001section. All right, it is 5 o'clock. If everyone will please stand. Uh before we begin our meeting, I'm going to have uh Mr. Norris Frank lead us in a word of prayer and Dr. uh Kim lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Let's pray. Our most gracious, loving heavenly father, we thank you so much for the blessings you bestow upon us every day. Dear father, we ask you as we start a new school year to put a hedge of protection around our students and faculty and administration and just let us have a fantastic year and keep everyone safe. Uh, dearly father, just be with us in this meeting that everything that we do and say will be to honor and glorify you and lead us and direct us in our all of our actions. And
002thank you for loving us, Jesus. All these things we ask in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right. At this time, I'll ask Mr. Killer to please call the role. Shane Connor here. Ben Couples here. Brandy Cherry here. Becky Hutcherson. Norris Frank here. Kim Scott here. All present. All right. There is a quorum present. So we'll officially call our July meeting to order. And the first item tonight is a recommendation to accept the board agenda. I make a motion to accept the board agenda. Second. All right. Motion's made and seconded. Any discussion about the agenda? Questions at all? There are none. All those
003in favor say I. Any opposed? All right. It is set the uh the agenda for tonight. And that brings us to the consent agenda. We need a motion to approve that. I make a motion to cons approve the consent agenda. Second. Motion's made and seconded. There is no discussion on that. All those in favor say I. Any opposed? All right. It is it is approved. Uh delegations tonight. I don't think we have any delegations who has requested to address the board. So that moves us right into our spotlight and celebration. And we have a couple of staff members we're we're proud to salute this month. And I'll have Mr. Kzer kind of draw additional attention to them. Thank you. Well, as as you shared, as this time of the year, it's uh most of our
004students are getting geared up, teachers getting geared up to go back to school, but uh a couple of our leaders, school leaders are being recognized in the state for competition for for uh principal of the year uh for the state of Tennessee for this upcoming year and also supervisor of the year uh Miss Amy Woolly who has completed 32 years of public education here in Chester County uh is one of the nine candidates for the teacher of the year. Um we are yeah for principal principal of the year. Um uh and the vetting process for both situations, both roles is quite extensive. I know Kim you've done it before too. I mean the the language, the questions you have to answer. they had to do interviews. You have to do now videos uh presented to
005the state. I don't know at what point in time uh but I think both of those roles if they continue they have to I think they have personal interviews if they go further into the ranks of the choices. So Amy representing the principal of the year and then also Miss Melanie Peele who has been with us for the last several years uh since I believe 2020 I think is right. Um yes she joined us in 2020 but she represents our current uh math supervisor for the district also RTI coordinator and our data analysis along she works with this office quite a bit. In years past, when I got to know Miss Melanie Peele, she was working at the Southwest Corps for the state department of ed as their math consultant for the districts and she
006was a very uh instrumental for some of the work that we were doing as far as our math support and we were fortunate to have her join us like I said in 2020. So, uh, both of the ladies are accomplished educators, not only in our district to benefit us, but also in in the West Tennessee area. Uh, Amy had served in a leadership role with the Tennessee Principles Association, which is an August group of elementary school principles. That's their association, and she served in that capacity for many years. And of course, Melanie not only serves the district, but she also works uh with different organizations including uh Freed Hardman University with Sarah Sarah Hibbit with the Bobby Sally Center for Excellence and Teaching. She does a lot of presentations uh with them. And in in
007both of the cases of both ladies, they're very uh they're very conscientious educators who want to help everybody get better at what they're doing. We had a meeting today with Melanie leading the charge with Melissa Alexander to better our district leadership uh with our approach to response to intervention. So, we're in a uh consistent learning mode and both of these ladies take a very strong leadership role and we're proud of both of them. They're both that same level of success with being the top nine in the state and each of them would be justifiable to be able to get the final uh final award. So both of them are are capable and I suspect that they can do the work well and represent not only Chester County but West Tennessee very well. So proud of
