and I wanted you all to see where we were as of Monday of this week um our numbers the week before that were very low because we were out

134for a week due to weather um but I want you to see that and I mentioned in my last bullet there the numbers are are are back down to about the late September early October levels of of what we were of what we were working through uh and uh that's uh it's it's encouraging where we are we had some really really high peaks uh back in late November early December and we're encouraged with where we are I will tell you we're not out of the woods and Gary will will share some detail related to that um I also want to point out um that uh that the ratios of positive cases to quarantines in this particular week are pretty in indicative of what we're experiencing recently um you see the 11 staff with a positive

135case and 31 in in quarantine 41 students with a positive case and 444 in quarantine that 1 to 10 ratio is is about what we're experiencing um and a lot of that is is is U is due to the efforts of our nurses and our administrators and making sure that we limit that um that U that contact UM to the extent we can in a school building um WCS safety protocols I want to mention to you that uh you've had a lot of emails from folks about County government has eliminated the the uh uh the mass mandate and therefore you should too I think it's really important to note that the mayor has from time to time um required mask countywide and then lifted that based on the progress of the virus over the course

136of this past year um but he has still in County government buildings requiring The Mask uh and and actually is still taking temperatures uh as you enter the County government buildings so um at the county level they recognize that when people come inside um they're they're still make they're still it's still appropriate to include that requirement and our safety protocols remain in place you all know that for months we've been talking about doing everything we can to the extent we can to honor the CDC and the State Health Department guidelines and recommendations for schools and we're continuing to do that and I will tell you there are a number of Ames who are relying on us to honor that commitment and I want to make sure we do honor that commitment um and I've got

137a couple of bullets uh just related to that that Gary will put some some extra detail on um the the the uh the recommendation to require mask is still in place the health department is still quarantining um uh they we we they still go through the evaluation of close contacts in a classroom setting but we are evaluating this weekly um and uh and I know that many of you have asked and uh and and have had some some questions from from some of our parents um what's the you you've you've seen the the language I've seen just in the last few days is is Exit Plan um we do have some two two key Windows that I want to point out that Gary's gonna going to reference um two weeks after spring break based on

138our experience this year uh that window of time is going to be very telling on uh on where the virus is and what we've saw we saw is over the course of time after a holiday there tends to be a spike so I'm very curious to see how that goes um after spring break with the numbers being back you know being back down at this point um also the testing window uh is you know when I mention testing we know I'm talking about our teap and uh teeing ready and uh test because those those students who are on WCS online are going to have to come back into the building to take the test because the the state is still requiring requiring uh those tests and um and requiring them to be uh in person

139um and so we want to do what we can to to to be respectful of of all those reasons that we alluded to with with with families choosing WCS online and make sure that our safety Protocols are in through there but Gary's going to give some details related to to that things are constantly changing constantly changing I'll give you one example that Gary May mention even today Gary saw that the CDC had done some research with the the uh the distance uh between uh between individuals for close contact with the Positive case they did a study that compared six feet to three feet and at at this stage as I understand it the CDC is now evaluating whether it's appropriate to reduce that that distance uh to three feet um that that implies two things

140to me that implies one that that quarantines are probably not going to going to end anytime soon if they're evaluating that but to if they do reduce that to 3et that's going to have a big impact on our local Health Department uh in their decisions related to that so Gary if you would um share share the uh the the appropriate detail to that uh thank you superintendent Goan good evening board members this is Gary Anderson want to update you on some things going on with covid before I get into all that I would like to re reemphasize and thank uh Fletch and Mandy Thompson and their teams for for doing uh the uh vaccinations also want to thank the technology department the maintenance department and Independence High School and all of the support staff that

141came to make that a possibility and help us actually uh put on a great uh covid Clinic um moving forward wanted to uh talk about that all the data seems to be trending in the right directions right now from what we see um Williamson County now not not the school District but the county has vaccinated 19.57% of the County population with at least one dose and 8.55% of the county with two doses the CDC has indicated that to get uh to get the community to the point of her immunity needs to be 70 to 80% of the residents so we're hoping we can get to that number as as soon as possible one interesting point a lot of people see all the county statistics but one of the interest pieces I'm not sure people are

142aware of is that we are only one of two counties in the entire State and the other County that is like us is is very small in their numbers but our highest group age group with the highest percentage of covid cases is the 11 to 20 age group we're the only County in the entire State like that and that that is 19.19% of all the case in whs County County are our high school and and middle school students the other group and they break us down by 10year increments the birth to 10 years represents for us approximately 5.73% so roughly 25% of all the cases in Williamson County are school age students so I do keep that in mind and I do do watch that that uh statistical point on a regular basis um we

143are concerned about the uh spring break any time that we've had any length of time where students have been out of school and they get the chance to to uh do things with their families and travel Etc we always have an uptick in the number we're really interested to see how this one how it is after this particular one because the numbers are getting down so low we want we want to see that it doesn't have a big bump that things are really really improving for us um the CDC is constantly changing as uh superintendent golden said the two newest things one is that when you're fully vaccinated and the definition of fully fully vaccinated fully uh covered uh for the uh vaccine which is a little over 90% of uh of success is two

144weeks after the final dose so we're looking at a window of that happening after after April 1st like uh superintendent golden pointed out by April 15th we will know we'll know that and we've offered it to every one of our staff members and a lot of Staff members actually went out of our area to get vaccinated to get it earlier so we're we're we're feeling pretty good that we have that many out there that have gone and gotten it um want you to know that the co team we meet on a regular basis I mean uh the nursing staff myself Fletch we meet on a regular basis and we have been working on drafting a detailed plan of all aspects of Co to present to superintendent golden for his consideration and what we can do

145moving forward we've also run it by uh some preliminary stuff by our referencing doctor Dr Whitfield who helped us with the uh with the covid vaccines so we're we're looking at all that I want you to know that we are continuing to look at that and see what can we possibly do as we move forward since our numbers do look do look really good right now we want to keep it that way but there are many many aspects of this that we that we want to consider um superintendent go is anything else you wanted me to go over on this or open it for questions I'm sure there's a lot of questions out there um at this stage no I I do want to respond to questions has question I think you were said said

146my name you broke up is that right yes okay uh thank you madam chair this Brad fiscus District 4 um you sort of alluded to Gary but I know that we gave we vaccinated 2570 faculty and staff members and and there wasn't there a survey that sent out about to that where you guys gauged how many were expecting to get it do you have an idea of that we actually do we we actually had about 3,500 say they were interested really um 3500 and change up approaching 3600 um what we found um uh with with and that was a few weeks ahead um and what what we found when we had the signups was that 2500 has done it uh for for um for our need um we did a reminder to everyone and right

147near the tail end we we had some no- shows because they had gotten gotten the vaccine elsewhere so 2500 has done it with everyone who expressed to us an interest in in getting the vaccine so follow up to that then too so you're two weeks passed and um and you know there may be students also that have received the vaccine to based on if they fall into one of the onc categories that are out there now or they will be in the few weeks but once they reach that two weeks and the health department is the one that's determining quarantines um right but my understanding is once you're out of that two-e period or you've been in that 90-day window of postco CA active covid um you no long longer have to quarantine and so

148how so how will that is that something that the health department will all deal with just through their tennis shot records and things like that or will a parent be able to say hey actually my child or hey as a faculty member I did have this vaccine um already Gary if you would speak to that detail yes when we when we find out if someone has received a a notice of being quarantined and they they let us know tennis it which is the website that the state uses for for vaccinations we go and look in the tennis and we can find out real quick and then we go to the health department and we say hey uh this this particular person has received the vaccine or they're within their 90-day window of when they were

149exposed to it or uh I mean we had had covid so yes we do that we do tennis and we go and communicate with the health department and then we can uh health department will then send a a notice that that person then legitimately should not be should not be quarantined thank you that answers those questions that I had yes sir so my hand is up next um so so Gary you spoke about um spring break and how that how V Vacations or breaks have historically been significant um during this time uh but it looks like we have another significant event coming up that's very positive which is um vaccinated teachers having what is referred to as almost a full immunity all teachers who who decided to take the shot would have that around April

150so I have a couple of questions first of all in the past we've been when the CDC has made a change we have implemented that change just as quickly as possible sometimes it's been within a day are we still going to implement changes um to guidance from the CDC on a very quick turnaround we implement the changes based on what the State Health Department does for example when they went and changed the um the time of from 15 minutes uh of exposure within one one time in the change it to 15 minutes over 24 hours we change that way when they change in the other direction as soon as the health department the State Health Department adopts it then we in in enact that particular change positive a positive change meaning it would be like

151a like the less quarantine change uh with a li less time once they adopted it then we could go to a 10day quarantine instead of a 14-day so we we do it as soon as the State Health Department uh adopts the cdc's recommendations so it sounds like it's likely that we'll still we will we will hear about some further CDC changes um from now until the end of the school year and once they're adopted by the state then we would Implement those yes soon as the that's been our track record as soon as the state adopts it then then we can go ahead and follow through on it as well we're we're really hoping that there was a major major study done recently and the CDC is aware of it about the three foot versus

152a six- foot distance as superintendent golden mentioned that will have an impact and we're hoping that the CDC does it because the state the state uh has followed the CDC guidelines and once they do then we will be able to use that when we do our contact tracing and then just one just one more question and then uh we have Mr Cal Mr Hall and Mr Cash so we have asked we have asked the board has asked ask the staff to look for opportunities to decrease quarantine based on based on our standard operating procedures and I want to clarify that these are not policies these are operating procedures that that the district adopted they're related to quarantine and related to procedures in the schools um but if we if we so what we've asked is

