WCS Board Work Session 2021-04-15

001evening and welcome to the April 15th uh 2021 meeting of the Williamson County Board of Education this is our monthly work session uh where we look at all the items on the agenda and have a discussion of those items in preparation for our Monday night voting meeting uh so I will call this meeting to order and there is some information that I need to read as is necessary to protect public health safety and Welfare Williamson County Schools is officially meeting electronically in light of the Corona virus pursuant to executive orders number 16 and number 78 and signed by Governor Bill Lee and waiver of Williamson County Schoolboard policy 1.40 and I hope that's the longest Senate you hear all night folks um first we're going to talk about uh the first item on our agenda

002uh are the consent agenda items Mr Golden thank you madam chair and I welcome board members it's really good to see you all the consent agenda has a a number of board policies for second reading uh and I just wanted to mention those they include uh report cards and grading systems which is designed to make sure that the IB students at Franklin High uh get the same structure as uh as as um as those other classes like AP for purposes of valedictorian and salutatorian we have some some employment uh policies as well uh so that we can make sure that everyone has a clear understanding of our standards for tenure teachers and non- tenure teachers and for equal employment opportunity but I think the last one is really kind of neat it's a request uh

003for uh for facilities uh for for facilities Improvement the cougar Athletic Club has raised about $49,000 their proposal is to upgrade their football locker room with wooden lockers we've had a couple other high schools do this in the past and I think that's a real neat thing that our boosters do for our students um so that's our that's our consent agenda okay thank you Mr Golden any questions about consent agenda items I don't see any questions in the chat so we can move on to our next item in business which is the superintendent report Mr golden thank you madam chair uh you all may notice that Miss Garrett placed a 60-minute standard on the on the uh superintendent's report this week and I'm this month and I'm actually very excited about that and I will

004tell you that uh as I Was preparing to present to you we had a huge milestone this week teap started and our students have been doing the ELA TCAP testing and if you think back over the course of this year uh it's you know it's it's pretty exciting and pretty incredible that our that our students are there and and guys we're ready for it our students were ready for it and it just reminded me what a great milestone teap always is when we're going through the process you know we didn't have that last year but this year it's really neat to see that Milestone and give and our students having that opportunity to to to share what they've learned over the course of this school year and it really triggered me to present to you

005a superintendent report a little bit different a little bit more colorful a little bit more exciting than what I've typically done and so Brian and Tim if you would let's start my PowerPoint so first y'all I want to start with a thank you I want I am so proud of uh our teachers I'm so proud of our administrators I'm so proud of our staff I'm so proud of our students and I really appreciate your leadership on what we've been going through this year we have only about five weeks of school left and again with TCAP coming uh it it really is a is a key turning point for for this school year and uh I had a convers ation with Carol Birdsong and said we've got to get a little bit of a glimpse of

006what's been going on on our campuses this past year because y'all it has felt like Williamson County schools and so Brian if you would just start scrolling through some of these photos uh and as he's scrolling through these photos you get a little glimpse of of uh some of the neat things our students have been doing in the relationships that our students in uh and faculty have been have been building over the course of this year and I want to let you know as we're walking through a few of these photos I'm going to remind us of our vision your vision the vision that the board set up that we that we're to challenge our students to excel in academics Athletics and the Arts and uh as we finish these photos in just a few

007seconds uh that's what we're going to talk about first uh we're going to talk about that vision and how we have been fulfilling that Vision this year uh to challenge our students to excel in academics Athletics in the art you've seen pieces of this throughout the year but when we looked back just these last few uh few days it's pretty incredible uh that WCS even in this environment has exceeded where we've been in years past and I'm going to give you some examples of that after we talk about uh our vision uh we are going to hit four more in time updates for you we are going to talk about our health protocols we're going to talk about covid I'm going to give you an update uh on uh on WCS online we're going to

008talk briefly about the summer school program that the state uh has has has has put on us that we really excited about and then finally we're going to talk about our cultural strategy planning that we've been making sure has been on our topic list uh for these for these past few months and really throughout this school year so let's stop right there and slow it down if you may if you will Tim and Brian uh so lipsum Elementary was named in National Blue Ribbon School uh and it's neat to see that 2020 there and with that with that giant what I think of as that Federal logo with uh with the with um you know the eagle holding the olive branch and the arrows and it just reminds me of of um how great it

009is to be in this country and have this opportunity to have public schools I will tell you also another one of our schools has been nominated for this year uh that's a tough process to go through but I'm I'm not going to name the school yet but but I want you to know that uh that we are still getting recognized at the at the federal level for for excellent schools and we we'll see how that particular process goes uh next if y'all would so this is what I'm talking about excelling in academics Athletics and the arts for the third year in a row we had more than 50 National Merit finalists 51 this year uh and and that's an incredible achievement third year in a row uh we're we're excelling 41 perfect ACT composite scores

010uh now we put in parentheses first time in WCS history that is the largest number we've ever had to give you a little bit of perspective uh last year we had 33 perfect scores in the AC act this year we have 41 and there may still come right it's uh we've still got five weeks of school left we may we may have a couple more uh before before that year years out but I think that's an incredible achievement uh you know we've had a lot of folks uh talk about talk about and concentrate on on uh on on health issues and what we've had this year is the highest number ever of uh act composite scores um we've we've kind of joked or maybe I started this this joke that if WCS was the only

011District that act evaluated they'd have to rorm their test uh because our folks are doing so great um three perfect P PSAT scores for our sophomores we're very excited about that that is a precursor to the National Merit award uh those sophomores take the PSAT and then the National Merit uh system is based on that I'm pretty confident those three are going to be National Merit finalist when it's all said and done when they become seniors and then eight Tennessee High School press Association awards and we're very excited about that as well uh academics uh next slide the Arts 37 students were selected All State Choir you see the the band reference All State Orchestra and there's a new award a new all state that is in its first year in its theater and we've

012had 12 students selected to to uh to All State Theater and let me put this in perspective for you last year we had 68 students uh being named to All State Choir All State band and Orchestra this year we have 75 students plus those 12 in theater the year prior to that we had 58 students earn that designation again we're continuing to grow and we're continuing to Excel and we're having some pretty impressive first uh in in the Arts as well next Athletics state championship Color Guard teams at both Franklin and Summit they competed in different categories uh and a neat thing uh you see this photo of our of uh our um uh one of our Centennial students and and and Carol I wish I had his name uh that uh he was he's

013our first ever pianist to be named to the Allstate jazz band and I think that's a pretty neat thing next to twaa volleyball state championships you guys can see that Brentwood it's eth what a Dynasty uh our professionals have built with our students at Brentwood in Nolanville their second consecutive state championship pretty exciting Ravenwood soccer you know they compete in the fall they they won their second consecutive state championship next twaa cross country champions for Brentwood the girls and of course and in Fairview had its second straight individual Champion uh and that's so exciting for Fairview and uh and their Runners a NE next thing well I'm going to talk about the football first uh you saw that for the first time in Summit history uh they won won the 5A state championship you all

014may remember this how exciting is that uh and I love this photo uh and I'm thinking about those students some of those students in there are are going to be competing at the college level and every one of those students is getting a great education here in WCS next this is what I was going to mention for the first time in Fairview history we had a team sport state championship I was in Fairview High Schools uh office just a few weeks ago and it was great to see that giant uh that that uh that giant trophy sitting there in in their office in addition to the team championship we had a we had a weight class champion at Fairview and we had a lot a lot of WCS wrestlers compete in the state championships uh

015in uh in Chattanooga this year very proud of all of them we have some great wrestling programs throughout our throughout our district next and so before I give this I want to give you one other fact about our students if you guys don't mind jump jump right back uh we talked about the Arts and and how we've grown in 1920 we had seven state championships in WCS in in athletics so far this year we've had eight state championships and the spring sports are yet to come last year yes ma'am did you mean 2020 you said 1920 the year that um I think the first year Franklin High School was oh thank thank you so yeah it well it was it was in the 1920 school year and then there's the 20 then it's the 2020

01620 21 school year so last school year okay thank you last school year that was that was that was9 2019 yes thank you I I it was not 1920 Gary that's that's the year Gary graduated from high school wasn't we may have won don't steal my J Elliot don't go that R that's that's my joke we'll do some research and see if we won anything in 1920 but 2019 2020 last school year we had won State seven state championships in athletics this year we've already won eight uh and um we're hoping on more to come because we've got some great competitors out there who are who are getting ready for the for the districts and uh in regions and in state tournaments and all those Sports and my how great it is to to to

017to drive onto one of our high school campuses in the spring that life is there that's one of my favorite times of the year to drive in in the evening uh on one of our high school campuses in the spring because there's so much going on um so so that's that's where we are with Athletics uh we have some really neat things going on with teachers and I just want to give you just a couple of snapshots of that Stephanie higs was uh our Crockett Elementary uh districtwide ele Elementary School teacher of the year and she won the region uh she gets the privilege of of uh writing some essays uh to at the state level and competing for Middle Tennessee for the Statewide teacher of the year it was so fun for us to

018go give her balloons and give our other winners balloons just a few weeks ago and we're excited for her that she's won our region and she's uh competing at the state level for Teacher of the Year Maggie zelman at Ravenwood was the tea distinguished new teacher uh for this year and that's a that's an exciting State award and Jacob campo's won an award that's actually broader than the state of Tennessee uh you all are familiar with Yamaha no motorcycle jokes I'm talking about Yamaha the the music the music producer the the they they build instruments he was named as yamaha's 40 under 40 is one of the top uh music educators uh um in the in the nation and that's so and so exciting for Mr Campos earlier this year I had the privilege of

