001We will have the pledge of allegiance. May I have Dr. Gary Lily, executive director of the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendent, please lead us in the pledge of allegiance. If you come to the podium, >> certainly. Please stand. I pledge allegiance 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. A motion to adopt the agenda as listed. Is there a motion? >> Motion to approve. >> Been moved by member Maize. Is there a second? >> Second by Vice Chair Nabal Kenny. Um all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose? It passes unanimously. Seven to zero. Now I'll turn over to Dr. Battle for awards and recognitions. >> All right. Thank you so much, Chair
002Player. And good evening, board members. Um, tonight we have a special group of Nashville Public School students with us. These students are young artists whose work many of us already have the pleasure of seeing on a daily basis. Each of these students has created artwork that now hangs on the walls of our support hub art gallery. Here in the hallways of this building, we have 115 new pieces by students in preK through 12th grade from 100 schools. And many of those student artists are here today for an opening tour and reception. Collectively, these works cover a lot of ground in terms of style, color, tone, medium, and content. Some of them are connected to community partnerships between Nashville public schools and the Nashville Predators, the Tennessee Titans, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and
003Museum. And all of them are a credit to our outstanding creative art students, their brilliant art teachers, and our innovative visual and performing arts team, as well as their families. Before we bring everyone up for a photo, I want to give a special shout out to Noah Isu, a junior at Humefog Academic Magnet High School, who has received the American Vision Award, part of the prestigious Scholastic Art Awards and has been invited to attend the award ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York this summer. Congratulations, Noah. Is no one here with us yet? Not yet. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you to Principal Hargus who is um joining us and celebrating as well. Um again, we have so many talented and creative young artists throughout our district. And I'd like to invite all of our
004support hub art gallery artists to come up front for us to celebrate you and for us to take a picture with you. So again, all students are part of the support hub art gallery. Y'all, let's give them a round of applause as they come on up. ALL RIGHT, Y'ALL STAY THERE BECAUSE WE NEED A FEW versions of this picture of this photo. So, we'd love to get a picture of the students. Um, first board members, if we can stay behind for this one. Um and then after this we'll get um families and um school leaders who are here with us um to come up front so that you can join us for the photo. >> Everyone look straight ahead at Michael. >> Y'all just move in. >> Oh, can we can you see everybody? >>
005Can you see everyone? >> One, two, three. >> Art is cool. All right, stay there. So, um, >> what do you want for the parents? >> Okay, parents, you got two seconds. Take the picture now. >> Can we We want to make sure we can see everyone. Yeah, that's our friend right here. >> Let's see what our friend There you go. >> Come on up. Come on. There you go. >> There you go. Good job. >> All right, parents can take their pictures. Oh yeah, we have more. >> Good job. >> All right. One, two, three. All right, let's get all of our proud parents and school teams up front. would love to get a photo with you and our visual performing arts team. Visual performing arts team. >> Yeah, I know. I know. So
006cute. >> I kept saying, "Can we see everybody?" Cuz I saw you standing back here. >> I like his head up. >> Okay, we we need to recognize you again after this. Did I pronounce your name correctly? >> Noi. Easy. Easy. >> My team spilled like Noah. >> Noise. >> We're family. We're going to get tight. >> I know. You couldn't I could not not get a picture of them. You know, we got the babies. You got to get the family in there. >> The artwork's really good. >> It is. >> Yeah. >> Good. Do we have everyone up? >> I think I have everybody up, but I don't think everyone's position. >> All right. >> Got Okay. >> Oh, we got we got two we got some dads moving. Okay, >> there we go.