153that is that um that staff look for opportunities to decrease quarantine and also look for opportunities to increase um instructional quality during quarantine so I guess I want to ask something you know related to what what looks like light at the end of the tunnel is Staff thinking about okay if if this guidance changes um or you know if if we get to that point where we have teacher a you know teacher immunity what can we change at that point are we thinking through those things on an ongoing basis that's a great question um and and short answer is yes we are um and I want to actually start with one example of you know when Gary's mentioned that we're following the CDC and State Health Department recommendations as much as we can there's there's

154one noticeable significant exception and that's temperature taking um a few months ago the the State Health Department and CDC both um said we're removing that recommendation that you require that every time and the gist of what we heard from the State Health Department was um that that that that the effort might not be worth worth the results and as in and what we heard from the CDC was they were actually recommending that parents take their child's temperature um every morning before they go to school uh but we continue to do the temperature checks and of course as I mentioned County government is still doing temperature checks in our as well so we're in the process of evaluating that um we're Gathering data on that to see the impact on us uh um and uh and

155so that's that's one particular item that we're looking at that uh that we know has has a potential to change um but in addition to that when when there are some um changes as as Gary mentioned that that come from the State Health Department yes we want to we want to make the change um you know we're we're the the quarantine issue specifically uh has has been has been an effort from from each individual nurse from every administrator in conversations with the health department uh I have been asked from time to time can't we just not give any information to the health department and my conclusion is that's not appropriate and that's not wise because we are serving everyone uh and for us not to not to let them know when they ask about um

156close contact uh is uh is is irresponsible for me and that's a decision I've made uh we hear stories about others refusing to to cooperate and I'm just not there um but but uh if when when if and when the quarantine structure reduces we'll continue with that effort to say hey now look these as an example these desk are more than three feet apart that because the children have been there there's no close contact there and you know work to to to encourage that we've done that on a grander scale um in those nurse examples I've given where we've actually gone back and and and gotten the health department to recognize that there was not a close contact those are those daily effort items that we haven't Quantified Gary um you may have some additional

157detail in response to miss G's question uh no we we do what we can to try to to make the process for learning for the students the best they can in the classroom and you know we we do whatever we can to make those happen we have some other questions Mr galbert thank you madam chair um yeah just I do have a few questions um the first I guess piggybacking on the on Mr fiscus question about the about the vaccine so we have um we've heard for some time that the safety of Staff has been the the primary primary reason um that we are continuing the the restrictions and I know I know we don't do anything on our own we follow directions and guidelines given by somebody else but it's been it's been stated

158multiple times that you know we just got to bear with it and stick through it until everybody U until the vaccination gets rolled out and so now come April 15th all of our staff will have had the opportunity to get a vaccin ation um so what what's what is changing outside of the fact that those people are protecting themselves from from quarantine um what's what's changing well let me let me uh speak to that first uh for me it's always been about students and staff um and I I appreciate what you're saying but you know from on the medical side uh those those recommendations were for all um and I can't speak to the quarantine side um you know and and what's driving that decision U you know at the state or federal level uh

159with the CDC but if you're a you're you're asking what's changing I think one thing that we're going to see is when that two weeks rolls uh the number of quarantines um ought to ought to go down even more uh you know because because the because the positive cases number one have the potential to reduce even more and the quarantines uh um uh based on our understanding of having gotten the vaccine won't apply uh to some of those individuals so Mr fiskus actually mentioned that with with some of our students too and Gary I can't remember which of the two main vaccines that have that have been distributed uh the madna or the fiser or the or the age 16 and up versus the 18 and up but we do know that there are some

160students who are who who uh who will be getting them as they as they hit 1C um I I'll I'll I'll and I mentioned this in in an email to the board I'll give you my educated my educated guess because this really gets to what Mr Wimberly was asking um and I I think it's you know it's it's an educated guess and it's a guess but it's it's hard for me to visualize based on the information we have now with what the president has announced about the distribution of the vaccine um that uh that we're going to be into position um at the beginning of this school year where we're going to require mask um I can't conclude that it's just my educated guess and and so from my perspective um you know that that

161that's how I'm thinking and and how I'm planning um I don't know where in between is that appropriate line um you know from from the from the April 15th that you mentioned or the testing window that I mentioned uh in in that point and that's what we're working on now and that's what we're working on developing the plan for Gary that that's very true what the April 15th is the two-e window after the second dose and that that should give us a really good feel about where we are between that and then after the uh spring break we should really know if you're asking for some kind of change for the next school year as superintendent golden said things are trending very well that we'll be able to make some major changes okay well I

162I think just in in my from my perspective um just like our our friends to the south in Murray County um the whether we want to make masks optional or uh mandatory just like our initial our initial plan that we that we got from uh from the administration last summer um we were we had the option to to do that and we can and we can make that option and I I will I'll look forward to um to to bring I guess I I'll look at I'll talk to the to miss OS Brooks about about how to go forward go about submitting a a motion for um for discussion and vote when we come back but I'll I do want to I'll put a pen in that because the reason I want to the reason

163I would like to do that is I think that everybody needs to know um what that what that looks like before they before they um sign up for the fall I mean Jason you giving you give you saying that that that it might might happen um I'm sure give some people pause who um who may not feel comfortable that that we might not be wearing masks right um and so of course they I mean they're going to understand that we're never going to do you're never going to recommend anything that's against CDC guidelines except for temperature checks um but but we we will I mean we just we just owe it to them to to give them that information now um and you with the with the teachers being vaccinated and I'm and I'm talking

164about for the fall I'm not talking about starting starting immediately so um I would just like to weigh in and see um see what the other board members have to say um and we just put it to a vote and then then we can end the discussion but um so second Gary did you um ask about did you find out how many people have been turned away for temperature checks this year yes sir I did I surveyed every school and asked every every uh principal to tell us how many of the students uh were at a temperature check upon entering the building or getting it getting in the car line how many have they had to turn away the total was 24 students we had to uh sent home because their temperature was over 100

165degrees and of those one school reported that they believe one of the students that they turned away did did have uh covid from them so you would ask for how many yeah 24 was the number that that the schools turned in okay so so 24 out of about three and a half million student days so far this year um and one out of out of those um was was a positive case I mean when we when we talk about juice being not worth the squeeze like this is a this this this PO this this should end right now um there's no reason for us to be to be doing this uh especially once we once the vaccines are are effective and and done if we want to draw that line but but I just implore

166you to I mean just we gota we got to stop it doesn't it makes it makes zero sense right now to to do this for 24 kids um and one covid case um the the SEC the next thing is um Jason you mentioned that the county mandate is to that the county is still mandating um wearing masks inside the um inside the government buildings have government officials and um and government other government staff been given the opportunity yet to be vaccinated um I can't speak to individuals uh um but from a from a category standpoint um by and large that's not a category in the you know the the 1 a 1 b 1 C structure but but there are some individuals but I I I do want to ALS also address something you had

167mentioned about uh you know the the characterization of I will I will never do anything but follow CDC guidelines I do want to emphasize that um the the State Health Department uh is is is a is is a big element of this um for us uh and then we have to apply that locally um so uh to your point we're looking at the at the temperatures right now um I'm I'm encouraged by that and I I will tell you also that when we talk about mask um I know that there have been some some of my peers who have who have uh who have announced they're going to for sure continue mask through the end of this year uh and I've heard some some others um do something different uh where we are right now

168is we know it's changing so much uh that uh that that it to me in in all the work that we've done and uh in learning from the State Health Department and doing our local work talking with the local Health Department um I've I've learned not to declare something and have to go back on it uh and so um I'm not declaring right now that we shall wear masks and we must wear masks through the end of the school year because I think something could change um then what I what I specified uh just a just a couple of minutes minutes ago just to make clear my educated guess based on what we've learned is it's unlikely that there's going to be a need need absence some anomaly that that we can't predict uh this

169fall um that's that's my um differential diagnosis the more likely scenario is that uh that that this is on track to resolve and part of it is based on what we've heard from the federal government about the distribution of the vaccine um Gary mentions her immunity um I'm not a medical professional um but but that's my educated guess and because I let you all know as board members that I felt like it was important to uh to to acknowledge that uh at this meeting but the but the health department hasn't given you any indication or guidance based to to determine whether or not when when they would declare that this is that it's actually safe for us to to go without mass that's correct uh we we've seen data uh but but we have not

170gotten any indication from them as to as to when um quarantine is going to end we haven't gotten any dates from them or any projection as to when their recommendations U for for schools may change and Gary I just want to make sure that we're super clear on that since you live this uh I want to make sure that you answer that as well we have we have no change in Direction right now as far as quarantining or about covid cases it's the 10day window on both of those right now and that's what that's where we are we have had no other advanced notice that something's going to change so okay well um but going back to the county mandate so the county the county mandate is that that all people entering the government buildings

171have to wear a mask except those that are 12 and under um and so if we're following that is there I mean can we can we at least I mean can we at least consider the those 12 and unders to um to be I mean if you're if we're following somebody else's rules and then we apply our own rules on top of that so can we I mean is that a possibility we're not following the County's rules uh to to your question um uh I was I was mentioning that as a clarification point because we we have received um um emails from folks saying well the the County's lifted it so why don't you lift it what we are following is the State Health Department's recommendations for for schools um and we are different um

172the the uh the the amount of of congregation in in classrooms is different from what you see in a lot of office areas uh and and you all know that when when you passed uh our return to school plan uh it included that and and and we we talked about that being our you know our our conclusion as our best hope to to safely keep students on campus um and so I think what you asked for is certainly appropriate you said you're going to talk to Miss OS Brooks about uh uh you know about um bringing bringing that up and and that's that's certainly appropriate but what I can tell you from an Administration standpoint is we're continuing to work to see those opportunities that we have to to loosen our requirements one thing we

173have done um and I'm actually going to mention a couple uh one is extracurricular activities you guys know that we've we've uh done a lot of work over these last few months to try to make sure that students can participate uh and U and made sure that the that uh that the brainstorm uh to to to maximize student participation in those extracurricular activities another item that we I don't think we talked about is is um fundraisers for PTO and we've been doing a lot of talk with with PTO to try to find ways to facilitate some of their work in this context too um well you you you mentioned this before um I mean as as far as people having requested that we that we stop giving the health department our information and I I