019sneaking in after a meeting and just watching Franklin High's practice uh as as the band was preparing for one of their last performances uh and what a leader he is he's he's one of many great band leader so we're excited for them uh so next so I told you all that we're going to talk about four just in time items and we are going to spend a little bit of time talking about our our health Health protocols and where we are on health uh and and and I think it's worth showing this one more time many of you participated in our vaccine clinic for our 2500 employees who are vaccinated uh what an uplifting experience that was for me uh that first round we had a lot of tears and a lot of hugs and

020that second round when they got that second shot we had a lot of Cheers uh and we're so happy that we were a part of that um I will tell you that what we know from the state is that as of yesterday if I'm not mistaken this the uh State Health Department announced that uh the vaccines are open to everyone from age 16 and up uh and we do encourage everyone age 16 and up to get that vaccine um you know talk with your doctor if you're not sure uh but uh but we we definitely encourage everyone uh to get that vaccine I'm thinking about the short term I'm thinking about the long term especially for next year um but uh go ahead and switch to the next slide um but uh We've we've got

021an incredible Co response team and you all know how hard they've been working all year uh in in U in in working through uh those challenges that that uh that we faced and I tell you that the board passed a good return to school plan back in July and because because of its quality we've been able to stick to it we've grown in our application of it it and we've been able to to to stay on campus um a lot of the time and I'm going to give you a slide about that um we followed that plan and we're doing it y'all we're doing it and it's working uh it's been serving us well throughout this school year uh and and and I do if you would guys switch to the next slide I want

022to give you some some uh updates on on where we are with being on campus and you remember we talked about the first semester uh just a few months ago the majority of the school days were in person learning uh and we had when we did the math at uh at at every at every grade level at every school uh we we let you know that close to 90% of our elementary students were on campus um every day for semester and it was in the 60s uh in the uh in the middle school and high school but I want you to get a picture of this if you compare first semester to second semester uh you saw that in the first semester 30 schools ended up having to transition temporarily to fully remote learning and

023you see that detail there second semester we're five weeks before the end of school we're keeping our fingers crossed following that plan but this entire first this entire second semester only two high schools had to go to full remote As a result of covid and each had to do that for four days look at the difference between that first semester and second semester no school has been on remote fully remote since February 8 uh and you can see some other detail about individual classrooms um I think that's pretty incredible uh the growth that we've had in that and I want to thank everybody I want to thank everybody for committing to those safety protocols you remember that we set that goal that we are going to follow the state uh Health Department guidelines and the

024CDC guidelines as much as we could with a goal of keeping students on campus and uh and one of the one of the um pieces of work that we did was um we we did a little research on what we call our benchmarking benchmarking districts we have uh a Consortium of nine districts that are high performers in in uh in Metro areas and and that that group of districts that we Benchmark ourselves off and talk to a lot um range from Metro Phoenix that's Deer Valley School District for those who are listening to this who who might be familiar with Phoenix from Phoenix Chicago naville 203 down to Atlanta foresight County and some spots in between uh we Benchmark ourselves off each other and we we we talk to them and and I want to

025give you a couple of interesting elements about what we have found from that Consortium of high performing school districts in those Metro areas and what we call our Midstates benchmarking consort every one of those districts uh included mandatory Mass requirements every one of those districts still have those mandatory mask requirements and you know why we did it because the CDC recommended that schools require that our State Health Department doubled up on that and made that recommendation to us as well every one of those still have that requirement um one of the interesting things on the other side of that equation is none of those districts drilled down as much as we did and dealing with quarantine and and and and in limiting uh those um schools that had to go remote based on that down

026to grade levels when they hit a spot where the quarantines prevented them from being able to to do school they they closed out full schools in cinema remote or did it systemwide we because of our effort we're able to drill down to individual grade levels and individual classes to protect as many students as we could to keep sticking to that goal having students on campus if we could safely do so it's been hard for those who had to do it from time to time but I'm so proud of the work that we've done uh to limit that as much as possible and I will tell you also another interesting fact that we found two of those school districts OA Kansas just outside of Kansas City and they Prevail just outside of Chicago have just recently

027returned to full oncampus learning OA has actually had Elementary um attending in person all school year but their middle and high schools didn't start back in person until March 1st so I'm proud so proud of how we've been able to do that here in our metro area and get everyone back on campus early uh neille Illinois just went back fully on campus K12 April 7th that's last week y'all think about what we've been able to do here in Williamson County Schools I'm so proud of the work we've done uh as we hit this Benchmark of those students taking those State standardized tests that we were so worried about months ago um so uh next slide if you would just reminded me where we are so to if so I I do need to mention one

028more thing before we hit the WCS online another consideration that we did a little bit of research on uh was um that question of student mental health and you know that we have um some some help on campus it it's called Stars students taking the right stand and and we have clinical professionals who help us uh with referrals um and we double checked our numbers on uh on referrals at our at our secondary schools at our high schools and our middle schools in 201819 the entire school year uh we had um we had uh 4,275 students served somehow some way uh by by stars 4275 last year we had a little over 4,500 so we had an increase this year um so far we've we've served 3,2 264 students so we're actually on track uh

029for what we've experienced the last two years um what we know um from Becky Mitchell our counseling coordinator is the spring is one of our more common times for students getting help from our counselors from our Stars counselors there's a lot of stressors in the spring um some of our older students are thinking about what their next step is uh those tests are coming up PRS are coming up relational issues are coming up uh so I want you to know that we that we've got this um that because because of the contacts that we've had with our students through the school year because we've been able to largely have them on campus um we want to make sure they know that we're there for them uh and and our numbers um our numbers are just

030numbers it's really about those personal relationships but I want you to know as a board uh that uh that we're keeping in tune um with our with our students and uh and making sure that we serve them when those needs arise um so online WCS online just in time information uh you all know some basics of of where we are right now with WCS online so I'm going to talk briefly about budget then I'm talking then I'm going to talk about our practical reality when we budgeted and you all voted on our budget we Pro we projected for what in essence was about you know full schools at the elementary middle and high school for about 3,000 students uh we went through the the uh the registration process and you may may remember last month

031we spent a good bit of time talking about those deadlines and so on March 23rd uh we had that deadline and we had somewhere around 1,00 total students say that they wanted WCS online for next year fully online within a couple of days of that the executive director of the State Board of Education let all superintendent know that their plan was to not allow a student to be fully online next year unless the district had a dedicated online school our plan has been for us to treat this as a program one more year and spend time vetting some details about where we want this to go um but we've made a commitment to our families that we are going to offer this option so in this month's agenda we have a request for um of

032you to approve us having a K8 WCS online school in a 912 online school we'll talk about the details of that but I want to give you a couple of key points number one uh this isn't going to affect us budget-wise um because we had planned for this in fact uh we actually anticipate that our budget projections are going to be a little bit less uh because of the numbers that we that we currently have and we can speak to that detail a little bit later but here's the biggie on the other side of that coin um because the state has let us know that they're only going to allow a dedicated school we thought it was important for those families who committed to online to have the option to change their mind and go

033back and here's why it's going to be a named school they won't actually be students at say Independence High School if they are zoned to Independence and have been there they will have to officially be named students at the WCS online school so for seniors they could not graduate because of what the state has structured from Independence High School unless they're actually physically at Independence High School uh also tws aa's rules have not caught up with the the online uh issues and they don't have a program allowing online students to participate in athletics at their Zone school we know it's on their agenda for June but we don't know what's going to happen so we felt like it was important to give our families the option uh to to uh to uh go back and

034these dates on this slide show those that schedule re-registration is continuing through April 16th we've made it a point to let those folks who chose that know they've got that opportunity to return what I anticipate based on what we've heard so far is that it is largely going to be some of those high school students who who'd say you know what because of that um either Athletics or or being a part of that school campus is more important to me so I've changed my mind I want to go back so we will have final enrollment numbers the week of April 19th next month we are going to be Tak taking uh back to you um our budget and you know the big reason why I want to make sure the public knows because the county

035has mentioned to us that they're actually increasing the expenditure for for insurance benefits and in our first discussion with the county um leadership uh uh in and with our County Commission they suggested we come back to you and add that expense to our budget and we're going to make sure that we that we do that we also anticipate that we'll be able to do a quick Amendment to the online uh to to bring that more in line uh with uh with the numbers that we had so that we can be real clear with the commission about that expenditure uh and so so that's that's where we are with online uh we have communicated this very directly with h with those families uh who who did choose that and so they are all aware of that

036but I felt like it was important for you all to get that detail next slide y'all third third item I want to talk about is give you an update on summer school program as you remember back in January the legislature passed a passed that new law requiring the summer school program and we've been working hard on it and I gotta say I'm excited about it I think it's going to be a good program for our students uh and so the first step we took was we we sent a a poll out to our teachers and said how many of you are interested the state has set the pay for them uh and so we gave that to them and these are the numbers where that we received uh as of yesterday 83 Elementary and 38

037Middle School teachers said that they wanted to do it uh so we sent a request out to uh to the students uh who under that legislation are the ones who were who were really trying to to reach to give them this opportunity for the summer program uh and we have we have uh we have given them until April 23rd to choose that we have set a 15 to1 pupil teacher ratio that is a lot lower than the regular school day uh and for some for some of that's close to half of the of of the of regular school um so we're excited about that so that we can do some good Ela and math work we can do some stem work with them so we're excited for that if we don't have enough students sign