007>> All right. You want to try your art is cool again? >> All right, on the count of three. Art is cool. One, two, three. Art is cool. >> YAY. OKAY. SO, I'll do Noi reception. >> Good job. Uh, >> broken. >> I'm I'm not going to let it get too far. One second. >> Noi. No way. Don't go far. Okay. >> Mhm. All right, as everyone is transitioning again, um congratulations um to all of our students. You have some incredible artwork work um across the support hub, we're super proud of you um and leveraging your talents um every day and allowing us to display um your artwork um across um the district. Um we have an reception um for you all as well. After you do your gallery um walk throughout the support hub,
008we'll invite you over to our wellness center um again to continue to celebrate um all of our students, your families um and all the teachers um and administrators who support you every single day. So again, congratulations to all of you. Um I want to go back because Noi Esau was not here when we recognized her. remember she um has been invited to attend the awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York. Um she is here now. So I wanted to come back up to the front so that we can celebrate her. Congratulations. >> Did you get a picture? turn it to you. Thank you, Dr. Battle for all the congratulations and to all the students and educators who helped them um tonight. Um before we move on, we have one more person that we're going
009to recognize this evening, and that's our superintendent, director of schools, Dr. Adrienne Battle. And so I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Gary Li Lily, the executive director of TOSS or the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendent to make this announcement. Um so I'll hand over to you, Dr. Lily. >> Well, thank you. Thank you so much for allowing me to join you this evening. I am the executive director of Tennessee Organization of School Superintendent, also known and primarily known as TOSS. So, uh, TOSS supports superintendents of public schools through, uh, member services, professional development, uh, legislative advocacy, but I'm not really here tonight to talk about me or toss. I am here to talk about your amazing superintendent. I want to let you know that Dr. battle is respected throughout the state. Uh her
010vision, student- centered leadership, and relentless focus on providing opportunities for students has shown results. As you all know, under her leadership, uh Metro Nashville Public Schools has reached admirable heights, including level five TV growth for four years, record high scores in content areas, and record graduation rates. On a personal note, I really appreciate Dr. battle uh for her close collaboration with with TOSS. Uh in addition to her service to this school district and community, she also serves on the TOSS board, which I know how busy she is. So that is that is quite the uh quite the commitment she's made. But her work on the toss board of course provides a vision for our work and uh advocation for on behalf of superintendent of public schools everywhere in Tennessee. Because of her success and her
011heart for service, Dr. Battle's counterparts in the Mid Cumberland region and beyond listen when she speaks. They value her experience, her eye for innovation and advice. So, it is my honor and privilege to let you know that Superintendent Battle has been selected as the Mid Cumberland's Region's Superintendent of the Year. But hold up, there's more. So, uh, as you, as you can tell, I have a great admiration and respect for Dr. Battle. But just so you know, this I had nothing to do with this award. She was selected by her peers in the mid Cumberland region. I think that even means more. Um the criteria for this award is set by doubleASSA which is the National Superintendent Association and it is based on leadership for learning communication professionalism and community involvement. So at this time
012I would like to present this plaque and to thank Dr. Battle for her service to Metro Nashville public schools to toss and to Tennessee. Thank you. That's perfectly fine. One, two, three. appreciate you. >> Thank you. Uh families, you are now allowed to go and I know >> okay. Uh thank you Dr. Lily for presenting the awards to uh Dr. Battle. It's you know and one thing I just want to say it's it's one thing to be recognized by committees and groups. It's another thing to be recognized by your peers because they understand the work, but that means also show the level of admiration. So, we're very proud of you, Dr. Battle, that your peers think that you're the epitome of your um success and leadership. All right. Um now I'll turn over to member
013Maize for special recognition. Thank you, Chair. Um, as was said earlier, tonight is our senior school board members final meeting and we wanted to offer um a little thank you for her service. Uh, so today we want to take a moment to recognize and thank Hannah Wyn for her outstanding service as a student school board member over the past two years. Hannah has represented student voices with professionalism, dedication, and a genuine commitment to making a difference for students across our district. Her leadership, thoughtful perspective, and willingness to serve have left a lasting impact on our board and school community. Hannah has demonstrated what it means to lead with integrity, compassion, purpose, and we are incredibly grateful for the time and energy she has devoted to her this role. As Hannah prepares for her next chapter,
014we wish her continued success in all of her future endeavors. There's no doubt that she will continue to accomplish great things and positively impact every community she becomes. is a part of. Please join me in thanking Hannah Win for her service and wishing her all the best for her future. You going to take it out the box? >> Keep it in the box and just Yeah. All right. Now on this floor I know that's awesome. where she's attending. to go. >> And Hannah, um, if you want to say just a couple of words >> and where you'll be going after you graduate. >> Um, I'd love to share, but there's like not any words that can encompass how grateful I am for this school district. Um, I never thought whenever I came into Metro National