174still I still don't see how in the world if if our to um to miss Garrett's point of you know are are asked to to limit the number of of quarantines and to limit the impact of this quarantines when we uh when they do happen um I I I just I don't understand why the other schools in the county don't have to do this and we are and we continue to do so um that and I get I I completely and there's a there's a big difference between an official quarantine and US telling a student that they may not come to school because they're sick or because of close contact but the the other brimwood Academy and BGA like they are they're not they're not quarantining close contacts in U in inside the classroom because

175they have seen all the data that we've seen which says that students aren't transmitting inside the classroom and it's probably because and the CDC is just N9 months late in understanding what everybody else knows and that distancing it's a it's a meter in Europe and it's six feet in the United States there's no difference between six feet and 3 feet and classrooms are by definition as distanced as they as reasonably possible and it's going to meet that three feet deadline or that three feet um guideline and so I I don't need and we don't need this we don't need to wait on the CDC to publish a study and to verify what we've what we've all known this entire time I don't under I I don't understand why we have to wait for them to

176do that then that would that single thing right there would would eliminate a vast majority of our unneeded quarantines well uh it is true that that we and the other Public School in the county um are um are answering questions from the health department I can't speak for the others but I do know that Franklin Special and we uh are responding to the health department when they ask who the close contacts are what we are doing to mitigate that is making sure that they that they have enough information so that they don't do a broad uh sweep and and and I get it that that that you disagree and I think they're you know in in this context Minds can differ and I I definitely respect your difference what I can tell you is we're

177going to continue to work to see if there to see if and when there are ways we we can reduce that and we do that individually uh with with u individual students and staff members uh who the health department thinks might have been close contact uh and we also do it uh corporately uh in the in the in the work that Gary and his staff are doing to to keep tabs on this and make changes when we can well um I appreciate that but I think I mean I'll give you my anecdotal answer to my question of the survey of the of the students that that both did online and of the you know of the better part of the 1600 students that left um year over-year um and and disruption um potential disruption was

178the number one was the number one cause um of of Why students left and why students chose online it there granted it was their for um it was it was primarily there and Our intention was to be there for those students because we're providing a free and public education uh for the students who felt uncomfortable and were requiring attendance and that they would would be giving them an ACC a an option to to go online so that we're not forcing them to to do something that's putting themselves or their family members at risk but um but it turned into something completely different and so if we could if we could declare that that that we weren't going to count close contacts within three feet instead of six feet um by our meeting on Monday night

179next Monday night that would that would go um a long long way to getting people not only on campus but back to our school system after they after they left so um and and I think people people deserve to know that um before even if you're going to change it change the the decision because of the CDC um I mean there's going to be some people that are going to be uncomfortable with any changes that you make after after the 23rd and they're going to come back and say if I would have known this I would have made a different decision so U I think the more um the more changes that we can get out in front um so that parents can be fully aware when they're making that decision the better as far

180as I'm concerned thank you um everyone I've got several people saying that they would would like to take a break now um that they need to take a break we've still got three questions on the floor um so we can we can go ahead and answer those three questions on this topic or we can break now um just let me know what works best for everybody yeah okay take these break is fun break is fun all right we're going to take a break here and then Casey you'll be the first question up uh Then followed by Dan and followed by Jen and we will come back at 8:35 thank you e e e your question please thank you madam chair um Mr Golden we had a 10-minute break are you feeling any less confident that

181we're going to repeal mask mandates in the fall thank you for the question I'll treat that as rhetorical it is but I I I want to reiterate that's a really good takeaway and I think it's a sign of many many encouraging changes that have happened in in just the last couple months um and as you're being asked to maybe predict what's going to happen five months from now I don't think anybody thought we would have 2500 staff members vaccinated uh last October M I don't think that was really on the radar at that time and it's amazing and I want to speak to the fact that that effort was so impressive to see um we talked about all the the folks who who made that happen but to think about the fact that they had

182to set up and tear down every night in a location that is serving students every day but it was such an ideal setup and we heard from so many people about how efficiently it was run how professionally it was done it was just amazing and I think that um as we look towards improvements and eliminating some of these massive massive inconveniences and hardships that we've had to endure um I can't think of anything more significant than we've done as a district to improve this situation and something that I'm thinking about um when we have those discussions with the local health department and the State Health Department I hope that the conversation can take into account environmental changes um I've heard I think it was nationally CDC guidelines or overall like nursing home restrictions have changed

183um I hope that when you consider the fact that as we've heard from from your reports and uh Mr Anderson's reports that the spread is not really occurring in the schools among our students um I've heard that repeatedly and I I've taken a lot of comfort in that and I hope that that that's continued to be a factor um at this point we have the the state has made it available for essentially all high-risk categories to be vaccinated we've can basically say that we've had all our willing staff vaccinated um you know the the the the whole uh population that that we're particularly concerned about and have been this whole time and have have really taken great efforts to protect it seems like they're going to be very well protected through this a massive effort

184that that has taken place and through the distribution from the state so I would really love to see some of these restrictions change as you've indicated that they likely will I can also appreciate that it's hard to predict what will happen in the future um we do have a commitment to the safety of our our students and fames um and and hope that we don't have to to have these restrictions in place but if it's appropriate to do so based on medical guidance you know I think we do need to have that option open um it could be for a different reason altogether that we might need to to keep that in mind but I've heard a lot of of reason for optimism from what you've said tonight um I would like to hear what

185you think this year and next year can look like differently and more favorably and more normally for students as far as expanded access to activities expanded curriculars extracurriculars um gathering in the cafeterias family attendance at events um I assume that that that all improves but what are your thoughts on that now and possibly for the fall well first of all um I'm actually encouraged by those emails we've gotten uh these past few days because it's an indicator that that that things are getting better um we're not quite there yet where I can do um every everything that's that's being asked for but but the but the fact that that push is coming um given my life experience especially in this pandemic over the over the past year is encouraging um so from a from a

186from an extracurricular standpoint we gave some guidelines to um our our administ rators about things like prom graduation fifth grade celebrations eighth grade celebrations um in in Gatherings and events uh with with uh with making sure that they could happen with with with with our safety measures in place um there's a lot of detail in some of those the prom detail really is is very specific because of the nature of that event with dancing um so there was a time where we were worried that that might not happen at all uh and so we have made we have made uh some some changes there one neat thing about that is especially at the high school level our administrators are meeting with the student leaders about what they think is best for their Community um you

187know for that for that group of of students um given where they are and so they've been able to get some local control with student leadership and I think that's a really neat thing uh that that they've been able to do um and get you know get those students um think think about all these restrictions as well um so so those are some some specific examples of of what we've done you all know that uh with the graduation ceremonies we had to make a change just a few weeks ago because we learned that uh that those those schools that had that had plans to be at libum and Belmont um had uh had had hit a point where it wasn't going to it wasn't going to happen because of their rules and their restrictions likewise

188at the at the a center uh the um um the the the window of time that they were vaccinating was was was such that they couldn't take those 10 days off that was going to have to give us you know that they were going to have to give um us for a window for graduation so we moved them off campus um we've done some brainstorming to even spread out in the green spaces uh at uh at the stadiums uh to to to maximize numbers um so we have we have some some some minimum commitments and then and then we're brainstorming over some maximums I will tell you on the funding side of that uh um I know that Dr web has told me there's probably going to be requests for a little bit extra financial

189help to rent more chairs as an example uh to get more people uh out there for those graduation ceremonies so those are those are a couple of examples of what I think you're asking about great thanks I that that's that's one that promps more thought to as as a as a frequent concert goer I will find that sometimes the tickets will sell out and then as they set the stage and put things in place they realize oh we have a little more capacity so I hope there are opportunities between now and uh two months from now to look at that and possibly expand things a little bit for for families that'll be in attendance I know that's going to be a big uh challenge that weekend and and uh we're all going to be hoping

190for a really good weather and to that point you all since I mentioned that um uh the high schools have tentative dates and times they're tentative as soon as they firm them up we're going to send those to you uh unlike last year there's no way you can go to all of them because a lot of them are happening at the same exact time but we want to make sure we get that to you within a within a couple of weeks thank you Mr Cash yes thank you madam chair Dan cash District Two um I've just got uh a few questions uh I I will say I I agree with uh Rick's statements to to Lee web that they've done a fine job and and whatnot on the planning and uh you know they they

191have to have a cut off date there uh I I do agree with Jay 100% uh on the mask issues I'm not going to go into the details he he pretty much explained that pretty good but uh Gary I have a question for you just a quick one uh you mentioned the 11 to 18y year range in students uh Williamson County is one of the largest numbers what is that number do you know yes sir uh we had in the 11th to 20 age group it represents 19.19% of the total cases and it was 4,845 cases in that age group and 1,447 cases into the zero or the birth to 10 age group okay and that one student that you uh mentioned to Jay out of the 24 uh you mentioned they said that uh

192that student they thought had Co or did they test positive for that they think they think that child tested positive the the principal wasn't 100% sure but they believe that the person did okay uh and I understand you know about the three 3 feet and whatnot so I'm not going to go into that um how many teachers actually took a vaccine whether it be here or uh including those that did it outside do you even know that no we we wouldn't know if they went to the outside obviously we know everyone who went inside uh at our own clinic but we wouldn't know the others okay so by April 15th our vac vaccin vaccines will be at uh at least 90% correct for teachers and staff members and whatnot um is everyone who everyone who

193received it on April 1 is the last day some will be before that but that would be the last day and that is supposed to be the maximum uh immunity level and they said it's 90% plus so that's a huge corner to turn I mean it it seems like uh we're going to be at a real safe place um now you know we got a lot of emails this this last week and I think all the all the parents that uh are are giving their input to this uh the majority of them were uh about masks um and but where where I'm going with this is we can we get something definitive Jason uh that's why so many people have are are tuning in tonight is to get ansers um you know there's all kinds