038up we're going to open the enrollment more broadly uh if seats are available uh after April 23rd so those families who are thinking about that it's free it's going to be a four-week program that starts just a little bit after school lets out we'll send that out based on how many uh open seats we have on the funding side of that I'm confident that we're not going to have to use any of our uh WCS County money uh because of the uh the federal funding that we've gotten and that we've been promised in the future so I I really appreciate the state doing that they've they've they've created this program but we know that at least for this year it's not going to take any County dollars because we're going to make sure we use

039um what we call some of that Esser funding to fill any fill in any gaps plus they are actually giving us some State funding we don't have all those details resolved yet from the state but but we're excited about that so if you hear something if somebody says hey I got um I got invited to this summer school program uh it's voluntary uh we'd love to have you but it is voluntary uh final item I want to talk about is what we've been making sure we talk about every month uh this year is a cultural Strate our cultural strategy planning update so we have some detail about next steps here but I want to talk to you very specifically and very pointedly about what this is and what this is not this is an opportunity

040for us to find better ways to help all our students feel safe uh fostering Healthy Solutions as you all know you unanimously voted to hire them uh they gave you a few weeks ago uh um a presentation in in an exercise in emphasizing the wise of this but the real work the real work they're going to do is hear from our families uh and you saw that you you you see that we have had uh we've had three listen and learn sessions already and the listen and learn is the uh counterintuitive uh to what people think of when they think about education The Fosters are listening The Fosters are learning learning rather than us presenting so that someone else can listen and learn um I'm excited and happy that just in those first few we've

041already gotten some insight into some of our students needs and our parent fears so The Fosters through this are going to help us with a cultural strategy planning uh so that we can develop that cultural strategy they're also reviewing our policies and procedures they're reviewing our student handbooks and that's actually on the next slide if you would you can see some of that detail um and they're actually going to start that work in reviewing our policies and procedures um in late April we are not going to make any changes until we talk to you all about this uh you all know from all our discussions uh that we're making sure that we're intentional that we're thoughtful that we can create a sustainable Improvement in how we serve our diverse student body that's what this is

042is let me tell you what this is not this is not the Fosters writing curriculum for us this is not us promoting some of those National Concepts that we've been asked about such as critical race Theory uh we have some FAQs on our website uh and if you if you go to our wcs.edu in the top right you can do have a drop- down box and you can see cultural strategy planning is one of the choices and we have some specific FAQs and we I know that you all have had these questions and so I think it can't be emphasized enough uh that that uh that those FAQs are there we will continue to add to them as as people ask us uh so we we uh we make it very clear we haven't hired

043them to create curriculum uh they haven't been hired to implement critical race Theory and one interesting fact about that um I mentioned the superintendent meeting where the state uh the State Board of Education let us know what they were doing with online at that same meeting we heard from a number of uh of our elected representatives and senators from from across the state from the education Committees of both those elected bodies and the state actually sets the bulk of our curriculum decisions uh when we adopt uh you know when we go through the cycles for EA and math the state sets those up and we choose from what they have given us we have heard from those legislators that they have no plans that they intend not to introduce critical race Theory into the state

044curriculum and so I think it's very important for those who have those fears to understand that as we go through that but what we do know what we do know is that we have heard from many of our students many of our young alumni that their experiences in WCS can be better that they have faced issues of race discrimination whether from peers or through inadvertence from our staff or otherwise and we know that we need to grow in that but we're going to make sure that we do it in a thoughtful planning planned way uh so that we can appropriately take care of our students and make everyone uh served better here at Williamson County Schools so y'all that's my presentation uh that's my superintendent report uh for for for this month I leave you

045with that with one more shot uh that uh that um our Communications Department found that uh that just gives me that glimpse of uh of uh of of of the exciting things going on here in Williamson County Schools I'm so excited and proud for what we've been doing this whole year I thank you uh for setting us up on the road to success I I so much appreciate the work we've been doing we're not done um but when we hit this Milestone with our students in teap right now um it's just it's just such a privilege for me to be the leader of these fine folks so Madam chair thank you Mr Golden we have a question for Mr Wimberly uh first of all Jason I gotta say this that may have been uh one

046of your best superintendent reports and you know what it was one of your shortest thank you uh I do have a couple of things first of all thank thanks thanks for sharing those slides and that information at the very beginning it has been so easy for all of us not to realize that these types of things have been going on because we're in the business of dealing with with problems and I I hope that we'll take some of that same content and those images and package it up in a nice little explainer show it again at the board meeting and make it available to to whomever wants to see it uh I think it's important for the school system for people to see it but probably equally important for the community to see it uh

047because we're looking at a real good shot at getting over this covid thing soon and we just need as a community to to understand and celebrate the fact that you know we've done fairly well through this so that's that on the online school so what do you say to the parents who are saying okay I'm I'm I'm wanting to put my kids back into um um um inperson school but I'm concerned about the chatter I'm hearing about CDC guidelines and State Health guidelines and honestly you've said a couple of times that it's your intention to uh to continue to follow that guidance whatever it may be when we get there so anyway it just you know how do you answer how do we answer that question when people ask us about that well Mr Wimberly

048I think you've you've answered it right there but let me let me put a little bit more detail into that um we've talked about this for many months and I know that that sitting through these meetings for for parents is is is often a bit much so the more we talk about this the better uh we intend to follow the CDC and State Health Department school safety guidelines uh as much as we possibly can and meet our goal of having our students on campus um I think we've got a good track record of that uh and it's funny that this track record the track started about a year ago uh and so you know mask are are are a common question uh we have changed and transitioned as the CDC and St State Health Department

049guidelines have Trad have transitioned just a few weeks ago when when it became clear from their recommendations that we could have masks safely outside and it was comparable to being inside with mask we honored that but we've stuck to the track we set ourselves on um we're still requiring them you know it's interesting um I think many are asking that question in part because just last week Rutherford County voted again on uh on on mask and they actually voted to continue Mass through the school year our plan calls for that you know for allows for us to continue that now without a vote but for next year I continue to talk about the importance of honoring those Health authorities recommendations because they're Health authorities and we're education Specialists we are education leaders who really need

050that help on the health side we are going to talk about this in more detail in May I think it's important for our families to to hear some more detail before they hit the summertime I think less so than than than maybe in any year past we're going to have folks paying attention in the summer but a lot of stuff's going on the summer that's not school items for for some of our families so we're going to make sure we give another update in May and give you some more detail on where we are I'm real an to talk about tsaa but I suspect um my colleagues are as well I do see that Darren Jones our athletic director is here tonight and thank you for being here Darren and and uh keep pitching uh

051that uh I know to a lot of our parents and to you know me and a lot of other people that's of great concern we don't like that uh and if I'm not mistaken um this was years ago maybe Eric you were on the board but I think we passed a resolution that opposed the legislation that would allow homeschool students to uh participate in our Athletics and we we failed at that and now it's a pretty good question if homeschool students can do it and you know uh that's the law and you know so that's the law uh certainly our own students ought to be able to do that um so you know thank you for carrying that forward well and I and I want to give it some detail because you hit on something

052that's interesting and I'm not sure everyone knows the twaa rules as a result of a state law do allow homeschool students to participate in the public school that there's owned to uh and and so the with with online and with Co the the rules in my opinion haven't caught up but I do want to invite Mr joins to to give some detail about where they are and what he projects because that is a critical critical um issue for so many families Darren thank you Mr Golden I appreciate you guys having me tonight and U I talk to some of you individually at different times but thank being so supportive of our schools our students our coaches U it it's really much appreciated it really is uh to give you a little bit of background the

053questions that I hear uh to be quite honest with you I 100% agree uh why can't an online student participate in athletics when a homeschool student can participate that's a great question and it's it's one that I I agree with in fact uh Miss Dickerson and I attended a twsa meeting in March where we made a formal request to allow online students to participate at that time it was a little bit different because we thought we were a year away so even though we wanted to get that ball rolling we knew or we thought at that time we actually had a year to play with well that that changed so what ended up happening at that meeting and and in our request we basically said allow students to play at their Zone School very much

054like homeschool students do and we also added this these students are more our students because they are enrolled in one of our schools we get be money those kind of things so it just makes logical sense to do that the way the rules are set up complicates it a little bit uh to give you a couple of examples here one of the concerns that they had with tsaa and I sort of get this was uh that several of the schools and school districts would maybe try to trick the system and they would say let's label more of our students as online or have a campaign to label them as online and if our numbers go down far enough we can now switch to a smaller classification which may make our school more competitive well our

055response to that was uh we would be fine with counting those numbers for twaa classification purposes count those numbers towards the Zone school to me that's that's a pretty easy fix another issue that they have is this the way it's it's set up now if you are an entity or a school like our online program is going to be and you do not have Athletics the twaa rulle state that you can have a Cooperative program with a school who has a team so just to use an example if we said with our online school we're going to send every football player to Brentwood or we're going to send every basketball player to Frank obviously that's the mess we would never we would never do that but that follows what is allowed under the guidelines the

056other thing that happens is this in terms of Eligibility and this even happens with homeschool students this is something you may not know when you move from a a homeschool situation to uh a school or vice versa if you have a change in school without a change in resum you are immediately labeled as ineligible so if if a person is going to say Ravenwood High School uh they're a sophomore their junior year they decide to go homeschool they immediately are labeled ineligible even though they're still living in the same school district the twaa views that as a change in school without a change in Residence what can happen in that case is you can fill out of hardship and give reasons why you should be able to do that and you may or may not