008them. All right. Uh with that we move into our business portion of the meeting. Of course, we do have a time of public comment each month for anything that's actionable on the agenda, but no one has signed up to address either item we have. We just have two tonight. Uh the first one is a recommendation to the board to approve a new position of a district-wide registered behavior technician. And Mr. Kzer address that a little further. Also, I know we have Miss Parker here. Yeah. And I would ask uh Miss Parker to come on up if you would and answer or you can I tell you what since she rolled her eyes at me. I think everybody else saw that too, right? That uh won't you, Miss Parker, just give a quick uh justification for
009that. I know they've got it in the language. shared that um information on the agenda, but tell us a little bit more in the perspective of what that person would do and the purpose for this position. So, every year the state department looks at different areas in the district uh for students with disabilities and this past year we were uh found to be significantly disproportionate for students with disabilities in the discipline area. That means we had too many that were ISS, OSS or alternative school placements. So with that, we have to uh they required us to take a percentage of our federal funding in IDEIDA part B um and transfer that over to general purpose so that we can address those issues, try to reduce that. Now that that money will not only be used
010for students with disabilities, it goes for Juned Ed students, too. It's for any student in the district for us to look at that whole big picture of discipline and work to address decreasing those ISS OSS and alternative school placements. So with that, as a district, we met with all the supervisors, those administrators, and we've come up with a plan. And part of that plan is for us to have the registered behavior technician to be able to work with uh a BCBA that we've contracted services for who will be the person who will be doing the functional behavior assessments for the students and then developing that behavior intervention plan. Then providing that to the RBT. the RBT then will go to the teachers and actually teach them how to implement it and also let the student
011know what their requirement is for their role in that behavior intervention plan. Um so part of the funding will go for that. We also um have purchased two software programs. one is an completely intervention program that has um when we go instead of ISS, we're going to have what's called behavior intervention class now. And one of the required components is going to be there has to be some kind of intervention done for why you're there. We've used ISS in the past and OSS and we they've just done it. It's been punitive. There's been nothing to do to help them not come back to that setting again. So that's going to be a key component. And this pro one of the programs that we've uh purchased is is ripple effects. And it has videos that are
012students who are actually their age who are showing the proper way to do these particular behaviors that you should to keep it from happening. Um and then the other one is a database where we're it's going to also have some strategies and interventions in it, but it's going to go a little bit bigger. We're going to be required to keep extensive data on the discipline this point forward. We've looked at three and a half years pre prior, but we're going to have to keep track and doing that data as it goes forward in years ahead um to see how these interventions are working, which students are having these discipline incidents, what we're doing the intervention to match to that and so forth. And then along with that, we've also done some inservice uh we've gotten
013some inservice staff development on deescalation strategies that are coming forth. You know, there's some behaviors that may start out minor and sometimes those just get greater and greater and greater. Well, our goal is to keep them minor to prevent that escalation. And then we've also and and it's going on this week actually. Um we called in a a presenter who is speaking to every teacher, teacher assistant, and administrator in the district on how to address tier one instruction to include all students. Um making giving them that sense of belonging and giving them strategies so that they can stick the learning will stick to that will stick with them. So all of those components that's what we're using the funding for. But the RBT as I said is one of the key components and making sure
014that that goes forward and is successful. Now, she mentioned a BCBA. If that was board certified behavioral analyst, that was something last year that you as a board approve the the um position. Now, we've had that position open. Like she said, uh we haven't had anybody take the position, so we're going to have to contract that service uh with um an agency. You've had shop with one of two. I think we're down to the I received a contract today review. Very good. Good explanation, Miss Park. Thank you for that. Uh is there a motion to approve this recommendation of this position for the registered behavior technician? I'll make a motion to approve it. Okay, motion's made and seconded, but does anybody have any additional questions or information? I do. I think I read this will
015not be a yearly year-to-year thing. Will it or will it go forward or Well, this will be a new position, hence the reason why it's brought before you folks. But yes, it it could very it will more than likely be a year-to-year position. Okay. Okay. A new position added to. Yes. We have nobody currently in this role. It's the reason why the board is having to consider where will that position be out of any certain school or mainly at ISS doing that type of work or will they just kind of float around school to school? School school. We we have ISS at at least three of our campuses, middle school, junior high, and high school. So yeah, it'll be a this is a heavy lift for a paragrow. Well, the RBT is going to have,