194of clubs this Summer that that people are signing up for you know all extracurricular stuff um you know Church stuff um now the uh the camps for summer school um and I think a lot of this is going to be based on whether or not we have to wear masks um I know Jay mentioned some of the reasons people went to online I had a lot of constituents go online because they weren't going to have their kids in masks all the time that was the only reason um so I guess what I'm saying is you know our our masks and going to be required I mean I know you can't give me that answer and when we talk about uh who's making the decisions here we get them from the CDC we get them from

195local Health Department we get them from the tssaa uh in consideration of the the uh cheerleaders that weren't allowed to cheer for about six weeks and uh the State Health Department uh and whoever else is involved so I guess what I'm looking for from Jason is and I think you even said it a little earlier if if you're not signing up for online or if it if if it's due to a mask then you should sign up okay so what do we tell these constituents tonight because we got to sign up by the 23rd there's people that are on waiting list for private schools they're on waiting list to get into homeschool groups they're they're on waiting list for many things that have to happen this this next month and and of course going back

196to what Lee web said she's got to be able to plan for next year because that was part of the issue this year is that the planning wasn't quite where it should be so it's it's a big process but you know if I'm just saying that there's people waiting tonight for some kind of dialogue from the superintendent um I don't know what you're going to say but you know it it is what it is but we can't we can't continue on this road um there are so many people upset about the masks uh I know on the other end there are people saying that masks should be worn until all the kids are um vaccinated well you know be honest with you I don't think that's ever going to happen I mean it's not affecting

197them like it it does adults but that's another thing for for Gary to figure out and he'll come up with the answer for that but Jason do you have anything to say to the folks I mean you know just should they just do their thing and leave the school system or sign up for stuff and then have changes come about that they change their mind on I I know it's it's it's a dilemma for everyone well go ahead oh sorry I thought I thought you were you You' finished go ahead okay so so this is exactly what we've been talking about uh and and uh and uh we know that when the the the vaccine um started we we started getting those emails that you mentioned and you've hit it on the head we have

198some people saying I want definitive I want to know exactly what's going to happen in five months or you know don't you dare make a change um you know without without the health authorities doing it um so I think I've told uh everyone the best I can tell them right now but I'm going to try to repeat it to try to be as clear as I can there is not at this stage enough reason for me to make a declaration that as of blank date we will not have mask anymore uh I've learned enough through this that there's too much change uh and and it's it's not wise for me to make a declaration that I'm that it's going to something's going to change on blank day and then and then have to find some

199way to roll it back but what I have told everyone is we have two key dates that we're looking at to make this analysis uh one is how things go these first two weeks after spring break and two is is when those online students come back to take the test uh and we end up adding a few thousand more students but I tell you that it's possible that that may that that from the health authorities it may change even before that uh and so for all those who throughout this pandemic have been have been desperate for something definitive um what I've learned from this pandemic is there's nothing definitive but what I can give you is my educated guesses in the process we're going through um we're looking at this on a regular basis on

200a weekly basis we're continuing to have those conversations with the health department um we will re-evaluate especially after we finish our testing window which ends on April 2th first um uh it I could be definitive and say we're going to have mass the rest of the year but something may change what I also mentioned is based on my educated guess given what we know from what's happened across the nation with the announcements about when the vaccines are going to be out my educated guest tells me that in the fall it's going to be difficult for me to visualize a reason why the the The Masks are required I can't give a definitive I can give you my educated guess on that uh and and and it is you know it reminds me of a conversation

201I had with my dad back when I was about 16 years old he said he said uh um sometimes you're not going to get all the information and you have to make a decision that's life uh and and I learned that young and uh and I hate hate hate it in this pandemic uh because everyone has had more variables thrown at them than than probably they've had most of them had their entire lives but again what I can tell them is we're going to continue to do what what is what we determine is best based on the health authorities information for everyone in it uh everyone in our school system uh and and April 21st is a is a is a critical review date for us I'd just like to say you know it's uh

202people folks are doing to trying to do the best they can with this uh with the whole school year and uh and I hear a lot about you know thanking teachers for the stuff they've done but uh I'd just like to lift up our parents to you yeah um and because they have sacrificed there's many been many days off that they've they've had to pay sitters there's many days they've had to give up uh you know of their personal time and vacation time but most of all our students have lived through a lot this year and I I know some of you have kids and some of you don't and we can see it in them every day I can see the difference just this last two weeks where we had a full week of

203school everybody's bubbly and back into the group um but these kids they they deserve a big pat on the back because they have endured this uh you know in some cases better than parents but we still don't know what's going on and the effects that all this is going to have on them in the future and uh the Lost instructional days and whatnot how they're going to make all them up so I just thank uh the parents and our students for hanging in there and uh just to let them know that you know folks are trying the best they can thank you Mr chair thank you Mr yeah so I just wanted to um it was kind of a great segue from Mr Cash there about uh the parents and the students a lot of

204the and I'm giving an opposite perspective here because um my son has high-risk conditions for covid he was a prey he was three and a half months premature spent seven months in the NICU came home on oxygen for three years so we've been very cautious but um I've seen a lot of messaging about well if if you're scared of catching it and you and you you want to wear masks or you think kids should be a Mas then you should choose online because that that's safer for your child and then let everyone get back to normal but the problem with my son is if I were to choose that he can't learn online because of his disabilities so he has to be in person um so that put us in a very tough choice and

205we ended up sending him to school so that he could receive his IEP services in person and keeping my daughter online and um she did great this year but it's it's just a very everyone I've spoken to all the parents that I've talked to that are in the online program with us they have varying reasons so some of the families you're hearing from are saying it's because they they wanted consistency a lot of athletes wanted the consistency and didn't want to get quarantine before a big game things like that so they chose online for that reason but there are a lot of families out there that chose is it because their their children are high risk and we're not able to get them vaccinated and so my husband and I have been vaccinated to try

206to protect him we're so thrilled since teachers are vaccinated but it's still um online isn't an option for him and and we are encouraged by the use of masks in school just to keep him and K kids like him safe um but I'm wondering if because I agree with you that parents want some kind of a definitive answer that they can grasp on to because we're having to make this decision by March 23d I'm wondering if we can just say that we will follow CDC guidelines for masks in particular because like Mr Golden is saying I feel like there's probably a really good chance that once we get closer to herd immunity and we get more and more people vaccinated by next school year the CDC could be saying that masks aren't required anymore we're

207going to be protected they're going to be safe um but at least it would give families like mine who are concerned about the health risk to our children something to say Well they're gonna follow the science of what because we're not medical professionals you know Mr Golden can't say it'll be safe by this dat after spring break because who knows what could happen but if CDC looks at it long enough and and studies it long enough they're the medical professionals that could say okay it's safe for kids in school because right now even though our county says that 12 and under don't need to wear masks the CDC guidelines say that kids in schools need to wear masks still and that's what's been keeping them on campus for longer um I was also encouraged when

208the CDC was one of you know they came out not too long ago and said no kids need to be in school because there's some states that have districts that haven't even gone back yet they've been virtual this whole time and so when they finally said no it's safe for kids to be in school they're not huge spreaders of this virus that was a that was a big step forward and so I feel like when they feel it's medically safe and that our kids who are high risk and can't be vaccinated because they're younger than 16 um will be safe even in in the classroom where they're not wearing masks then then they'll say so and so at least it would give both sides a a goalpost that's not moving it's just saying when CDC

209says it's okay it's okay and that way we can all have a clear definitive answer in our minds it's not putting a lot of pressure on the dis to say we're going to pretend to be medical professionals and figure this out and make this you know this is the number this is the magic you know Target um it just kind of gives us something real to grasp on to that's databased and I don't know it makes me feel safer as a parent to a high-risk kid and I I've heard from another mom of a preey who had the same exact concerns we've seen a lot of emails coming through I a lot on both sides saying I want my kids not in mass and some saying I can only send my kid back from online

210into the classroom if you're still requiring masks but maybe by August we don't need to anymore so I feel like the CDC is is a good Target to say maybe that's who we pin this on you know what I'm saying I don't know that was just I just wanted to give that other perspective as a as a parent of a child who who needs that so that was it well and this is Jason and thank you for that I will tell you you know you this this discussion sounds very similar to our discussion back this summer when we were creating our plan um I'm encouraged that we're having this discussion again because my my hope is that we're bookending um what we've been through I don't know that it's an educated guess but but that's

211my hope I will I will tell you that one of the big drivers when we when uh when when we made the recommendation for your vote uh on this plan to require mask uh was because the CDC and and the State Health Department were recommending that we require them and because we determined that it was important to be on campus as as much as as much as we could and it made sense for us um and uh and that's where I am right now you know uh if if we say we we you know we will no matter what follow the CDC guidelines I would I would add in the health department but I will also tell you that uh that we're going to continue to discuss and talk with folks that's not definitive because

212it's it's it has a tendency to change too right and so that's what we've been working on um throughout making the changes when appropriate um and if and if you all as a board um thinking back to what we did this summer you remember the debate on required Mass there was a that was a substantial topic back then uh if you all as a board want to make that decision um I certainly invite you to to to bring that back up and and put that back on your agenda for the safety plan because you are the ones who approved my plan um based on our recommendation next up is M CL she you're on mute there we go um so we have roughly 25% of woms in County positive cases are 20 years and younger

213um this this number tells me that young people may not be adhering to the mask wearing as the adults are that's just my assumption and given how low our numbers are now I have to believe that our mandatory maske wearing is what kept the numbers low in school and that's just kind of what I deducted from these you know this conversation but and my my concern my biggest concern is the mental health of our students and they need to be in school we all know that they the kids need to be in school and if that means wearing a mask then so be it now that being said my probably my main concern um in this the mass quarantine is the quarantine process uh I believe it's very disruptive to families students and teachers kids