057become eligible so even if this were approved and and again I I think we're moving the right direction because of the way the rules are written they're going to have to deal with that too because let's say right now we have a student who's sophomore and they're attending Ravenwood high school and their junior year they enroll in the online school but they're going to play sports at Ravenwood their Zone school they have a change of school without a change of residence so they're going to be declared ineligible immediately so it's not that those things can't happen but they have to write the rules uh to become consistent I have talked a lot with twaa about this in fact I talked with a representative today about it they know it's coming and in fact what I've

058done is when I receive questions about it I forward it right to them and I I remind them this is hey this is coming you know this is what people are wanting to do it's a modern kind of thing we want students to be in school as well but there are instances when students and families want to be uh online fully so uh we're fighting this uh we are they've tabled it to their June legislative council meeting and at that particular time they will have some kind of formal Vote or suggestion now I've gotten some questions from families that have that have been hey I'm playing tennis in the spring can I go online in the fall and then come back in the spring well the answer to that question is you'll be in eligible

059because you are changing schools without a change in Residence so I know that seems a little off and it actually is the reason that rule is there uh at least my opinion about it is this if you allowed that going back back and forth uh it might be a situation where let's say I'm not doing very well in school all of a sudden I'll go homeschool my parents going to teach me at home and once I switch schools my grades will change no big deal uh I I think that's their thinking obviously they wouldn't tell us that just outright admit that but I will say this with homeschool twaa even initially they were not big fans of homeschool they knew that with the state change in terms of the law how homeschool was going to

060be viewed they got out ahead of it and they said we're going to make a rule for homeschool because we know it's coming I think this is going to happen with online in fact one of the examples we gave at our meeting was this at the college level in fact Dave Allen gave me this example I think it was Miami of Ohio uh that particular school all of their baseball players in the spring take online classes I was talking to a former student today who was interviewing me for a class and he he was actually doing a lot of classes online and he even mentioned to me that hey the online part of the college experience it's something I wish I would have had a little bit of in high school so so uh I

061think you're going to see more and more students do it because they're going to see it at the next level and we did have several uh twsa board uh members uh council members at that meeting and and the overwhelming uh sentiment was we are going to have to deal with this because it's coming so I think they're hearing a lot more about it now since uh the pressure's been put on folks to go and have the entity for next year like we're going to do I I think they're going to be a little bit more aggressive about coming to a solution the bad news is right now we can't predict what that's going to be so if you get the question and I've gotten that question too hey do you think it's we're gonna be

062eligible as it's as of today you would be ineligible well Darren if I get the question I'm having them called you because it's a little bit over my head so thank and I do stand corrected we did not pass that resolution uh because there were a couple of people on the board who opposed it so thanks for that correction well so the the short version for us in in all this and you heard some of that detail is what Mr wiberly definitely said don't try to answer these questions on your own make sure you affirm to our experts uh but second uh right now if if if that's if that's the goal for students they need to be at an on campus School uh if they're going to participate because we don't know that there's

063that the twsa is going to be able to make a change uh before this fall so so that's that's making a big difference uh that's why we gave everyone that that uh that opening to to return if in fact they chose uh online um and you remember I mentioned uh somewhere around 1,200 total students and that was actually pretty proportionate at the time uh back in late March U but we do anticipate a reduction in our total of high school students online we had somewhere around 500 in March but we do anticipate by the time that April that April um deadline comes we'll have fewer for this very reason Miss Garrett that was a long answer but I think it was worth it I think a lot of folks had questions about that thank you

064so much so the next question is mine and my question is about online school um and I'm wondering if if we are going to exit interview the families that participated in online school this year to see what learnings they have or what they have to offer in terms of that experience and I'm particularly interested at the high school level because we did use you know we did use the uity product so that is my question I think that's a great suggestion and we'll make sure that we do that uh just as a reminder um you know that the whole concept of online really nationally and even internationally is largely mostly on your own with some with some touches here and there uh with with a teacher we were able to do something extraordinarily different um

065from that main concept with elementary schools because we had the Staffing to do it um at the middle and high level not anywhere near that and that's where a lot of our pain points were our structure for next year we've been able to staff the middle schools where it's going to be almost completely uh synchronous direct instruction from teachers but at the high school level to your point Miss Garrett uh because of all the very specializations and endorsements for Teacher lure there's no way we can we can have that kind of structure in an online program so there will still be a lot of that self-driven driven work with ag genuity we've been able to grow and do better through this school year but um you got a really good point that having those personal

066examples uh is you know that that's going to help us do better even even uh this coming year thank you the next question is from Mr fiscus uh I've got thank you madam chair and and thank you Darren for that I had that was one of my questions one question I did have and uh I know that the students at Renaissance are they they fit sort of different categories but if a if if a student there is would want to play in an ath athletic team I don't assume I don't believe they have any teams there do they they don't they don't you're correct they do not they do not have any would there would that um desire to go to Renaissance would they be able to play in their Zone school right now part

067of the um short answer is no it um because because the rule doesn't exist for them okay um like uh like Darren said there is a rule that allows uh the the board to vote to a to assign a particular um school that does not have a sport to a school that does have a sport for those students to participate that wasn't part of our model with Renaissance and we've never recommended into that I'm going give you a quick neighbor neighbor that will really give you a good picture of that Murray County has three what they call unit schools k2s none of them have football uh so annually they have a vote where students if you know that that geographic area Santa Fe which is on the north side of the county they don't have

068football so they vote to allow them to participate on Spring Hill hd's football team okay and they do that for those other two schools as well we've never done that because that's not the uh the Renaissance model yeah back in my days of teaching at Overton High School I remember back then in the late uh 90s early 2000 there was some East magnet didn't have some of those teams and so they they had a couple kids that were really solid wrestlers that wrestled for other schools and won state championships there um thank you on that then um summer school just to reiterate it's voluntary in 2021 but mandatory in 2022 and Beyond according to the law well um not quite actually it's a three-year window uh and it and it and the mandatory element of

069it is uh for um Rising third graders and I think Dr Allen if I'm not mistaken fourth as well the mandatory nature of that is if the students don't perform up to a certain standard in the standardized test if they don't go then they then we will have to retain them that hits in year three okay so three I will tell you also though what we heard from those state legislators that I mentioned who talked about you know critical race theory was not coming to the state they also said we still have some more years to talk about that and think this through um so um I anticipate in the next two legislative sessions the next two years that there will be some discussion about this but it but not mandatory now it could become

070mandatory for third and fourth graders down the road as a condition to not be not being retained okay and then uh thank you for that then I I did have a parent reach out to me that was on a listen and learn and was concerned that she didn't know that the media was going to be present um and so and I understand that those meetings are open record open uh and so that's one of the reasons why they were present but I think that's something that we need to remind um uh people that are participating just so that they're not surprised um they they seemed surprised that they were quoted in the paper so thank you for that and that's a really good point these are meeting meting is open to any any stakeholder uh

071so anyone can come and uh and so that's a really good point we we are having different methods of uh of of getting information from our families and you saw that on the slide so we are going to give some other avenues for more private sharing uh in addition to these listen and learns and I one more thing so um the teap you talked about that starting this week um and and the requirement for online students to be to take teap is that's this year right uh as well that's correct uh so so the state is requiring everyone to take it including online students they don't have a structure or provision for the online test they are requiring everyone to come uh uh to to us it is required we are requiring mask I want

072to make sure that that's clear uh we're you know we're not recommending any change in that mask requirement y'all we're five weeks out from school being over and the recommendation from the CDC and State Health Department is for that I've had a number of conversations with some of those families of online uh students and one of the reasons they chose online was you know covid so what we can tell everyone is we are socially distancing students as much as we possibly can for this structure if you need any details Dr uh Webb or Dr Royer can share that but we have had a number of those one-on-one conversations with um with uh parents of online students to make sure that we We are following our safety protocols during those windows of teap thank you for

073that I just want to make sure that was uh clear and and also I I concur with Mr Wimberly the great presentation and let's share out those slides I was trying to take some screenshots so I had some of them so um but I think that uh we have had a a tremendous school year in spite of all the challenges that have have occurred um and we've also uh know that throughout this year that some folks have lost family members uh to co some are still being treated uh in the hospital now and so I'm just proud of the work that we did as a board to make sure that our students uh one that families had opportunities to decide how they wanted to get their education and then two we made sure that we

074provided the best opportunities for on campus and online learning so thank you for that Mr Mitchell thank you madam chair um my notes here first off Jason I wanted to thank you and your your U cabinet staff for doing the hard work as you pointed out uh the hard work to keep the district on campus the hard work of of trying to uh quarantine at a micro level instead of at a macro level and I recognize that that has been a challenge uh and that has come with with complaints but it was the right thing to do in my opinion and you have you and your staff through that extra effort I mean it that you could have taken an easy way out basically and as you said and we close a whole school or

075we close a whole district and you guys decided to to try to close as little as possible to that point I I want to make sure that my colleagues know and anybody on the call knows that we are unique in that in that approach I I I have colleagues all I work professionally with colleagues all over the world but in particular in the United States in North America there are an awful lot of school districts that have not had a I have colleagues that whose children have not had an in-classroom day since last March and April I mean they literally have been been been shut down and remote the entire school year and so for the people who feel like what we're doing is is is nonsensical the reality is that it's it's very unique