015Public Schools that I'd be like on this day as representing over 80,000 students. Um, but here I am. Um, and hopefully it's not the last time that I'm in this building. um to the superintendent's cabinet first. Um you guys are some of the best leaders ever. Um every time I get to hear you guys speak, every answer that you give us um every debate that we have um I'm just really grateful to know you guys and to learn from you um to this board, there are countless things I can say about you guys um and how you've helped lead and shape me as an individual. Um but I'll be going and headed to Belmont University next year um on a University of NPS scholarship starting this summer. Um, and I'll be going to major in
016education policy. So, hopefully this is not the last time you'll see my face around here. Uh, I'm really grateful for you guys and I couldn't ask for a better board, um, a better person to co-serve with. Um, and I'm really grateful that this opportunity remains able for, um, any student in the state of Tennessee now to represent on their local school board. Um, and I'm so like grateful to be a part of a district that values student voice so much. So, thank you guys for the last two years. And Hannah, just thank you for your service on this board. Uh, you have done a great job of really amplifying the student voice. Um, and I've seen you on this board literally changed the conversation by what you have said um, in our leadership, in our
017decisions. And so, we know this won't be the last of you. You're welcome anytime. And we expect to see you back. um and just say hello and see your progress and we can track you being a lovely rising star in Nashville community or even the nation. So, thank you. >> Yeah, I got it. Um it is a school night, so we invite our families to go over to the wellness tour. >> Oh, sorry. To do a tour of your lovely art. We had a sneak peek earlier before the meeting started and I'm telling you I want to buy some of your art if I could but you know there's whole logistical problems but the art is wonderful and beautiful so we invite you to go tour the art in the hallways and then go over
018um for a reception that we have afterwards. >> We have leaders leadership out there that will support them. >> Okay. So leaders there will be leadership out the door that will support them and give you guides. Big problem. Another All right. Now, we'll move on to director's report. I will ask uh Chief Chen to come up who is chief of strategy to give us a promising scholar update. I was gonna say, look at this bustling crowd we're left with. >> All right. Well, I didn't want you guys to miss me too much, so I thought I would come back and present to you all and promising scholars now that we are done um with our uh our cluster road maps. So this evening I'll be speaking with you all about Promising Scholars uh which for
019those of you who aren't familiar promising scholars is our our summer programming that we offer at MNPS during the month of June. So to begin with um we haven't looked at this slide for a while actually. So uh but to remind us why we do all of this let's go back to our signature initiatives. Um as you can see on this slide, this slide um generally summarizes for you all the strategic plan, the strategic roadmap for the work we're doing at MNPS and lays out the core tenants by which we do our work, the core outcomes or the focus outcomes that we're driving to as an organization and the list of signature initiatives that we are taking on um and that we're evaluated against frankly uh that we know are driving uh the most movement
020on these focused outcomes. Um and as you can see up there uh in the bottom row, scholars portfolio is one of these focus outcomes that uh has a true meaningful impact on all of our focus outcomes. When we say the scholars portfolio, what we are referring to is the collection of programs that we offer at MNPS that provide experiences for extended time and learning and for personalized learning where kids can get accelerated opportunities to ensure they're performing at or above grade level. Um and in this we include enriching scholars which are our which is our Saturday programming. Um accelerating scholars which is our high dosage tutoring that we offer during the day. Um and last what we'll be focusing on today our promising scholars program which is summer programming at MNPS. So Promising Scholars turned
021six this summer. Can you guys believe that? We have been doing this now for six years. Um and uh again just to recap, Promising Scholars is our high impact summer learning program that we offer to accelerate students and ensure that they are on track through the summer. Um it is a no cost to families full day summer experience for our students focused on literacy, math, and targeted high school uh interventions. Um this is not your typical summer school. You might think of sort of the old school ideas around summer school for kids who were quote behind and you need to catch them up. That's really not what Promising Scholars is about. Um, we want this to feel like a special enrichment summer camp-like experience for our students. Um, so it combines both academic instruction to
022ensure that this experience is rigorous and does accelerate student achievement, but is also then combined to enrichment opportunities that sustain our students engagement and attendance throughout the summer. Um, and Promising Scholars is open and accessible to all families who enroll. So we do not have any barriers around enrollment. Just as long as you enroll and let us know that you're coming, you can come to Promising Scholars. So why do we offer this program? How does it advance MNPS's mission and goals? We know in the research that summer is one of the best opportunities that we have to accelerate learning at scale. U because it's just one of those uh in many districts, it's such an untapped opportunity to accelerate student achievement. Um and without it, we know that there can be missed opportunities for accelerating