214going in and out of school due to quarantine sometimes several times in it's an incredible hardship to the families and we really haven't seen the data on those in quarantine actually that contracted the virus I know that's probably a hard data to get and so to Jay's Point what I would like to see us move forward even if it's baby steps I would like to see us move forward to campaign to get that six feet number down to three because at least we have a starting point and I'd really like to see us push that one thank you thank you for that Miss Cleveland um quarantine has been been rough uh and it's it's it's funny I actually jotted myself a note down on that three foot versus 6 foot uh to to have a

215discussion um with u with with to the extent we can with State officials regarding that as well okay uh Mr Welch does that me Nancy I'm sorry you broke up there sorry yes you okay thank you um Jason do you think we'll have masks on the fall um kidding course uh I I do have a a a serious question though on this uh one of these talking one of the talking points that we've seen a lot is the surrounding zero cases you know you know if we'll never have zero cases covid will never go away and so you can't get rid of masks ever uh with that so you need to have a metric uh are you comfortable at least committing to it doesn't need to be zero cases ever for us to get rid

216of masks yes okay thank you so we can we can wipe that talking point off at least and acknowledge when people say that that no that that is indeed not the standard um I appreciate that there's a lot of different opinions on this uh that everyone has different points of view and experiences I just actually before that I want to say that I want to thank um Miss Pria uh for her comments just really put a human face um on this and you know we can talk about conceptual things of course you know we've all seen her you know cute little guy uh at some board meetings back when we were allowed to so at least for me it very much humanized the discussion uh in that sense um but getting back to my other

217topic I was say very much appreciate everyone has different opinions on it uh we can you know have the discussion we have a board policy for it I'm sure we'll we'll have some votes um and while I while respect from points of views I know I don't know more than public health policy experts Public Health experts doctors at the CDC in the state department on the covid virus and dealing with the pandemic and with with all respect to my colleagues who I think all of you are are very smart bright individuals I don't think you do either uh none of us do um I think there's areas that we all bring we work great as a team but I don't think this is our area of expertise in being able to Define how a virus

218Works how it spreads uh the public policy impact uh I think we have great professional staff who can take that knowledge and expertise and apply it to their expertise of how a school district operates and the operations and what isn't isn't feasible but uh of us are virus experts around here uh also kind of want to talk about a thing uh some talk tonight about public and private schools and Gary's probably the only one who remembers this years back we we had a uh Janine Moore and I remember having kind of a discussion about kind of the difference between the two and and what was the difference between a public and private school and I want to sort of share what I think it is when it boils down to it is public schools are

219here for the students and in private schools the students are there for the school and I'm repeat that and then I'll sort of explain my thoughts on it again public schools are here for the students and in private schools the students are there for the school and what that means is when we're a public institution like Williamson County Schools we are open to every single student in our County regardless of their financial situation their ability to pay their special needs uh any you know uh ability to speak English as a first or a second language physical mental emotional disabilities all of that we open the doors we welcome them we say we are going to give you everything we can we're going to try and give you a worldclass education no matter what and it

220doesn't matter your situation want to talk about BGA or CPA or Brentwood Academy all Great Schools all very fine institutions that you can get an excellent education at but at none of those can you go there and say Here's my child he has a special needs he needs a onetoone support network I don't have the ability to pay enroll him please here's my child he doesn't speak English very well here's the other things I can't afford to pay that's not their mission that's not what they do and there's nothing you know wrong with that it's not their there's nothing ethically REM morally wrong that's not what they're established for private schools are formed to address a certain need that others feel is is not met in the public system so it's not a onetoone with

221us we are trying to be out there for every single student and we try to adapt and be flexible for them and to their needs one of the challenges with that and Co here has been a great thing is that sometimes those want desires and needs that we're bringing in are mutually exclusive that what one set of parents wants is the the exact opposite what another one wants and so we have to try and thread that needle very much and try and come up with a a path that addresses the the greatest amount and the greatest needs and I think we've done that and I think it's kind of neat because as we're talking today it's it's almost the oneye anniversary when you look back where we were um we had just canceled school for

222covid at this time last year about a about a week out for it um and we didn't know what was happening we didn't know if we were going to come back we kept getting pause we kept waiting for instruction from the state which has never come uh We've very much been out on an island had to figure it out ourselves and here we are a year later and I think it's worth you know of all the challenges that we talk about those are the things that we we do need to talk about and fix and constantly improve but I think it's it's also nice time at this Oney year anniversary that we sort of look at it holistically of where we've come in that time from having no online program at all not knowing how

223to deal not knowing if we're going to bring this back having to cancel school because there was no way to deal with it to what we did at the start of the school year to now is we're we're really one of the the national leaders Nationwide how many School District can you find that are our size 40,000 or more that started the school year at least partially in person with the younger grades that started five day a week inperson school as fast as we did that are still doing that not just in the state of Tennessee you you know you can't find more than fingers on your hands for that but Nationwide as well there's systems that are still just now starting up and going back to in person and we've been doing it for

224a full year so I think it's important to remember that and then when we look at that at how we've managed to get there and how we've managed to lead and provide so much to everyone it's through trying to find that middle path of it's not perfect for everyone there's also going to be no one almost no one who's going to get exactly what they want but what we're trying to do is accomodate the needs of everyone so that we can provide the very best for every single students so we all have to a little bit with that and do the best needs and again I appreciate Jen talking about because that that was one of the u i really put a point on it that that's a community that we need to adjust for

225as well there's lots of different ones we've also talked all year about how the ideal situation for us is to have more inperson instructional time face tof face with the teacher that that can't be replaced and so as we're talking about these policies I think we need to have systems place that allows all of our or as many as we can our our teachers and our students to feel comfortable doing that if they have it and bring them in that way the the last point I want to make here and I guess it's not really a point but it's more of a question are there any of my colleagues here that in a perfect world given the choice would want to have any of these restrictions would want to have masks would want to have

226reduced attendance at sports events would would want to have quarantines or anything no we all want that we all want to get to that goal so it's not a method you know or it's not a point of not being on the same page you're wanting to get there but I think what it is is there's going to be some disagreements here about whether or not um what's the best way to go about it what's the safest thing and the timeliness of that so Mr Golden has been very clear tonight that I think he wants it as well that he thinks we can get there but we need to go a little bit slower and make sure that we can get there safely that we can do it we can maintain it and we can do

227it so we don't have to bounce back and forth and we don't creating a worse situation where it actually extends more restrictions rather than allowing us to loosen it up over the long term thanks hey thank you Mr Welsh Mr Wimberly Rick Wimberly District 9 just point of clarification the number 90% has been mentioned a couple of times as it relates to our teachers um we can't say that 90% of our teachers will have been vaccinated by I think April can we because we don't even know if some are getting the vaccinations it's it's isn't it true that it's basically 90% Effectiveness will have kicked in among the ones who we have vaccinated I mean I don't know which is correct Mr wly that's correct the 90% that that Mr Anderson was referring to was

228the uh the efficacy of the vir of the of the vaccine and Gary if you would just give a quick um explanation of that yeah what what we've been told is Mna is between 90 and 95% effective after the second dose we do not know that everybody has gotten vaccinated or even wants to get vaccinated but we know the ones that do get vaccinated through our system or through the counties uh we'll achieve that level of protection will we ever know uh numbers on the teachers Educators staff who have been vaccinated but not by us or is that protected information my thought is it's protected that we we couldn't come out and ask them but I would I would yield to the lawyers here okay you don't have to answer that now I'm just curious

229that's all I have thank you so um Mr Wimberly this is Dana osbrook we did not make the vaccine mandatory so unless a employee decided to share that information with us voluntarily if they were not a part of our WCS Clinic then we would not be privy to that health information okay thank you Mr gal thank you madam chair I guess but Dana on if they want to get out of um out of the quarantine then they would then they would submit to you right and they would say that they and they would show proof that they got the vaccination I'm sorry Jay were you was that question directed at me this is so it was you repeat it I'm sorry if I if I may I'm gonna I'm gonna repeat it and answer if

230the his question was if they wanted to get out of quarantine they could share that with us they could share that with the health department and if I'm not mistaken the health department actually has access to who who has been vaccinated it's very possible we might end end up finding out about it through that but um that would be a the health department process um as they do their contact tracing Gary did did I have that right for the process you learned from them yes sir that's correct okay U thank you so Jason I know um we've talked a little bit about the about the plan that we had and the the plan actually states that um that we that we don't make any changes on all of our restrictions until we get to until

231we get to zero cases in the county and so when when that when that came out it was It was kind of that that was the number um and everybody said well it's not really the number but we don't know what what that number is so there there is there is no guideline that you can give as far as a number of number of cases that you can give at which time the health I mean the health department hasn't thrown out anything they don't even use Active cases as a metric so have they I mean what indication I I really I'm really hoping I haven't seen them reduce the any restrictions ever and they're always going to say that there's that more restriction is always going to be safer than less restriction so I mean

232help me Gary you've talked to them more than anybody give me some kind of comfort and give the parents out there some kind of comfort that that they have it in them to reduce the Restriction because I have zero confidence that they will um until much much after um we would as reasonable individuals looking at looking at lots of data so what what have they what have they told you to make you feel confident or or at least optimistic that they will make some kind of a change at some point in the future you're asking me will the health department make a change in some of this I I don't know I'm just going on that the fact that the CDC and the State Health Department has made changes since we've been doing this so

233the anticipation is that will probably make some additional changes as we get more vaccines in the community and we and we uh and we see more and more data they're still working through the process of knowing since this is a Nova VI virus that how how long will the will the vaccine last so you before we need a booster or will it last a year or what so Jay I don't have a definitive answer for you we just know that the track record has been they make a lot of changes I mean Jason you seem much more confident that that they would that they're going to make some changes if the if the trends are continue to to go as they are but I mean I'm I'm fearful that they're going to take credit for