076in the country and and there's really more schools that are shut down and just completely remote than than are on campus and so again I appreciate the effort that you and your staff have done to try to keep our students in a classroom as much as possible um so couple of questions the prior to the pandemic and our olp we used to we had High school-based online classes that were specific classes are we going to offer that model in in the 2020 in the 2122 school year yes uh just so everyone knows we had been working up towards online and that included us developing curriculum for particular courses at the high school level and offering those when we had that online curriculum ready we will still have students who are on campus with a a

077handful of online classes that is still um perfectly fine and guys that's working well and we're going to continue it so so in theory we could for at least from the high school standpoint I I don't know if students wanted wanted some somewhat of a online uh opportunity and and still participate in sports depending upon or participate in the extracurricular activities depending upon what tsaa says we can that they could it they could uh choose you know a couple of uh in class inperson classes and do some online and and look at what's available online as well uh that's right and I and I know that Dr Webb actually went off mute I there I was she she could anticipate I was about to ask her for a little bit extra detail Dr Webb absolutely

078thank you for the question Mr Mitchell we do have um a list of courses that each high school offers um where that High School specifically will teach an online section of a course we have a list of those currently we have about 2400 students um but among our 10 high schools who are choosing right now they want to be considered for one of those online classes we have total on average about two class uh requests for each of those 2400 so a total of about 4,800 class requests among those students so that is something that we've done prior to covid that number has certainly grown as we've um held Zoom sessions talking to the families who are making the determination with us transitioning to a school with WCS online if they want to um remain

079in a full entity or not we've heard from many families that said you know what we think that we are going to go back to our Traditional School see if we can get on the list to take um some of these virtual classes through our Traditional School so that we can participate in graduation have a transcript from our our zoned high school and have some of those high school traditional experiences um and we're working to to make sure that they do have those opportunities thank you Dr web one one one followup question for you U to the olp rule the the new the fact that our online program will be U its own entity will those students have the opportunity to do arts and band and chorus theater uh the the kind of extracurricular above

080and beyond the tsaa sanction pieces um will will they be able to do that in their in their uh Zone schools yes uh the the the the the reason we've talked so much about Athletics is because it's a twaa rule but we have discretion over those others and we are going to allow our online students to participate in the in the other programs that we do at that zone school okay and so that that'll be I am assuming there'll be Logistics that will be required for things like art and and and and I guess you know chorus and band is actually a class as well besides just after school work well there's there's extracurricular uh activities and those are separate so you know the best example the most common example would be marching band uh

081that marching band uh is is a extra an extracurricular activity uh so they will be able to participate in those things the classes will be more complicated um because they will be taking that online class if they choose online um but those extracurriculars participating in you a production you know play etc those things that are exclusively extras um that we are going to um make sure that those students can participate so so let me clarify I'm sorry just to be clear the um the the extra curriculars the the after school stuff's easy I mean that's but the but the um the electives I guess if you will where where there are actual classes involved are is is it the intent to try to accommodate that opportunity for the online students um probably it's more of

082a middle school and high school uh uh question yeah doc Dr Webb um I I may have misstated some of that so if if you would U make sure you uh answer am I clear did did I articulate my question I think I think I understood what you're asking and so the answer is a little different so with WCS online they are going to attend attt to offer those elective courses so what we're going to do after this final selection is done tonight we're going to look to see what courses our full-time online students want to take so if there are some students who want to take art electives um CTE courses all of those um things within their their school day we're absolutely going to work to have those opportunities for WCS online students

083in addition to that WCS online is going to work to have extra curricular activities associated with the um the interest and the skills that the students who are full-time online students want to participate in so as an example they may have an art club that meets after school they may not do a full on theater production with with online but they will may have some digital one acts that take take place after school so those activities will continue for WCS online students but they will be exclusive to just WCS online the activities um after school activities at the Zone school would just be for those who are um doing the hybrid model and take taking some of their courses online but also some of their courses traditionally so it's really two different buckets so the

084students who are taking some classes at their Traditional School and some classes online they will have the opportunity to participate in athletics Arts all of those extracurriculars on their campus but full-time online students they'll participate in those offered by WCS online okay so so if if I'm not mistaken Dr web just for clarity this has all been explained to those students prior to um their their um you know deciding that they wanted that absolutely so we've had um three Zoom meetings with WCS online students and families um since we made transition to a WCS Online School uh decision um so we've answered those questions for families uh we have q&as that are posted um many of the things we talked about tonight with Athletics extracurriculars um we've explained in great detail and um to all

085those families and we've you know given them uh till tomorrow to make their decision if they want to change okay I think I understand I'm going to summarize it just just because I'm uh want to make sure that if you're that if you're in the hybrid model that we talked about where you're having some some brick and mortar classes and some online classes then you can participate in pretty much everything your Zone school offers uh given the logistics that that of getting there and stuff if you're 100% online then you cannot participate in the in in the activities of your of your uh Zone School basically that's right pending we're we're looking for a tsaa type ruling but but at this point you will not and that does include band and chorus and uh and

086things of that nature that's right at their Zone school so WCS online will work with their students to stay 100% online and work to make sure that we offer activities that meet their interest I get that that nature I so I did mate that thank you Dr web for clarifying that thank you and uh um last qu last request is if you could share that PowerPoint with us via email that would be appreci yeah we we'll we'll share it by email we also post these PowerPoints uh onto the onto the board packet so I'll make sure that you guys U you have that as well thank you Mr Mitchell Mr Welch um so just kind of jumping back to the conversation about the twaa and the rules that they have um related to that was

087looking on their website today and and I guess the controlling bodies there there's a legislative Council that creates the bylaws and the Constitution there's a board of control which enforces it um and those are made up of of athletic divisions uh one of which we are in uh to my recognition we've never had a representative uh on either of those bodies and it just sort of strikes me that when we run into issues like this it it would be advantageous if if we did have um direct representation on that I think from an organizational standpoint that that that's probably something that we should consider of trying to to get um putting that on our agenda or calendar however that needs to be of of electing someone from WCS to to serve on on one of

088those bodies we'll definitely look at that I know Mr joins has some detailed knowledge of that so we'll make sure we we look at that and see how how we can go through that process thank you Mr Welch Mr Cash thank you madam thank you madam chair Dan cash second district I just have a real quick question it's on the teap testing um have those been scored and results rolled up yet that's uh no they have not we actually are finishing Ela the the English language arts portion of TCAP this week science and uh math will be next week we've been told that they're going to give us quick scores uh before the end end of the school year uh and uh and um I I am hoping that that happens uh maybe maybe uh

089my tone makes it clear I'm a little nervous about that but I'm just gonna tell you I'm a little nervous about it coming uh Dr Webb Dr oyer Dr Allen uh you you may be able to put some more some more detail on that the only thing that I would add Mr Golden is that we anticipate our quick scores back um from the the secondary assessments we anticipate those being back before the end of the school year um around the the third week of May um so we look forward to to seeing those results as well yeah thanks for the thanks for the question Mr Cash Mr deck our assessment analyst um is anticipating that they are back on time but to Mr Golden's point they are paper pencil this year so we're kind of

090we're hopeful to say the least so just as a reminder the way that the legislator structured this the TCAP TN ready endof course test can count to improve a student's grade uh but can't count against the students grade um the third week in May is our last week of school right uh so it is it is going to be tight uh no no matter what but we do want to we are really hoping they come in so that those students um you know their grades can be helped if if they do help okay thank you thank you that was our last question Mr Golden all right thank you madam chair thank you for for that report and now we'll move on to our operations Report with Mr Samuelson Mr Samuels I'm sorry it work thank

091you madam chair good evening board I have just a few things for you on uh transportation we continue to maintain an okay position with our drivers we have more drivers than we have routes so we also have call outs and some sicknesses but but uh but we're doing well and even this week we have picked up students who have been some students who have been online this Co school year and transported them to school so they can take their um 10 ready assessments and that seems to be working out well on the construction side I sent you the update last night I really don't have anything to add to that other than my comment on Project Staffing we continue to monitor that all the contractors uh construction contractors in the area are having challenges of

092getting skilled and non-skilled workers that has affected some of our timing we do not expect anything at this point to delay any of the main projects for being ready for school next year primarily uh paage middle and paig high school but that is a challenge that we continue to work through in Food Services in addition to all the other challenges that James and his staff had to work through this covered year they're doing the planning now for this summer coming up the summer camps that have been mentioned there are 16 days uh of those summer camps in June and we will be providing breakfast lunch and a snack for for those that stay in the longer day um for the students that come there so that's another option for our parents to consider food distributions

093are also being planned for this summer similar to what we did last year Distributing donated food primarily through what one generation away but also some other sources James and his staff are planning on doing that for as long as the as the demand um holds out you may recall some of you that last year we had a aot strong participation early on in the summertime and it just kind of fizzled out as it went went by so if the demand's not there we won't do it but U they're planning for that at this point in addition to that the meal kit program that we've been doing all school year will also be continuing that through the summer and it basically will be done the same way it's doing in the in in the the academic

094year now parents go online sign up for number of meals they want when they want the pickup time and then those will be ready it'll probably just designated schools for the summer but um but that's another thing we're planning on and Staffing on the Food Services Department it's still we still have a high degree of uh of vacancies primarily or part-time uh so James and his staff are working to fill the gaps in the kitchens just just on Thursday I was at Trinity Elementary School and there were two food service department Central staff members that are there that are we're filling in and taking care of so the interesting thing about that is most of his salaried employees have been in the in the schools providing direct labor so that's an interesting sidelight for you