016you know, they had to have a certification beyond what a parapro has. They have to take a 40hour cour hour course requirement testing to receive the certification. So, they it's very detailed and in-depth study on just the data collection and the implementation of the behavior plans and their salary will will reflect that. Yes. Okay. Any additional questions? All right. If there are none, the motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor of approving the recommendation say I. Any opposed? All right. It is approved. Uh the next item we have is a uh a policy revision that we have received from the TSBA. The recommendation to approve this. Uh and I'll have Mr. Kilzer kind of dig into what that means for the district. Well, and and Jennifer White, who is the legal with
017Teesba, sent this uh later in uh 1st of July or end of June, one of the two. This was after the heavier lift that we had last month when we had all the policy revisions through the TSBA. This one had had come up as a request made by several districts when they realized that their some of their policies up to possibly two policies included language in it that no longer represented the the position that their general legislators chose to take regarding DEI. So reviewing those two policies, one of our two policies was the only one impacted by that adjustment. that'd be policy 5.10. So uh again in the hyperlink that you have the BOE policy 5.100 would be the one that's the recommendation from the TSBA that would replace what we currently have which is
018the Chester County Board of Ed policy. There's just one statement in there that deals with hiring based on equity diversity. So, um, that's the recommendation from the state or from the TSBA is to accept this policy that removes that language alto together. Okay. Is there a motion to approve this recommendation? I make a motion. Second. All right. Any discussion or questions? All right. There if there's none. All those in favor say I. Any opposed? All right. We will approve the recommendation of that new policy 5.10 from the TSBA. Uh that's all the business portion of the meeting, but we do have a little busy time of year. So many may have questions about some updates. And before we get to questions, I always like to give Mr. Kilzer a moment to address any items you
019want to address. Well, and some of the conversation we had before the meeting got started about the capital projects. Um Norris joined Bo and myself with the ENT leadership to have reviews or walkthroughs regarding first the um uh we went to the Agon and auto shop first. Um and we did the multi-purpose. That's right. We did multi-purpose first. I'm sorry. Uh they were in the uh in the process though at the multi-purpose of bringing in the new turf. So, uh, it was a little premature, but we did observe where the the lobby space is, the hallways, the bathrooms, and then the fieldhouse setting. again if you um well and I I'm sorry if I'm saying something I have not shared with everybody but we received from the fire marshall the the opportunity to occupy the
020fieldhouse and the multi-purpose feel a little uh premature because the turf was not done and until the turf is installed like Norris had mentioned a few minutes ago uh the company that is the company installing the turf is Astroturf the Astroturf group said to us that it'd probably be this weekend, this Saturday before they're finished. Um they they seem to have laid out all the sections of the turf, but that's just preliminary role. And then like what uh what we learned is there will be after everything has been installed as far as the turf itself, then they have sand that is in put on top of that and then the rubber pellets that follow that. So, it'll have a lot of cushion, a lot of uh I guess more realistic turf feel to it. Uh
021so, all of that will transpire by Saturday. Um but it looks good thus far. Um anyway, the um the fieldhouse is ready for uh the plans to pursue. Uh that would be with u u moving some again for the initial we're going to have some lockers put in the fieldhouse but that those lockers are probably going to be uh much later uh in this process but so we'll we'll be able to have access to use that facility for the football team since their season is really really close to getting started. And then we went to the A and auto instead of waiting until the 23rd to have our walkth through. We had our walkth through Monday after that multi-purpose and uh walk through the entire facility. There's some things to still they were in the
022process of cleaning the facility and doing a few repairs and adjustments. Moving uh like there's a pair of doors that we're going to swap uh to be uh anyway just to swap around a little bit. They had an electrical inspection that was yet to be done. And as I shared a few minutes ago, we did get from the fire marshall a uh a a an ability to occupy that facility. Now also uh as you have possibly driven by best better than the pictures you see that the the surface around the the campus has already been solded and then hydro seed been added to it if you've driven by. But uh facility looks really good. Uh we had to wait until the occupancy was established before we could start moving in some of the heavier pieces