234all the restrictions that are placed and that's why they're I mean that's that's been the that's been every when when cases are are on their way up we we say more restrictions when they're on their way down we say more restrictions we got to you know great job we've we've we've lowered we've lowered the cases so what what makes you optimistic that that you think that by the Fall we regardless of what the pandemic does um but that the that the health department is actually going to uh voluntarily remove a restriction that they've placed on us sort a recommendation we've lived for decades all of us sitting here have lived for decades this is the one time uh that in in in in our lifetime I believe uh that uh that that this has happened

235um nationally um I trust their professionalism I guess is my is my best answer and and you know I I I don't know that that's good enough um for everyone because we're all individuals and we all we all look at things differently um what I do know is they continue to research um and and and they're they're they're professionals uh part of part of what has led to what I called my educated guess which I keep on caveat as a guess uh is the the speed with which um uh the uh the vaccine has has been distributed I'm no medical professional it's a guess um but uh I I can't as an American sit here and believe that the medical professionals have decided that this needs to be forever if they determine that it's appropriate

236to make a change um knowing that the vaccine's available uh knowing that they've talked about numbers and percentages and about herd immunity tells me that there is a time where that can happen um and so I remain optimistic maybe that's just my nature uh and and you know I I I felt like it was important for us to to say that I remain optimistic about our our our children you know if you want to get into optim is M I can I can I can talk about kind of my internal philosophy uh I think about the greatest generation and I've compared them in my mind to to our current students uh that you know those those who went through the depression in World War II um um had awful awful times and it and it

237influenced them um and I think about those I've known in my in my lifetime who had a lot of wisdom because of their life experience I believe and I'm optimistic that our students are going to have that a generation after them um and so so it's the it's my trust in their professionalism and my optimism and maybe it's misplaced I I don't particularly share that um that that trust store optimism I what I've what I've seen time and time again is the the public health officials nationally um in the CDC has been the slowest to adopt what what has become publicly available data and everyone had is coming to the conclusion prior to them on the qu on the length of quarantines on the on the distancing the 3et versus 6 feet that's a made

238up number like I mean there the CDC isn't any smarter than the NIH and the NIH says that a meter was fine and we've and we've gone and and made it and made it six feet so um but but what I do know is that none of those Public Health officials um is responsible for educating our kids um and what and we have as our mission and vision the um to to educate these kids but we I mean particularly in our strategic plan we set out to to look after the whole child um and yes that part of that is the health of the child um but the mental health is what is what I'm particularly concerned about and will they will they get through it maybe um Pro probably will um the ones who

239have attempted suicide I mean the two that that I know in the last week and multiple kids that have have attempted and and I haven't heard of any um any successful suicide attempts um but those those are the kids that um that are concerning to me much more many more so than have been hospitalized by this by this virus and these are things that we have I mean I I take it upon myself as a as a as one of the board members numbers um that hits home to me because that's something that we have something to do we can we can do something about that we can't change this pandemic but we can change our response to it and and so I'm looking I mean I I've got I've got multiple kids in my

240household that are clinically depressed um one of them says he's going to graduate early if they if things are going to go like they are now and I don't have any more um any more reason to suspect that they're not going to be any different then I I just want out of this place like what can I do I'm just gonna I'll finish up I'll do take some extra classes this summer finish online I just want out and and this these are supposed to be their this is supposed to be fun um it's supposed to be a great learning experience and I mean I just I I honestly can't I'm I'm trying to live through their shoes and um and I get to hear their stories every day but it's just miserable existence um in

241school right now uh I mean I wanted I know I told you this but I told you one of my one of my kids watches about three hours of Netflix a day in school um and they're at their at their desk Alone um for lunch and Home Room um so with a well they don't have to wear it luckily they don't have to wear masks while they're eating um but they're they're just isolated they don't get any interaction with people like that's depressing I it it depresses me just thinking about it and I'm so glad that I haven't had to endure it um but it we have we're complicit in in that u in the in the restrictions that we've continued to let go on and so um I I just want you I and

242I I do appreciate Jen I I I mean I love the I love the human stories of of how this impacts us and it really we really do have to think about that but but we need to think about the the names and the faces of those kids who um who are struggling out there um with this with this pandemic and also because of the restrictions that were placed on it thank you thank thank you for that Mr gabber I will say just uh um on the Netflix comment we actually Netflix is actually blocked on our Chromebook so if I would you know when when those examples come I encourage anyone and anyone who's listening if you're if you're if you've got a story like this um talk talk to the administrator and help us

243do some interventions um I do think that um Mr Welch described some of this very well which which you know is is close to the equivalent equivalent of we need we do need to do our best to be all things to all people no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in um because we are a public school system um and so U um your comments about mental health are very real uh and they and and we and we that is a that is one of the many focuses that we as a public school system uh have have uh have taken on and it's tougher that in this environment you're right um and so we we continue to work on interventions um for that as well Mr fiscus and then Mr Hall okay I think it's

244working now um thank you Madame chair and and Mr gal thank I appreciate your passion and and for students and for your kids and so on and and I'm a parent of a senior and uh it's not the senior year that he expected but um he is um he's not he is engaged in difficult classes that are not he's where he's not on Netflix while he's at school I think he's on Netflix when he's at home uh quite a bit as he is right now but um the thing about the CDC and and who we are one of the things is I have been in leadership and different areas whether in the community or in the church is that and and me as an elected official I've said this to others um my job as

245an elected official is to is to always listen to those constituents but also those people who have more knowledge than I do um and and um and I'm I have the benefit of having being married to a SM to my spouse who has a lot more knowledge than I do on a lot of things I'll fully admit and and many of those things are what we're dealing with right now um and so we talk about this daily um and uh the CDC and the NIH they're doing ongoing research about this across the world not just in the United States but across the world and I'll tell you there's a lot of concern out there about the variants that are coming uh right now and that they're they're having a high impact on schoolage children and

246so we have to we have to follow the EXP s and um and as much as that sucks you know as much as wearing a mask is is uncomfortable um and uh and I'm sure it's challenging for children of all ages um it's what they recommend to keep us in person so that that mental health those aspects of being in relationships with others has the opportunity for that to happen more um because I guarantee you if if those variants break out in our community um to where we start seeing them and we start seeing seeing spikes as we if we choose to loosen uh restrictions if we just say hey we're not going to wear a mask anymore and we um we don't think about the about Ryan and uh the children that that Jen

247uh talked about we we just say well we just got to do we just got to release these restrictions because it just it just really sucks my glasses steam up all the time we're going to find ourselves um in a place that we don't want to be in we've been very fortunate and one of the emails that I received said um said you know we haven't had any any mortality in our school systems uh in our school buildings that's something we should celebrate because ruford county has had teachers die um I believe Murphy's Boro City schools had had a teacher die um I know of teachers across uh Metro and across Indiana that I taught with who had family members die and so whether it's uh and then the ongoing effect of this virus on

248children um if they uh we don't know the effects yet in terms of what it will have on their cardiac systems but also if they um if they acquire that multi-inlet system disease that many of them have had that's fatal to them and so I'm going to a on the side of listening to the to the experts um uh because but because I want us out of this faster um uh and I think the best way for us to get out of it faster is to do what we have to do now to get to that point um because I I want to have my entire family at Collins's graduation um May 22nd but we're going to have to do the work between now and May 22nd in order for that to happen um we're

249going to have to make sure that when we go on spring break that we're smart you know and that when we come back we're smart I was at the Big 10 wrestling tournament last weekend and and every person there um that was down on the floor got tested twice um both on Friday and then on Sunday morning or we couldn't be in the building and so there are things that we have to do in order to to be able to do the things that we want to do um and and I and you know that's just where we are we're in a pandemic um and we're going to be in a pandemic until everyone's vaccinated um that wants to be vaccinated and President Biden has said he he he has a goal for the end

250of May so I think we we right now our our as JY said we have to say that our guidance is is what the CDC and the NIH recommends so that's just that's all I had to say in a page update it's uh the fourth quarter page is behind so thank you Mr Hall thank you madam chair uh Casey Hall and U just to I appreciate the discussion and and I had an earlier question about quarantine requirements and how those folks who were not quar uh vaccinated by WCS would notify that so I appreciate Mr Garth asking the question but it reminded me that that is an indication of something that has changed that's a CDC change from a month ago that we certainly will be benefiting from going forward that those folks will not

251have to quarantine based on any exposure so if you're fully vaccinated there's no quarantine for the next several months right um also I I recall a change where uh the the days could be lowered based on whether there was a positive test so those are a couple things that come to mind for me that do give me a sense of optimism about way the way we're going and I just I I appreciate anything that we can do to uh take the good health guidance into account but also limit some of these some of these restrictions as it becomes apparent that uh that we can benefit from doing so in a safe manner thank you thank you Miss Emerson you are so sweet can you hear me yeah it says I'm unmuted very good I I

252just I know that we're sort of winding down but I hope I don't cry I am so proud of our board and the people that are serving with me your ability to reason and think and and pose very powerful questions that really ask a lot of all of us because we are very different people with d very different backgrounds and thoughts but it has been a very powerful night for me tonight just to sit back and listen to you all draw the these things out and discuss them and with such reason and love and and and knowledge and care and concern for the things that we're talking about and I just I can't let it go that you've moved me tonight in a very powerful way all of you and I am I just want

253you to know I feel so privileged to be part of this group I love you all so much but I love that you're helping stretch me and make me a better person and I I don't always agree with everything that everybody says but you challenge me and and move me away from I I don't think I'll ever be a stick of the mud because you I can think I know and you'll challenge me with something else and it's like oh my gosh I'm gonna have to go back and really think about this and pray about this you all are amazing and I just want you to know that I think we're going to do some very powerful things in in the days to come and I just wanted you to know I'm very privileged to