095to keep in mind but a big thanks to J to James and his entire food service department as I've been going around visiting kitchens and saying thank you to the folks that are there um they're quite happy for someone to come in and give them a pat on the back so if you have an opportunity while you're in a school just go back to the kitchen and say thank you very much and you can even ask them for a cookie they might have one for you madam chair Madam Cher If I may I want to add a just a tiny bit to the operations report in addition to mentioning that Mark Samuels is uh he'll grab a cookie every chance he gets um so that's on his mind almost all the time um on the

096oper on the operational side uh um interesting comments on growth the the county mayor mayor Anderson told me that last month was the single largest number of permit polls for homes in the unincorporated part of the county ever largest month ever last month for constru home construction permits um we have also this month had had uh conversations with leadership in Fairview and in Nolanville because both of those municipalities are working really hard right now on some some strategic planning for growth and so I'm I'm really um I'm really pleased that those municipalities if are reaching out to us that we're going to be able to talk with them about uh the school impact on those on those M Municipal areas of growth um so I I thought it was important for you all to know

097that we're having those conversations especially with those two cities thank you sir um the email that Mr Golden CED all of you on just two days ago addressed that and my only point was going to be we all thought maybe we'd have a little bit of a pause in construction needs due to covid but when you drive around the county and you see all the dirt that's getting pushed around um I'm not sure it's it's going to turn out that way the last item I had was was a maintenance department related item as you recall we are currently in the third year of our first phase of the energy program that we're be doing with the train and we continue to exceed the guaranteed savings uh amount for for each year in this third year

098the second phase of work continues to go on should be finished by the end of June and so then we'll start getting guaranteed savings on that phase of the work so I just wanted to and and that should start we should start realizing those Savings in July so I just wanted to throw that one out there as something that continues along even though it seems we've been distracted by other things and Madam chair um um I'm standing ready for any questions but that's my report take a look here and see if there are any questions well doing that uh Mr Samuels I just want to say how much I appreciate the the monthly construction and and projects report that's that continues to be of great interest to the community and uh it's really easy to

099pull that out and focus on the projects that are going on in your particular area um so thank you for for putting that together for us every month you're welcome ma'am I I send that to y'all first then there's a few County Commissioners who like to know what's doing so I'll cut and paste from the report you get and send them to a few but you get the information first thank you and we have one question from Mr Mitchell thank thank you madam chair Mr Samuels can you give me an update on on where we are with the the new Spring Hill school please uh if you you're referring to the wils Lane property sir thank you yes sir um we are scheduled to the the agenda for the County commission may meeting will have

100the um override um resolution that you all passed back March it would have been the April meeting but we had a a little bit of a miss miss up and it didn't get it was a late file on that meeting and through a parliamentary procedure um one of the Commissioners did did not want it to be viewed there's been a major change in um leadership in the city of Spring Hill um Kevin fory and I were talking about that yesterday and we kind of thought maybe we'd go down and talk to some of the people and see if things have changed uh but we're still planning to hopefully get a get an approval from the County Commission to override their their zoning denial and uh we're ready to go to start building that school um

101so nothing has really changed other than we're waiting for the County commission's May meeting since they don't meet in April um and then we can proceed with closing and and construction okay well I will uh make make an offer when you and Kevin head that way if you would like me to go with you please reach out and let me know thank you [Music] sir thank you I believe that's our only question uh the next item is the board chair report and this will be a really quick report uh board members I know you've been getting information about um our professional Society the Tennessee school board association's annual meeting and training event that always occurs in November uh at this time that is planned to be an in-person event and just want to note that

102um if you are interested in attending let Lydia know don't reg don't self-register because it it just provides Lydia the opportunity to put all that information together for TS VA and call them and schedule everyone at the same time um and so I do hope that a number of of folks are planning to attend it it's generally um well worth your time the the trainings are impactful and relevant to our work um and so um if you can make that happen in your schedule um I think I think you'll will be glad that you did so our next item is new business and the first item on the agenda is the 2020 2021 school budget um Miss Rachel farmer the first item is the approval of general purpose School fund Amendment 4.21 private grant for

103Sunset Middle walking trail Miss farmer thank you Miss Garrett um yes the first first item we have tonight is related to $20,000 that was donated by the Williamson County Health Department um to go towards uh building a walking trail Sunset Middle was having an auditorium addition and U because of that construction came up that the idea of a trail between Sunset Elementary and Sunset Middle um would be something that could be added and the health department donated $20,000 towards that and so this resol or actually an amendment um is for us to be able to accept that money and spend it as such and Madam chair if I may just a quick reminder the Williamson County Health Department is officially a state uh office so uh so I thought it was important to mention that

104uh board members do you have any questions we obviously have lots of themes of Cooper cooperation between entities and and including volunteer groups and other other uh government in tonight I don't see any questions on this one miss farmer so our next item is the approval of resolation resolution 5.21 transfer from School Federal projects to general purpose School fund for Esser Grant farmer we previously came to you before knowing the amount um that we were being rewarded through eser 2 um and it was the 2 million 325 328 and so what you've seen before is where we applied for that and now um this request is for actually moving that money in onto our books um we have the transfer coming in items that you all had already approved when we did the application um

105are broken down by line item here and what you're seeing predominantly is going to be summer school when you're looking at the salaries at summer school um the camps we went ahead and allocated some money for it when Mr Golden was saying that um we're not going to use any of our budgeted funds this was one way we're using some of the funds that have been given to us through these federal grants and so we have an allocation for that um a portion is uh for the vaccine clinics where we had to pay additional Staffing for our nurses um in addition to that we also have um when you see bus drivers that's transportation again related to summer school um and then you'll see a larger item um in data processing equipment and that is

106where we are going to pay um this a second least payment for the Chromebook lease that we had um previously voted on it was scheduled to be paid next year and we decided to go ahead and do it through sr2 funding so that it would not have to be included in next year's budget the balance of these two where you see the 2 million coming in and then the total expenditures um lines is 1.6 million that difference is being then applied to fund balance which is what we talked about we weren't going to go look necessarily for new expenditures we were hoping that we would be able some of the expenditures that we paid out of budgeted line items to be able to put some of that money back in fund balance and that is

107the difference so Madam chair this is Jason golden just to give you a little bit of what I think of as a as a as an overview of this um we we have already um spent some of the items that we were able to be reimbursed for and that's where the fund balance U numbers um go uh second related to that this is Sesser 2 you all had approved our appli appliation this is actually moving the money to the particular lines now that we've um received it board members do you have any questions about this one take a quick scroll here I don't see any questions in the chat so the next item is the approval of the 2021 2022 Capital fund again as a reminder um the timetable has changed a little bit and

108we decided for this year that Capital instead of including when we did the general purpose School fund budget we pushed it out a little bit later to try to make sure that we were truly asking for items that we needed in next year's budget and that's what you have before you these are it items maintenance items um many of which we need annually and so when we are reviewing this budget um we're asking in total and it's a combination between it maintenance um of 10, 23666 that's only an increase of $277,900 the budget keeping in mind um we were not trying to supplant anything that we've done with other funding and so what you have here is truly our expenditures of what um we've done in the past and what we anticipate meeting for next

109year and Madam chair this is Jason again I want to give you guys a couple of points number one there's a lot of good detail in the attachments and for those of you who might have looked at it there's an acronym called sfmo for a number of the items that's the State Fire mark 's office uh that a number of those items are based on recommendations from the State Fire Marshal's Office also um this this is technology plus maintenance but mixed within both of those you may notice are some safety items uh so we make sure that Mike Fletcher and Gary Anderson participate with uh Mark Samuels in creating this plan um but the tradition is technology maintenance uh we actually have more in the safety side of that um than we traditionally do in

110many of our years it includes a lot of doors and door hardware because of State Fire Marshall issues and it also uh includes some uh some C pretty significant amount of camera Replacements I thought that was important for you to see and have that pointed out um final thing I want to mention to you there's one item um if you looked into the detail there's a $75,000 item for a sinkhole uh um some some work related to that and that is grassland Elementary uh if and that was actually not listed in the uh in the in the explanation uh that that that we had attached to the packet board members any questions I see no questions to be asked right now now questions may come up as as we look more and more into this

111this week so um as always board members continue to send your questions as they come up uh the next item on our agenda is the foundations autism Charter School application Mr golden thank you Mr chair uh you all know that we received a charter school application that we weed the noes of intent um back in December and then we received the application and based on the State schedule uh the next step is after the committee reviewed per our board policy for a recommendation to come to you now uh so uh I'm Maria grigo and U and Dana OS Brooks have spent a lot of time working in leading that uh we have some attachments in the board packet for you but uh Maria greo who chaired that committee is going to give you a short

112presentation with uh with a PowerPoint um to uh to give you the explanation of the request and uh the conclusion and recommendation of the committee and Miss OS Brooks will then talk about the vote that will be required of you based on the state rules Maria all right good evening board members can you hear me okay yes all right wonderful uh Tim if you could pull up the PowerPoint oh he's on it all right well you can this is U just wanted to take a second tell you a little bit about the school the process process um and then the work that the committee did I will try to be brief and then be available for any questions that you may have afterward um so the charter school application that we received is um for

113foundations autism charter school and it is intended to be a charter school for uh students with disabilities primarily students on the autism spectrum and uh if you don't mind going to the next slide all right so when we got the application um as you know you you saw the memo to the board uh several months back with the recommendation of committee members and I have them listed on the screen for you there we really work to try to get a a well-rounded um committee so members from academics from operations to finance to community members parents of students um and then special education as well you can go on to the next slide so I wanted to give you just a little bit of insight into the timeline and what went into the review of the