023such as the libs and the shop space on the automotive side and things like paint booths are going to come a little bit later. Uh fortunately uh we uh have acquired a new part-time uh collision repair teacher with or instructor with TCAT. Uh the one that we had previously uh decided to not return in a part-time status. So we were unsure if we were going to be able to occupy that space with a collision repair. And um Mr. Merley and doc or vice President John Hudson with V uh TCAT Jackson interviewed a person and both of them were uh thumbs up with her uh and she'll be starting I don't have her name off the top of my head but she'll be starting when our school year begins with collision repair for part of the
024day. So, we've got uh the automotive will be on the south side uh with uh the southeast side will be the automotive uh the James Carter side and then the uh on the west side would be the collision repair and then then on the north side, east and west will be our horiculture side and with Teresa Krauss and then our small animal science side on the uh east side of that campus. or of that facility. So, uh likely we will not start the school year there because of the additional equipment and furniture pieces that will be moving in, but we will be moving soon after. So, we haven't set up an official date, but I'd like to aim for sometime around Labor Day to say that we're in. So if it pushes later, the thing
025that we wanted to make sure when we did our walkthroughs is not walk through in haste and feel like we're rushed to get in the the facility before things got done right and finished right. So plus we've got to get back locks on. But as far as all the windows, I didn't realize it, and you don't realize it until you look really intentionally at it, but all the windows have the correct film on the windows. fire marshall's part of her um determination is to make sure that we have those u resistant film on the windows and uh and the doors. Of course, again, all of that is going to be air conditioned to a great degree. So, uh, there's not a necessity to have fencing around like what we've had to do at our current
026AC Jones facility, uh, because the shop space is not ventilated there with any air condition. And when they raise the doors, you got to have it secure based on school safety issues. What about the greenhouse, Troy? The greenhouse will go on the north side of that. Edward has been storing it at his EMT ranch, so he's going to bring it back. We have not yet set up uh the the person or the group that's going to install it. He will get it back on site, but we will be responsible for uh putting it back together, but it will be on the on the like I said on based on the pictures, that second picture below, it'll be on the east side, the left side of it, closer to the horiculture side of the shop space.
027Any other updates? Sure. Does anybody have a question about the capital project or the only thing I would say is we did the walk through and and Troy said it it wasn't the final walk through. So there's we will go through again and to make sure that they and the things were minor weren't they Troy? Yes sir. that we we saw that they will repair, fix, clean, whatever. So, we will walk through again and and there will be a scheduled like grand opening for both facilities. Uh but like what you had mentioned before about the signage, we want to make sure all those things are in place before we start having a a formal introduction to it because it's a both facilities are very nice. Yes. Um and u of course again for the multi-purpose
028once the turf gets in this weekend then after that will be rubber matting that will go on the concrete pad uh for that portion of it where the uh exercise equipment the weight equipment will be uh included. So it's a large facility. I mean, it's going to be already talked to Renee and uh about uh well, not Renee, I'm sorry, Rene's replacement, Nathan Hall, about u use of that facility for the lower grades for recess. As he said, you could possibly have the whole grade there at one time, which is true. You're thinking about the size. It does look even bigger than It looks bigger than a 50 yards of a football field or half the football field. But that will sure accommodate with, you know, the adjustments that we have to do with the
029recess. That would be great. Yeah. To have it all at one period of time and having a grade be there, the whole grade at the same time. And again, other than when the weather is more presentable, be outside some, but definitely on these hot dog days of summer, be a great place to go and stay. Absolutely. Uh, of course, uh, you, um, I, I guess I will speak about the, uh, superintendent valuation. Uh, if you've had a chance to look at that, the the graph that was provided and the reference, the comparison of the previous years. I look to look at it from one year to the next. You see from the perspective, I had seven years worth of data recorded, and you can track and trend. And as Shane and I talked about yesterday,
030you know, you can kind of recall some of the transitions that happened throughout the time um between in in my reflection of it. Uh looking at the portions of the superintendent evaluation that uh had the highest increase from the previous year was facilities and finance. uh that increased uh 16 over 16%. Uh I give credit where credit's due. I think uh the the position that Bo uh has been in this new role that he started in January of 2025 has been very instrumental. Maybe not only in the score. Hopefully I was going to have a score pretty good like that anyway, but Bo sure didn't hurt the measure. Uh but Bo has been really beneficial. not only with our maintenance crew and having good leadership there. As you've seen from his reflection each month, the