254be part of your group thank you I love you thank you Miss Emerson we have no further speakers on this topic so I think we can move Jason to the third part of your report all right thank you uh Madam chair if you would Tim and Brian uh put pop up uh the PowerPoint next H page on that we're gonna we're going to talk about fostering Healthy Solutions I have one slide for you uh move on to the next one if you would uh one slide for you related to some planning and scheduling items um and we'll make sure that you get a hard copy of this U and and so uh um uh we had a meeting with The Fosters to talk specific planning and we have a uh we I want you guys

255to see some of those items so our next step is to have discussion with principles on uh on diversity equity and inclusion leadership and they have also uh asked to have a very similar conversation with you about diversity equity and inclusion leadership um and so uh and you see that I placed a TBD item on that and that is something that Miss uh Garrett will mention in her board chairs report um and as as I look at at um at their materials what they're talking about is Baseline understandings uh for us as we get this program started and you can see the next one would be with our other leadership group our assistant principles um and then they have some other items that we felt like was important for you to see from a basic

256timeline perspective um get some grade band teacher representatives to talk with them and and listen to them uh then a review of how then then hit the policy review uh that that we mentioned very specifically to begin in April and then data collection which I think are very some very very critical pieces um because you remember that we've made this a focus that this is going to be driven um by us with our work with input from our stakeholder groups to make sure that our plan uh serves Williamson County it's not some national canned plan it's not it's not a discussion about um you know the the terminology that you see in the national meeting it's about doing what's best for our students here um so you can see that considering planed for stakeholder surveys

257um late this month into early April um and then have some meetings to discuss the the student aspect and student involvement um and what is an appropriate grade level par participation uh for our students here in Williamson County and we're talking about how they information from our students uh that's the key to that um to help develop this strategic plan not their sharing information with students but um receiving information from our students as a stakeholder group and a critical critical stakeholder group for us and then uh one thing that I think is neat that they have planned is some listen and learn sessions for all stakeholders beginning April 10th and I want you to flip your mind when you hear listen and learn in your professional work what do you think you're going to listen

258and you're going to learn it's the opposite here it is uh The Fosters listening and learning from our stakeholders and those will be uh some um some nine separate sessions uh that will have signups for for any and all of our stakeholders uh beginning on that date some items that will be carrying out uh and giving more notice of in the future and then you can see the timing for a strategic customiz plan design um and then some additional discussions and uh and and you all will be involved uh in in the in the in helping identify our priorities based on the information and then um and then approving our strategic plan and goal setting um in uh over the summer so with that um like I've made it a point to do in this

259presentation that uh that has lasted a few hours but I think to miss Emerson's Point have been valuable hours uh I do want to um ask Miss Hall if she would uh briefly speak to where we are now that you all approve The Fosters they've introduced themselves and we're move to the next steps thank you Mr Golden um I think you did a a really good job of summarizing what is what is going on with fostering Healthy Solutions and what those next steps are um we have already begun a selection of of the uh that core team group that's going to work with fostering healthy solutions to um really start to do the uh foundational work for our cultural strategy plan um so we have already begun to work on that process we've got a

260date set for the principles and we'll move into um a date for the board and then a date for the assistant principls and other senior staff so I feel um I feel really good about about um the plan and a timeline for how we're going to meet the things that we all discussed um that you decided to take action on so anytime if you have any questions about anything that's going on I'll invite you to always reach out to me and let me know what that is and um I won't say anything more about this tonight because I know y'all have been talking a long time but if you have any questions glad to answer those for you thank you board members any questions please raise your hand in the participant panel I'm not seeing

261any at this time just take aoll here there are no questions all right thank you Madame chair uh like I said at the beginning of this I could talk for days about all the details about what's going on in WCS um but in uh in in in your best interest um my report is complete okay thank you um Mr Golden may ask you a quick question did you have some annual agenda items that you wanted to talk about oh ma'am thank you thank you so so that is uh that that was item one on on on the agenda the textbook adoption is uh item 3B that's an annual agenda item this year there is no textbook adoption next year is math so be ready for that last year was Ela uh so so no no

262need for that this year teen pregnancy rate the state has a requirement that if a the teen pregnancy rate reaches a certain level that uh that um uh school systems must have family life education programs uh and it's based on the most recent data uh our most recent data is actually last year's data um we could not find any report for this year and uh we are we are well below that line uh you have a um there is a if I'm not mistaken there's a memo in the file for that so I wanted to make sure that we mention that at our annual agenda and and thank you madam chair that's my report sure sure thank you and now on to the operations Report with Mr Samuels thank you madam chair Mark Samuels here

263uh we talked about Food Services a little while ago and the really only thing I'll talk about right now is I I would encourage you in your in your travels around at schools to take the opportunity to go back to the kitchens and especially in the mornings especially in elementary school and see these people working uh putting bags lunches together and and so on and so forth let them know how much you appreciate the hard work they're doing um and all the hard work that Mr amed's U department has been doing um Madame chair with the with the construction report I I sent yesterday and uh the lateness of the hour and um um the the the agenda items is still there uh pining in the questions I yield the rest of my time okay

264and Madam chair this is Jason golden I did want to mention something very specifically related to operations the County Commission approved um all all our Capital funding requests last Monday other than some land uh modifications y'all that's a it's that's big uh they they U um I I I'm I was so impressed with uh with with with how they made that decision but more so in the the work that they have done the mayor's leadership over the course of years uh to get to a point where they could say Yes um to these requests so very specifically I know one item that that is that is that is um has been Revisited and got a yes was the uh um the U the fields for Ravenwood um Fairview and Centennial Mark tells me that the

265schedule is he's got that in his report to you but the expectation is that we uh that we bid this out and get those fields ready for this coming fall if not then we'll move to the very lengthy board chair report um board members if you'll please mark your calendars for March 29th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm that's the tentative uh date for our meeting with The Fosters uh we'll be discussing diversity and inclusion um and so if you'll just please go ahead and and mark that date and if you have a conflict please let me know um also I want to thank um Sheila Cleveland who represented us at the Williamson Inc legislative day on the hill appreciate uh Sheila you taking the time to attend that event um I also want to thank

266all the board members who participated as volunteers at the vaccine clinic it was it was a wonderful experience and a great opportunity to see so many of our important staff members and teachers uh that we haven't been able to see this whole year so again thank you and thanks so much to the folks that put put it together um being at the end of that process the comments that kept coming from the folks uh were things like this is so organized you know I got here at 6:15 and I'm out at 6:31 and that includes 15 minutes of wait time um so I think they were very appreciative and and I think they were also glad to see each other so again thank you for that um and then just a reminder that our our

267board meeting schedule is a little bit different this month we won't be meeting on Monday uh this coming Monday but we'll be M meeting Monday March 21st so that's the Monday after spring break so that's that's all I have in the way of a report uh let's move on to new business and the first thing we'll be discussing is the 2020 2021 School Board budget uh with the newest member of our leadership team the very talented and accomplished R farmer our CFO thank you Miss Garrett um this is Rachel farmer and before we get into the budget section I do want to go over one um small amendment that we do need to present to you all we have a um stem Grant classroom grant grant that has been issued I think the TVA and

268BBI both um support this grant or sponsor the grant we had a a classroom that presented I think there were 700 applicants and they were actually granted this $5,000 so we are asking that we um approve this amendment to to be able to accept those funds I see no questions we can move to the next item great so now we will jump into the budget um and I do want to say that since we last um talked when we originally did the presentation we told you that we had put the new positions as well as the proposed rise into one line item um and we do that in the event that the board decides this is not something that they want to proceed with and we can easily take it out so as we after

269the last meeting we felt pretty good about where we were and thought we can go ahead and start moving some of those items and realized that the Super Sub line in particular that one in particular um we had already entered it in in the line that it's supposed to be in but then we had also included it in the total of those new positions and so we had you know looked at it twice and basic account for it twice so good news is we told you we were going to close that Gap and this was one way we did it but was not the way we intended to do it um so going through what has changed um from our last talk is that we are now looking at our total projected expenditures being 412

270million 9851 and that is reduction of $3,440 and 3,444 23 over what we originally proposed um the also affected the 3% required minimum um fund balance and so the Gap we have been able to closed it originally we were about n a little over 9 million and it is now currently 5,583 474 what I also can assure you is when we saw that we went through every line again line by line and the budget that you have before you tonight is what we fully intended to present to you um also in the revision letter that we sent um we knew that we've talked about the sales tax and not exactly knowing what it was going to be um we've seen some numbers now and um the letter said that we were hoping that we might

271be able to project I believe it was average of a $900,000 um we think it's going to be a little bit more than that and so that also will help close that Gap I can't stress enough that we're still a bunch of parts and as we get closer to the end of the year that Gap will will tighten up and and continue to do so and we feel confident that we can make that happen um we talked long and hard about the budget last week and so at this point I'm just going to ask if you guys have any questions over and this is just GP we will get into um cafeteria and this the extended school program later but just related to GP do you have any additional questions that we can address M

272questions to date and please keep in mind that we still have time to ask questions since we have the extended time between um this meeting and our formal board meeting for the month of March I do see a hand up Mr G thank you madam chair J alth so I guess Rachel my my goal and I guess of our goal is to is to bridge that Gap but I but specifically I'm hoping to to exceed Bridging the the Gap that we're looking at and and hopefully um hopefully exceed that so that we can take some of those uh so that ultimately the the excess will will fall into uh fund ballots like we talked about and we were uh Jason did you have any chance to to talk with the with the mayor about that

273I have not spoken with him yet yet um he he's aware of of of that concern but he and I have not had a deep discussion about it yet um I will tell you that I anticipate that we'll probably have multiple discussions prior to the July commission vote sure okay now that's fair uh thank you and Rachel so we we've got how will the so I know we've got the eser 2 uh grants that are still um budgeted the 2. 3 million that we think we're going to to get but that's not included in your fund balance correct correct okay so and then if we if we end up giving um we we're assuming that we we give the full two million to the ceria fund and we're and you're only planning on 1.2 but