114application and uh we met several times as you can see on your screen there reviewing the applications and um going through each piece of um the application that was submitted in addition um on March the 9th there you can see that we met with the FACS or the foundation's uh autism charter school team um we Mr Birdsong was the gentleman who submitted the application and um he was given advanced notice and we um he brought his team to the interview so we were able to ask questions we were able to allow them to present what they wanted us to know um about their goal for FACS um on March the 24th and March 31st you can see there our committee spent time reviewing the scoring rubric for um the application um which is a pretty

115detailed uh rubric that you go through each section of the application and um we answered questions and went through the rubric but I do want you to know that each Committee Member scored the each section of the application independently that was not done as a group score or anything like that um I also you can see there I have tonight on the timeline and then next Monday U Mr berong and his team were provided with the dates um for for the the meetings um and when we would be discussing it with you okay you can go to the next slide wanted to spend just a few moments um I'm not going to read these slides to you or anything but uh letting you know that Charters public charter schools um such as FACS are required

116to follow the federal law um which is idea or the individuals with disabilities Education Act and uh which means that they are responsible for providing the services for students with disabilities as outlined in that students IEP um so I've listed some of what that includes for you to review um at your leisure you can go to the next slide please a couple of things that I wanted to point out is as um in included in the idea law um they do have to continue to provide the charter school being they what's called a free appropriate public education or fape um and they also have to ensure that students are educated in what's called their least restrictive environment or lre and that means that students with disabilities are educated with their their uh typical same age

117peers to the maximum extent that we can do that um and so I thought it was important for uh the board to know that those are things that Charter Schools still have to do uh in serving students with disabilities this information was actually provided to us um from the Charter School Division at the state department um and the other thing that I will say if you'll go on to the next slide there Brian um a little bit more on LR or lease restrictive environment one thing that I do want the board to know is that it is the Lea or Williamson County Schools it would be our responsibility to ensure that students with disabilities attending um a charter school in our district were receiving the the requirements under idea so education in their least restrictive

118environment and that free appropriate public education all right keep going um so a little bit about scoring the application um the the state in their application and the rubric actually puts together the sections um that that each um subsection is scored on so there's three ratings there as you can see in that green table one is meets or exceed exceeds the standard one is partially meets the standard and the other is does not meet the standard so the committee went through um there were three main sections and we're going to briefly walk through those in a second and then each main section had subsections underneath um and so each Committee Member rated the um the subsections by giving one of those three ratings on the screen you can go to the next slide please all

119right um and how did we determine our recommendations or our scores rather of the the individual sections so the rubric indicates that we're to use um the written application that's submitted by the charter school so that's the narrative application as well ize any attachments that are submitted um by the charter school applicant we also are to use our independent due diligence so any research that that we um wanted to do as committee members and then if we allowed an interview with the applicants and as I mentioned earlier we did do an interview with the FACS team um and and allowed them to share information and then we were able to ask our questions um I will point point out there that once all of the the individuals on the committee um scored their rubric I

120gathered all of those and that's in your your information that was shared with you um and and average those um to get overall scores for each section um and uh if the application is deemed to be ready for approval all the summary rating for all of those categories must be in the meet or exceed the standards um score if you could go to the next please all right so I know I'm going kind of fast and I can definitely go back and answer any questions um if you have them at the end um the first section we're going to talk about is academic plan design and capacity this is that Maj one of those three major categories you can go to the next one please all right um this major category academic plan design and

121capacity includes the bulleted list on your left so things like the mission and vision the enrollment how are they going to recruit their calendar what what are their academic focuses what are their performance standards what assessments are they going to use how are they going to engage the community and parents um and so what I did for you is I created a a pie chart there to show you overall for section one um 92% of the committee indicated that this overall section did not meet the standard um 8% indicated that it partially met the standard so the overall committee recommendation for section one was does not meet the standard for approval all right if we can go to the next section o uh section two is operations plan and capacity go to the next one

122please all right so operations includes things like how is the school going to be governed what's their startup plan what is their what what are their facilities and Personnel PD Insurance um Food Services Transportation all of those things are encompassed as subsections in this overall operations uh section two you can see there that 100% of the committee gave a rating of does not meet the standard um so and then the overall committee recommendation for section two was does not meet the standard for approval you could go to section three please section three is fin cial plan and capacity um and this one was a relatively short uh section and it included the charter school financing so how they plan to fund um the the charter school so it looked at revenue and then expenditures uh

123and you can see on your screen there through the pie chart that 100% of the committee members indicated a score of does not meet the standard um and then uh the committee recommend for this section again is does not meet the standard so the summary score if we take into account the three major categories of academic plan design and capacity operations plan and capacity and financial plan and capacity you can see there that the overall scores 100% of the committee indicated um the application and and the overall uh proposal for faacs did not meet the standard and that is our committee's recommendation to you um is that um it does not meet the standard for approval right I think that's the end of the PowerPoint um I'd be happy to answer any questions that you

124have about the process or the application and there's also a few other uh people that served on the committee on the call tonight um if there is something that uh we need them to chime in and answer as well thank you for letting me present Miss Garrett and in addition to that of course um Miss OS Brooks is available for for any process questions and she'll need to give you that detail uh we have we have a couple of questions the first one is mine um so in reviewing the um the rubric sheets submitted by each individual I saw they were it was 37 pages long I believe for each individual can you can you give a ballpark estimate of of how much time was spent on this effort it looks like a lot of

125due diligence was undertaken Miss carrett that's a great question um and there was a lot of time spent on not only the scoring of the application but the review um of the the materials the interview um I would venture to say my goodness uh I'd say at least 20 hours worth of work I would say um it was several hours individually scoring the rubric um just as uh you wanted to thoroughly go through each section and uh do our due diligence to make sure that we scor that accordingly i' I'd also welcome Mr Oakley or Mr Samuels if they have an idea of the time it took them to to score as well sure the the individual scoring piece alone was at least an eight hour process for myself uh some of the other committee

126members that I talked to were in similar boates with that and then go ahead and add in all those meetings we had the discussions we had going through the process it's it's probably over 20 hours it was a lot of work uh I have to give a huge shout out to to Chad Walker we we pulled him away from Jordan Elementary to help serve on this committee it was a huge help we had some some teachers we had to pull away some Behavior Specialists to pull away that were absolute huge in in helping us navigate all of that I would agree with u um Maria and Brent's assessment 20 hours is probably on the low side um all the time that uh the the groups individually met and then got together um I know for

127myself it was just a slow process because there are areas that technically were outside my area of expertise but I had some discussions with some of the professionals on how should I be looking U and what should I be looking for I think what um what you as a board can be uh impressed with was the degree of um professionalism the degree of thought the degree of detail that people brought to this as was evidenced by the discussions in in in the group sessions that we had and while it looks like it may be an overwhelming well we just you know voted one way that was all individual thought and uh it was well thought out on initial evaluations and then final evaluations and frankly the the the product that we had to work with

128is what led to the kind of valuations that you're seeing thank you um I've got a couple of other questions Mr wimbley and Mr Hall but before we go to them Miss OS Brooks I'm gonna ask you for a clarification yes ma'am the um did want to point out that the applicant's name is Mr bird song There is no relation to our Carol bird song so I've had a couple of questions so I did want to point that out they are not related thank you Miss OS Brooks Mr Wimberly um I think the basic premise behind the charter application has to be as I understand it that they've got to meet a need that is not being currently fulfilled so I'm wondering um obviously the committee didn't think that that existed but I'm wondering if

129we learned anything through this uh and I'm kind of curious about what their pitch was you know what they think the Gap was H that's a great question so um you are correct in that the committee did not believe that um this Charter School uh provided something that Williamson County Schools was unable to provide the idea or the premise behind their propos propal was that they were going to match or or include applied behavioral analysis or ABA therapy within a school setting so it was a school designed um around that premise so students would not only receive education but ABA therapy during the school day um and so oh go ahead Mr Wy do we do that so we do um we do use practices of Applied behavioral analysis um we actually had two board

130certified Behavior analysts on our committee that work for our school system and they were able to provide um insight into the practices that we use in the district um and and we do provide uh services to students who require that for educational reasons yes well I must say that from a business perspective I would hate to be someone who was trying to compete with Williamson County Schools in special ed since we seem to have such a strong track record and reputation so thank you committee appreciate the hard work I know it looks like you were very thorough and diligent thank you we needed that our next speaker is Mr Casey Hall thank you m chair I just want to add to that application can you hear me okay uh we're having a little trouble hearing

131you little louder thank you um I just want to add to that the application is lengthy but it's all following the specific process and the uh the application process is very clearly delineated by the state as is the process to evaluate uh the rubric that we work with uh is is very clear in its measures of quality of response it gives uh specific about what is a strong response what is a weak response uh so with that in mind that's what the was really guiding my responses in particular and I would I would Echo the the time spent on this was was quite extensive uh and you know we we learned a lot about the schools and the services that WCS offers but I would also say that the um the weighing of WCS versus

132this is not really what factors into the responses the responses stand on their own Merit so the opportunities to fill that out in the application as well as an interview uh were all part of the process and it's not it's not necessarily that you compare it against the existing product it's that you look to see if the due diligence has been done by the application or by the applicants and if they are providing evidence that they will be able to deliver what they uh expect what they what they hope to but I I would uh I would extend my appreciation to the uh to the rest of the committee for uh the the effort and and the seriousness with which the uh the evaluation was taken thank you Mr Hall I don't see any other