031workload of the work, outstanding work yet to be completed has stayed pretty minimal each year. And he's got the guys uh working with him in a real good way. he's been more hands-on with the uh the custodial work, especially with the summer cleaning crews. And that work is uh quickly coming to a close. Uh I had a conversation just before the meeting with Brian Whitehead, who has also been providing us chemicals through the mass several years, the cleaning supply, and he took a picture from in the high school down the south hall looking back toward the quad. And truly, it made it look like it was a brand new school. And and that means something when that building started in 1997. So, we're able to restore that look and that presence to where something that
032with that many years of age and wear, it still has a pretty good look to it. So, I'm I'm proud of the work that's been done. Uh Bo has been instrumental. Laura Gogger has been uh very active in that role as the leader of the summer crew since her experience as a custodian through the years has been uh solid with the work that she's done in the past as the middle schools one of their custodians. U but anyway the um u again I give credit to Bowman for his work. Now for the lower score uh of the areas that I was um evaluated with the the lower score was for vision. Uh it was 2.5 lower from the previous year. And as I shared in my reflection, you know, in those cases to where you
033feel like you're you're inundating everything with examples like the portrait of an eagle or our reflection over what the board not too many years ago created with um with our uh TSBA leadership about the vision, the mission and then our beliefs and goals set from that. just to remind you uh that those statements and beliefs and goals we incorporate into the district plan and then in turn each stu school will incorporate those district plans into their school improvement plan. So it's not where there's separation between the three phases. your strategic plan, which would be more attuned to this vision, mission, beliefs, and goals, feed into our district plan, and feed into their school improvement plans. And we are committed to continually making reference to Portrait of an Eagle. It's going to be a a portion
034of my presentation uh in a couple of days. I have the either the blessing or the curse of going before Jerry Brooks. So I'm like the vegetables of your meal where he is the dessert. So you get your vegetables out of the way and then you get to enjoy the dessert after. So it's better that way than the other way because I'd hate to try to follow his lead. But uh but my attention is going to be to those five attributes that we constantly uh reflect upon of adaptability, communication, critical thinking, empathy, and integrity. those still resonate with the work that was done and we attempt to continually model that with what we say and what we do. Um, but that's also going to be, like I said, part of our our uh conversation on
035Thursday. Any feedback or comments on the evaluation? Is that a time I can ask about what I asked you about the Oh, that would be a separate one. No, we'll do that later. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a separate thing. Okay. Uh but overall, um you know, just it was a increase of 55 points of an overall score. So, appreciate you for your work this past year. Thank you very much. Thanks. Um, any other updates you want to share before the board has questions or Well, you know, again, uh, you see, uh, a later a list provided by Beth Waller of those who are new staff. Again, there are some with that spreadsheet, some blanks that are still yet to be filled. Some of that is impacted by the federal dollar funding that we have, such
036as the interventionist. But, uh, again, Kim asked me just a few minutes ago about the, uh, first grade at Eastchester position. I have not had any urgency shared with me with the building principal there. So either they are uh consuming that with the teachers that they have uh uh and I'm trying to remember off the top of my head. I think the numbers are acceptable to do it with five, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm the position is still open. Well, I see I didn't see earlier um one of the first grade teachers hired on this spreadsheet shows second. So, she must have moved to second leaving it's not another first grade. It's it's that she moved to second. Oh, okay. Very good. Very good. Okay. Any additional questions or the board would like to
037ask any board uh district things going on? Okay. Anything else needs to come before the board? If not, I'll give you a reminder. Our next meeting uh will be coming up back here in the board office. Uh that will be uh on August 19th at 5:00. Of course, first day of school is Friday, August 1st and the 1st. And as the Mr. Gilder just mentioned countywide in service is Thursday at the Williams Auditorium at 8:00. So those are some dates of reference. And with that being said, that's the end of our agenda and we will declare this meeting ajourned. Thank you all very much.