274um but that's a potential $800,000 grab so that's three million of the five million right there and if and if we but the the Sr three grants will those be will those be for any of those be for this fiscal year we don't have actual um guidelines on it yes we have a best guess um or we do have some information where it looks like that there would be expenditures in this year that we could use um the funds for including things like the summer camp really I think the focus of err 3 is going to be more so on learning laws versus the way it has been used um S 2 and and Sesser one and so yes there are opportunities for expenditures that we would need to incur that might be able to

275be paid from those funds um but we won't know that until we actually get a little bit more detail and Madam chair and Rachel I want to add a a little bit of detail just just for clarity sake Rachel if I'm not mistaken that s 2.0 that we have in this in in this um particular board um packet includes um a payment for technology of about 1.5 million uh that was actually 1.5 that we just we did not put in the budget because our proposal includes actually paying that with the SR funds is that accurate that is accurate right that's fine that's in your I think that's in the that's in the schedule that you gave us right that's that's already been received um so are there are there any other are there any but

276I guess Jason from if we get this if we get that 5 million from the SR 3.0 would would we necessarily spend any more money then or or would we just use it to offset spinning that we are already have already done or already planning on doing um my my basic plan and intent um with these federal funds is not to create um something new because we have the funds but instead to meet a need um so in principle um we would find ways to meet needs and and and you know to to to your point that would ultimately leave a bottom line of of more funds um Rachel and and I have had this discussion and and Leslie and I have had this discussion over the course of years you know use use restricted

277funds first right uh you know because because they're restricted use them knock them out and then and then that leaves General funds right okay well I'm I am um I'm comfortable that we're going to be able to bridge this Gap I appreciate Rachel all of your work um answering my questions and talking to me I hope that's not too much of a of a chore I think our our our our conversations are probably easier than you answering questions in front of everybody so I know you appreciate those but um but thank you so much I really really do appreciate the all the work that you put in and Leslie even though she's at the beach and probably not joining us thanks thank you EXC me other questions about the general purpose School fund and Madam

278chair if I may just a quick double check you mentioned that we've got um you know till not this coming Monday but the next we're officially closed for spring break but definitely if you have any questions we do um um welcome you uh you asking them we might not get an an immediate if we don't have our phone handy but we'll we'll make sure we respond thank you for that clarification I think we're ready to move to uh the central cafeteria discussion Miss farmer again we presented that um there have been no changes to what was presented for the budget and so we are open to any questions you may have um concerning the C cafeteria budget we did discuss the cafeteria budget um on Jason's first slide of it so are there any other

279questions I don't see any questions Miss farmer okay so then we'll move on to the third which was the extended school program fund and also um same as before we've there is no change on this particular one so if you have any questions would certain be glad to answer those board members Final Call for questions on the extended school fund I don't see any questions thank you Miss farmer thank you the next item on the agenda is the approval of the and sr2 cares act Grant and budget for fy21 Mr golden thank you madam chair this is the uh the specifics of the SR 2.0 funds that we mentioned earlier and actually have been talking about the last couple of couple of months uh I I did want to point out um what I mentioned

280earlier that this includes us removing from the expenditure budget that 1.5 for the for this year's technology payment for uh for student devices um and uh and we have the detail on there on the next page behind my memo and I'm open to any questions you may have I see no questions Mr Golden I don't see any questions okay thank you the next item is board policies for first reading Miss osbrook thank you chairman Garrett the uh first one for um first policy for first reading is 4.6 report cards and grading systems the change is um and Brian I don't know if oh I see it getting ready to come up on the screen the changes on the last page in lines 19 and 20 um board members you'll remember a few months ago we

281updated the uh how the um vows and Sals were calculated and what we are proposing is to include a students in our IB Program um and they would be treated just like our students taking AP classes and you'll recall that Franklin High School at this time is the only high school that has the IB program so adding that IB on lines 19 and 20 um since we did want to go ahead and bring this uh to board members to the policy committee and then on to the board um in this month as well as in April in hopes that this policy would be um passed in time for this graduating class to have the benefit um of AP as well as IB yes Mr Hall yes thank you chair casy H I just wanted to

282share for the benefit of the board that this is in response as uh missb said characterized to me that this is in response to some feedback we got from students and uh just wanted to cite that as some evidence of kind of like that dialogue that's taking place and when when a good idea comes up we are receptive to it bless you Jason as a great Point yes we did have this feedback from a current senior in involved in the program she reached out to uh Becky Mitchell as well as Lee web and um you see through that process as some changes being proposed Mr Wily she also reached out to her school board representative too I might add but uh I just want to say uh to to chairman of our policy committee KC

283and to the rest of policy committee thanks um for being as reactive as you always are thank you thank you Mr M OS Brooks we can move to the next one please okay the next policy for first reading is policy 5104 this is the Equal Opportunity Employment policy um due to uh changes is actually a US Supreme Court case uh that came out last at the end of 2020 um there's some recommended changes I will note um this policy has not been updated looks like the the last update was in 2001 so you will see um a new policy in lines 1 through 7 and then the old policy is written and and marked through lines 8 through 11 we are including um the the differences uh specifically stating that uh pregnancy as well as

284genetic information we cannot discriminate based upon those gender identity or expression as well as sexual orientation and those two last protected classes are due to the recent us Supreme Court case holding um which takes title 7even of 1964 uh law and includes those as protected classes so you will uh notice some also some updates to cross references as well as legal references um and that's just updated with the um genetic information non-discrimination act of 2008 as well as members you'll remember several months ago we updated and changed the name of our discrimination and harassment of employees policy so that's just updated because of that I see no questions okay I we'll move on to the um the next policy is a new policy it is policy 5.2 20 um and I'm going to actually talk

285about the next two policies together uh the next one's also 5.21 that is a current policy our current policy uh deals with separation or dismissal practices for all employees uh that is uh our tenure teachers our non-tenure teachers as well as our classified employees um what you will will see is um the current policy 5.20 which is the new one I think that is what uh Brian has on the board I'm switching back and forth between screen so sorry um and it is you are not going to see any blue um or strikes strike out because it is a uh Rewritten um policy our current policy dealing with tenure teachers is um a hand full of lines um the entire policy is about a page page and a half and now um this policy is

286uh three pages during the policy meeting um Mr Mitchell asked what um what some of the differences were and between our current policy and this one and so we have we've set out uh suspension pending an investigation suspension of three days or less and then that dismissal or spec suspensions greater than three days um one of his other questions at the policy meeting was um what is not covered and with statutory language um because what you will find with this rewrite is that this is um in several different statutes um and the purpose of taking one policy and turning it into what will be three is that um to help our employees know which policy they fall under and have all of that information that is in several different places in Statute in one place

287um and so to answer the question that Mr Mitchell asked all of this is in um statute with the exception on page three of um lines one through through three um which is the which is a section under the retirement um portion of this policy um the rest of it comes either directly from the statute um word for word or it is a re um restatement um unless I guess maybe legal ease um regarding the what's what's in several statutes any questions yes Mr Hall not a question on that but wanted to hold back in case there were any um and then I just wanted to add from our policy meeting the previous month Miss Pria had uh a suggestion for topic of discussion regarding kind of contemporaneous instructional material and sort of things that

288are presented in classroom related to current events and a subsequent discussion and review of staff that is going to be addressed in U in PRS rather than policy and yes and and to that um well and I appreciate you bringing that up a couple of examples um there's been a an Unwritten um procedure on how we have hand handled um events that don't happen very often uh like the eclipse or uh inaugurations there's you Unwritten guidance um for those who have have been here like I have through more than one inauguration we we know what that procedure generally is um but what we what tlaa is doing uh Dave Allen and his team are actually writing um anop that will set out what that Unwritten practice is so that it is in writing and we

289are not Reinventing the will or having to look back um for some of the events that don't happen annually Madam chair you're on mute excuse me I see no additional questions I believe we can move on to the next items uh which are the approval of high school classes annual agenda item Mr thank you madam chair uh this uh first item of of this group the uh approval of High School courses annual agenda item is uh is is kind of neat if you look at the memo uh what we have is the uh the approval of state approved courses that we are going to teach they're not courses that we've created but they're state approved courses uh that we have had some demand uh for from our students uh that that we we plan to

290get your approval for us to to offer um I do want to um I mention a couple of them just uh just at a glance for you African-American history we talked about that that we actually have three schools where there's been enough student interest where we intend to be able to teach that um World War II honors a special course um is um is um I think something that's going to be pretty attractive to our students and the truth is all these are going to be and then finally um I really want to call your attention to the to the special programs of study the CCT programs at the bottom of that first page of that of that memo those are directly related to our strategic plan uh to to improve stem offerings Project Lead

291the Way is an engineering and computer science program and Engineering by Design By Its very nature is engineering uh and those are um uh programs that are going to be um part of the elective Focus opportunities for our students so I'm very excited about that and I want to specifically thank Dr Jeremy quals for his leadership with our CCT program board members any questions I see none then we can move to our final agenda item for the evening thank you madam chair um I'm actually in the process I had a question oh um Mr Cash please see sorry about that uh Dan cash is that African-American history that's the one we talked about that was an elective correct yes sir that's exactly right all right thank you all right thank you madam thank you madam

292chair uh the approval of special course applications I'm actually looking through my memo I have somehow lost it uh because of the pages the the documents behind uh that the most recent one um the uh special course application oh oh actually um there there is the special course application process in in with all the supporting documents the memorandum from Dr Allen actually included both uh High School courses and special courses so I've addressed them both already okay check for questions MERS I see no questions if there are no questions that concludes our meeting for tonight appreciate um everyone's thoughtful consideration