023that learning. Um, Promising Scholars is is designed around the kind of summer programming that we know is a proven lever that close gaps faster than just uh focusing on schoolyear interventions alone. Um, Promising Scholars then is actually M&BS's largest academic acceleration strategy outside of the school year. Uh, we do offer some of those programs around the AYS space. Um but because this program is so is so large serving um more than 11,000 students this summer uh we and because we have these small student toteer ratios during this time we offer programs for ex students uh with exceptionalities with English language learners. This is really the most extensive program that we offer for acceleration outside of the normal school year. Um and we know from our research in house and also from the national research about
024the value of these kinds of programs that promising scholars truly is essential uh to what we have seen with our academic growth over those last four years uh leading to those four consecutive years of level five growth in under TBOS. So I thought it'd be fun to just share with you all some promising scholars by the numbers data because it's just hard sometimes I think to even wrap your mind around how huge of a program promising scholars really is. Um, so this is a largecale systemwide investment in student success. Uh, we deploy more than 2,000 of our own staff across the district to, uh, run the Promising Scholars program, uh, compensating them for that additional time that they give out of their days. Um, additionally, we have more than 11,000 Davidson County students enrolled in
025Promising Scholars. This is about the size of a midsize Tennessee school district just in our summer programming alone. Uh we offer 45 sites to ensure equitable access across the full city. A and in front of you, you've all been provided with a little cheat sheet to help you know which sites are designated for promising scholars for the summer. We serve more than 16,000 meals per day and run a 100 bus routes. Uh so again, think of it like a midsize Tennessee school district. And more than half of Promising Scholars is funded by local dollars. So this is something that we as Nashville Public Schools have recognized is a top priority. And we we cover more than half the cost of this out of our local budget and then the remaining half is covered by state
026grants. So to give you a sense of the day in the life at Promising Scholars, uh we are as I mentioned earlier, we're it's really important to us that this doesn't feel like a conventional um you know summer school experience. We are all about combining highquality academics in this camp-like environment. Um so daily instruction is offered every day aligned to state standards and priority ski schools. uh skills, excuse me. Uh students are in small groups with low studenttoteer ratios with small group supports that give them targeted interventions. Uh we offer a range of enrichment opportunities including arts, stem and field experiences that help make sure that students want to come to promising scholars that they attend every day. Um and to really emphasize that joy of learning that to make sure that this does feel
027like that special enriched camp experience. Um, and because of those small studenttoteer ratios, there's a strong emphasis on relationships and student belonging in the summer. So, as we look to 2026 and beyond, as you all know, um, know where you are but don't stay there is sort of an essential motto for us here at MNPS. So, we are building on a very strong foundation, uh, and are continuing to build on that to deepen our student impact. So, Promising Scholars is continuing to evolve as a flagship acceleration model for our district. places that we are continuing to evolve and sharpen our practice in this space. Uh one, we are increasingly working on that tight alignment, making sure that our promising scholars experience academically is an extension of and highly integrated with the work that students are
028doing during the school year. We are continuing to sharpen and strengthen our family communication and incentives to make sure that students both enroll and attend daily. We know that attending every day of promising scholars improves that effectiveness and making sure we're being really clear about the importance of that attendance for families. Um, and we're also just continuously elevating staffing, curriculum, and site quality to make sure we're looking at the data and sharpening our practice um to ensure that this is a maximally beneficial program for academic acceleration. So, what is the support that we need from a board? Uh, of course we need you to continue to champion summer learning as a core academic strategy to MNPS's success. Um, and to advocate for the fact that this does merit local funding in order to be able
029to operate the program at the quality level, the staffing ratios, and the scale that we that we uh have been delivering properly scholars. Second of all, uh we need you to continue to support those investments that drive attendance and program quality. We need you all to help us in reinforcing the importance of academic time, including summer, as essential learning time. That this isn't just a bonus, but really a critical acceleration opportunity for our kids and for our families. And of course, continuing to communicate to families that attendance drives impact. Summer can feel like just one other thing if we're not really careful and deliberate about how we message that. And it's important to us that we message to families that attend us at MNPS, if you show up at Promising Scholars, you will be accelerating