133hands up on this particular topic um so committee thank you all for for your work on this um the next item that we'll be talking about tonight is the approval of the 20 n 2019 2020 tenure recommendations and this is an annual agenda item Mr golden thank you madam chair this is a recommendation for tenure for uh teachers for the 2019 20 2020 school year so as a result of a number of issues related to the state level on the on on teacher evaluations this is running a little bit behind uh we do recommend approval you may recall that a few years ago the tenure um standard changed from work for three years if you were if you were renewed you are tenured to a much more complex process that evaluates uh in essence the

134um the last three years of a of a fiveyear structure and I greatly simplified that but we do recommend approval we will recommend approval for this on Monday Vicky Hall actually submitted this um and uh we definitely invite your questions if you have any care and see if there are any questions I see no board member questions move on to our next item the approval of the fil facilities use fee schedule and and this is related to board policy 3.2.6 and it's an annual agenda item Mr Gold thank you thank you madam chair uh you will see in the memo that we are recommending a small increase of the facility use fee schedule um we haven't had an increase since 2013 and uh Mr Fortney and his staff did an analysis of utility cost since

1352013 and determined that we had actually had a 4% increase in utility cost and a 2% increase in custodial cost the uh we are recommending a 4% increase very small increase in the facilities ues fees based on that additional expense board members any questions I see no questions our next item is the approval of a WCS online K8 school and a High School Mr golden thank you madam chair as you know we spent some time talking in the superintendent's report about our recommendation and I want to make sure you guys um understand why we're asking for two separate schools uh K8 is a is a is a on the online uh structure especially uh is uh is U much more related the middle school grades are much more related to the elementary school grades uh

136than they are to the high school largely because of how we're teaching how we will be teaching it this year and in the future uh uh and because of scheduling lure Counseling Services it's pretty pretty comprehensive so we structured in our budget for our programming to be broken out this way and because we know now from the state board that this is needed we're recommending two separate schools uh again as I told you this is not require any additional budget expense in fact because of our numbers we do expect that we will be reducing our budget um the the uh the logistics of this it actually in some ways makes it simpler for us to have designated Schools Enrollment uh registration those type of items once we get the data entered is actually simpler but

137again I I hadn't originally intended to recommend this because we wanted to give a little bit more flexibility uh than uh than this structure allows but because we need it we made a commitment to our families I do recommend and I will be recommending your approval on Monday for that um we have of course our professionals here if you have any questions about this yes Mr Cash Mr Cash we're having trouble hearing you sorry I have to remember to unmute myself yeah so anyhow um Dan cash second district um Jason suppose you know the pandemic clears up and we I'll hope that happens and whatnot is it worth going to all this work and investment to expand it to k through eight and you know on through high school is it worth uh you know

138this much work to do that when we've done fine with what four or 500 high schoolers on online and do you really feel that people after this pandemic's uh done with with uh will be enrolling their children in this at a at a good enough rate to really have it well we've had a lot of discussions about that very question um and I and I will tell you we've talked about this at some of our meetings uh we did not have this in our strategic plan this quickly um but what we have found is uh that we've gone through a lot of the pain this past year of creating it and we do know that we do have some families who who who who want it and see the value in it uh I don't

139know longterm whether they will be in need for every grade level I'll give you one example we had 21 kindergarteners sign up uh families sign up for kindergarten so far you know this year that's basically a class um part of what we are going to analyze for all those grade levels is is long-term viability what I do know is we made that commitment to amilies for this year this is a procedural element to that I think we will be over the next few years evaluating evaluating it um on a long-term basis I'm convinced that uh that online is here to stay there's been such a change uh you know not just here but uh in in in prek 12 in college that that that there will be some long-term viability but what I don't know

140is in WCS to your point grade levels there may be times where we say we we won't be able to have a grade level at a particular Point another factor that we've been talking about is is um you know to your point about um there's still being some concerns over the over the pandemic uh in years to come will it be more appropriate for us to have an application process and add an analysis of of um you know what's what's instructionally best for a student and have an application process that's part of what we're going to be vetting U through this year has there been a a good evaluation on K through five uh doing online and how they how they work out because I I just I feel like Elementary School it's Elementary education

141they they need that Foundation they need that teacher um they need that interaction they need that interaction with other kids um has there been any analysis done on the damage it'll do to those kids and you know I mean of course that'll be up to parents at that time they'll have a choice but but still um I don't know I feel I don't know I feel like sometimes we're jumping off into the weeds a little too far with with Elementary School especially well I I get what you're saying and I have that same concern um uh I'm convinced that for the vast majority of our students being on campus is instructionally better um what we do know is that there's a small number um where it works pretty well um you know the structure we

142had this year we still have this year for elementary is that direct interaction um we've done some really neat things with uh with peer interaction um but to your point um for most students being being on campus is better uh I do believe with 40,000 students there's a there's a small number where this can work well for them uh um I I anticipate down the road you know you think about um what we uh what we have called um oh I've had a mental block for students whose Health uh does not allow them homebound thank you I'd say thank you to myself by the way uh homebound homebound students uh you know I that this kind of structure for someone who who who can't get out is a whole lot better than the old style

143Homebound Program uh but again long term I think it's going to be based on numbers the final item of your question I don't know of any um specific research that has come to any conclusions uh Dr oyer Dr Allen have have you all seen any particular research studies on that on really the heart of Mr Cash's question not yeah well I appreciate the the the question Mr Cash we we've made it clear that we do feel like in person person instruction um is what's best for our students th this option um uh was an attempt to to keep our kids with as WCS students quite frankly um we shared that with families as they were scheduling what is nice about the online option at the elementary is that it's primarily synchronous so we do have

144kids with teachers in a virtual environment to the best that we can but um we also know that that uh many of our families were were beginning to to think about options like homeschooling and historically uh we we do have some data that indicates that when students come back from that um that that in some cases they're a little bit behind so uh to your point I think it's a great question we're monitoring our as web data to look at our kids uh skill advancement um and we're going to meet those kids right where they are uh we're looking at our benchmark assessments that we're providing both inperson and online students and we're going to look at their teap data um and we're going to be honest with our assessments uh but again I I

145think Mr Golden would say the same thing I think Dr orer would say the same thing we want those students in class we really do but we feel like at this point in time that it's an option that we need to stay with and uh I'm proud of of of the work that that our teachers have done online uh given the environment so and Mr Golden if I may add to that Mr Cash I um I want to also just add that those interventions have been happening All Year too and so our our those that same caliber of a WCS teacher that we had in the building that shared many of your concerns they've been watching those students probably more intensely than ever and pulling them into those small groups and pulling them into um

146intervention groups both for the emotional interaction you know whether it's a Lunch Bunch small group and giving up their own time to be send spend time with them and doing some social interaction or those academic small groups so they've shared the same concerns and have really been working hard at at monitoring the data that Dr Allen mentioned but also just the the kind of Soft Data the qualitative data that we that our teachers look at so well and then intervene on immediately so that's been happening all year as well and I just didn't want to miss the opportunity to acknowledge that okay thank you yes sir Miss Pria yeah I was just wanting to answer Dan's question as well as a parent to a student my daughter is in fourth grade and she did online

147she started the year in online and at the semester break we gave her the option if she wanted to go back in person she could if she wanted to stay online she could and she chose to stay online she's loved it she um loves her math and science teacher to death and wish she'd transition to fifth grade so she could have her again next year and so the experience was different but she was still able to socially interact with her friends and do small group activities and have that Bond it's face Toof face via Zoom so it's not the same as we know from this experience but it was still a very high quality experience for her and she she made the choice to stick with it all year so um just to give you

148a little reassurance that the elementary kids at least have really the ones my daughter has really enjoyed it thank you I don't see any other hands raised in the chat so we'll move to our next item which is uh approval of board policies for first reading Miss OS Brooks thank you Miss Garrett the um first policy and the only policy that we have for tonight is the agenda policy and you will see at the bottom of page page one and then at the top of page two we have added in 15 minutes will be placed on the agenda and this is for our special meetings um and that 15 minutes will be for individuals to make public comment in this policy we have allowed or at least in this draft we've allowed the chair uh

149the discretion to extend that 15 minutes um and public comment for the special meeting uh will be limited to business related to the call of the meeting um as well as any um details related to the agenda items or item um discussed or transacted by the board because remember under state law uh with a special meeting we can only stick to agenda items so whatever is published is the only matters that the board can discuss so that's the purpose behind having the um limitation just for the special meetings um as to what's on uh the actual agenda for the meeting and then the remaining part of the um words in blue match our current uh our current uh public comment that is set out for our board meetings so um this was brought up at

150our policy meeting um earlier this month and I do want to thank Mr Mitchell for bringing this to policy a couple months ago we brought it up for discussion had some robust discussion at the policy meeting and then this is the changes after that discussion that staff is recommending to the agenda policy board members any questions I don't see any questions and that is our final agenda item for tonight board members um we do have some as usual we do have some items attached for your reference under monthly reports and miscellaneous information item seven here on our agenda um so that is it for the tonight and we'll see you all Monday night let me ask Mr Golden if he has anything else to share before we leave uh just thank thank you all look

151forward to seeing you on Monday and uh and thank you for your good preparation for this meeting thank you this meeting have good evening bye