030in your learning at MNPS. And that is just so important and foundational to the continued success that we are driving as a school district. And with that, I will turn it over, I guess, to Chief Bellamy or I'll stand here. Oh, to Freda Player, excuse me, to the to our board chair, Freda Player. >> Thank you. Is there any questions for Chief Chen? Member Mize. >> Yeah, great report. Thank you, Chief Chen. Uh, so do you have um actual dollar amounts on the uh funding cost? I know you said that more than half of the funding comes from our operating budget, but what in terms of dollars does that look like if you know? >> Yeah, on a typical year, uh, the state this the state allocation can vary year to year. It falls between
031seven and $9 million depending on the year and then we make up the remaining half. We basically end up matching that with our local funds. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, member O'Heroblock, >> do you have a sense of um, you talked about the national research on this type of program? Do you have a sense of what we know about our students who participate in Promising Scholars and their achievement relative to other students, relative to their prior achievement, etc.? >> Yeah, absolutely. So our research evaluation and assessment team evaluates promising scholars every year. Um and using basically a difference indifference model has consistently demonstrated that students who go to promising scholars and demonstrate good attendance do get more positive academic results. Um in particular we see both prevention of summer slide and accelerated achievement heading into
032that next year. Um, what we've what we have not yet done in sort of the next exciting frontier in the space is continuing to measure what it looks like when we stack that acceleration year-over-year and combine it with these other acceleration opportunities like tutoring. We haven't measured that, but we can reasonly reasonably assume since we know that each of those programs are driving year-over-year positive gains that those are consistently part of the story of what's driving that level five outcome for us as a district. And I know that some students are assigned that with the third grade retention policy, some students get assigned. Are there students that get recommended for promising scholars by teachers um and that type of thing? You may have covered that. I just want to given what you just said about
033the results, it would follow that like making sure we have the right students in these programs seems important. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, first of all, it is important to us that promising scholars is offered and available to every student who chooses to enroll. So we don't set boundaries of you have to be below this cutoff or anything like that. That's not what we're about. This is an experience that's available to every kid and can accelerate every kid's learning. And also we deliberately when we hire those site leads for promising scholars, we start hiring them and actually compensating them to do works m to do work months before promising scholars starts because one of their job functions is to help us identify who in their school would most benefit from this acceleration experience and help us
034ensure that we're getting in contact with those families and getting those students enrolled. Um, and that's work that we deliberately hire for and compensate for. uh which goes into you know the the investment that goes behind this so that that's not something that we're just delegating to principles mid year in what's already the busiest season of the year. >> Great. Thank you very much. >> Member Mazize. >> Just sorry just one additional question and looking at the list of the sites and it's quite impressive actually. Um, do we have many or any high school students that take advantage of this programming or do we have uh uh programming that's available for high school students? >> Yeah. So, first of all, we have promising scholar sites available as in ninth grade bridge model that are available
035in three quadrants for this year. Uh, but we do also offer credit recovery in all MNPS zoned high schools. Um so that is so what you see on that list is not the full universe of MNPS summer programming to accelerate student achievement. We also then uh work with our schools to ensure that credit recovery is available at every single zoned high school. >> Fantastic. Thank you. >> Any questions, comments? >> Okay. Thank you, Chief Jen. Thank you for um a great presentation on promising scholars and hopefully a lot of parents will take advantage of it this summer. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um no one has signed up for public participation. Um and now we'll go on to board reports. We did have a budget and finance committee um which we approved the budget.
036Um, we will be our the MNPS budget hearing of financial council will be May 31st at 5 P. Oh, whoops. May 21st at 5:45 p.m. um at the Metro Courthouse on the second floor. Um, so we have a preliminary budget that we are um approving which is $1.4 4 billion dollar um that will go into uh that we will submit to council well they will present it to council um and then we will come back um after be the final allocation for metro council and approve the final version of the budget um and we do not have student board member reports so we'll move on to governance issues um there's consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent agenda >> move approval >> second been moved by member Young has and seconded by
037member Maize. Um all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose. All right. It passes unanimously. Four six to zero. Um and uh be no further business. You guys are stuck for me for two years. This meeting is a journal. This has been a service of the Metro Nashville Network. If you would like to see this presentation again or for more information on this and other programs, visit nashville.gov.