001Good evening everybody. This is Robert Taylor, your school board member for district 1. Only announcement I have is that in our district early voting starts uh for US House District 7. Uh we begin early voting on November the 12th. Monday and Friday, voting starts at 8:00 a.m. and ends at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, it ends at 700 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday, the time ends at 4:30 p.m. I hope to see folks out at the polls voting. Thank you. >> Thank you. District two, no announcements. District three. >> District six. >> Yes. Just uh couple of things. Uh November 18th is the District 6, the next District 6 community meeting. I'm um tentatively hoping to have it at the new police precinct on Murphy'sboro Road. waiting on confirmation. As soon as I have a uh
002location confirmed, I will share that information on my socials. And again, that's on November 18th starting at 6:30 p.m., but I will make the final announcement on my social media pages and uh via an email. And um happy 250th anniversary today to the US Marine Corps. And tomorrow is Veterans Day. So, thank you for all those who have served and continue to serve. So, happy Veterans Day. [clears throat] >> Thank you, District 7. >> District eight. Um, I just I would like to reiterate voting begins for US House of Representatives District 7 on Wednesday, November 12th, ending Wednesday, November 26th, election day, Tuesday, December uh 2nd. Please get out and vote. >> Thank you. District 9. >> Um, also want to beat that drum because we have people in my district who also will be
003voting in that special election. So, please make sure you get out to vote. Early voting gets it out of the way. You don't have to worry about it. You just get it done. So, please make sure you get out and vote as soon as possible if you are in District 7 for the House of Representatives. Um and then also just a reminder that we are collecting information about school start times and um there will be a virtual town hall on November 12th as well. So if you want if you haven't weighed in on a survey, go ahead and do that. Um and we appreciate all that feedback that we've been getting. So thank you. Oh, and also Lawson High School has been having um their theater program put on Little Women and the last show
004is tonight and it is um if you can be there, I think it starts at six o'clock. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to get out there and see it. They've done a real good job with it. So, thank you. >> Thank you. And uh uh Chief Sullivan has a QR code. So, if you are in the audience um and you want to complete the survey for start um and ending times, feel free to uh check out that QR code and complete the survey while you're here. Um we would greatly appreciate it. Um the more feedback we receive, the better we are informed in making a decision um moving forward. So, thank you so much for that. Um, and then lastly, I am really excited about um sharing one of the achievements of
005our of one of our principles in my district. I'll wait until the uh until the director does that. Um, so I won't steal the glory, but really excited about that and glad to be able to rejoin a school board meeting even though I am still sitting. So just happy to get out the house. So thank you all. Um, all right, we will conclude announcements. Oh, I'm sorry. We do have I I apologize. We do have our junior student school board member. >> Okay. Um, so just two announcements. Um, Mayor's Youth Council is hosting their annual Mayor's Youth Summit November 19th from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Um, it will be at the Martin Center. Um, all um, students of Metro and other districts are welcome to come. Um, additionally, uh, Ryzen is hosting a your
006voice, your vote event, uh, at, [clears throat] uh, on November 11th from 4 to 6:00 p.m. There's more info on their Instagram account. >> Thank you, and I apologize again. Um, that concludes announcements. stand. I know. Good afternoon. We'll call this meeting to order. We have a quorum with uh nine presents, nine members present. Um we have one virtually. Uh member Fain is joining us virtually. Um so we do have a we have established a quorum. We would like to have a pledge of allegiance by uh Lindsay Leak who is a teacher at Early College. If you can lead us at pledge of allegiance. >> Yeah, just come to the 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,
007with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. And thank you for teaching in our schools. Uh now I'll accept a motion or entertain a motion for adoption of the agenda. Is there a motion? So moved. >> Moved by member Lrod. Is there a second? >> Second by member Taylor. >> All in favor say I. >> All oppose. It passes unanimously. Now we'll move on to board to awards and recognitions. Uh Dr. Battle or Michael Cass. Okay. Dr. Battle, we can't hear you. No, we can't hear you now. Hold on. It might be on our end. [music] Uh uh Dr. Battle, can you speak please? Test it. No, we can't hear her. Okay. Uh we will have uh Michael Cass from our communications office uh lead us in the awards and recognition. Mr. Cass, >>
008thank you chair player and good evening board members. Um before we start with tonight's awards and recognitions, we wanted to acknowledge a couple of accomplishments by our student athletes late last week that we'll spend more time on at next month's meeting. Uh first, the Martin Luther King Jr. High School boys cross country team just went to Memphis and won the TWSAA state championship in class doubleA. Congratulations to the Royals. And Andre Adams, the quarterback for the Antioch Bears, who won their first round playoff game last week, is a finalist for Mr. Football this year in class 6A. So, congratulations to Andre and again, more to come on our outstanding student athletes next month. Uh, tonight we're excited to recognize two of our educators for winning national awards and our MNPS human resources team for their
009own award-winning work to support employee wellness. Uh, first up tonight is Dr. Carmen Brown, principal of the Academy at Opry Mills, which which is one of three schools we operate in partnership with the Simon Youth Foundation, a national nonprofit that works to provide educational settings in which students can overcome significant life challenges and graduate from high school. Dr. Brown, who has led the academy at Opry Opry Mills since 2012, is one of the very best at leading this important work. And the Simon Youth Foundation recognized his leadership recently by naming him the National Administrator of the Year. [applause] Come back at the end. I think we >> Dr. Brown. Congratulations on this well-deserved honor and thank you for always looking out for your students and staff and leading with such heart and skill. [laughter] All
010right. Congratulations again to Dr. Brown. Uh we also have tonight our MNPS human resources team and the MNPS employee and family healthc care centers which have not w have won not one not two but three awards from the American Heart Association for their commitment to the health and wellness of our MNS workforce. >> [applause] >> I'd like to ask Annie Thornhill, executive director of vice and vice president of the American Heart Association's Nashville office to come to the podium and tell us a little more about these awards. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. I need an extra hand because there's so many awards that we are here to present you with tonight. Um, it is such an honor to stand in front of you tonight. Um, on behalf of the American Heart Association, I'm
011joined by Kelsey Brown, uh, who is one of our community impact directors, um, to celebrate the extraordinary impact that you and your team led by John. Holt here, um, are having on the uh, on employee health and well-being. As many of you know, uh, we have been a proud partner on student heart health and education for decades. um since the days of Jump Rope for Health. Uh and last year we reached more than 25,000 students and their families with stroke and CPR education in the community. But as the daughter of a math teacher and the sister of a high school principal, it gives me extra extraordinary joy and a special uh a special uh extra beat in my heart to celebrate this day when we are focusing entirely on employee health and well-being and the
012work that we're doing focusing just on the 10,000 staff uh and teachers um who who work day in and day out because we know that when we take care of ourselves, when we take a moment to stop and take care of ourselves, elves, we do such a better job taking care of others. Um, and I will also say as the as the mother of a student at MLK, go Royals. Uh, I know that when we have healthier teachers, um, our students are so much better. So, just truly, um, thank you so much. Metro Nashville Schools has been a leader and when we launched uh, well-being works better and target BP, y'all were the very first to sign up. um and that it has had a really big impact on the health and well-being of your
013employees. So, Kelsey can talk just a little bit more about what some of the uh some of the programs are. >> Um again, I just want to say thank you for all of you for participating in this. Um like Annie said, you guys are participating in this for the last seven years, one of the first ones to um participate in this program. you not only won uh the well-being works better award but three awards in our data recognition program for target BP which recognizes clinics who submit data and record a 70% blood pressure control rate among patients serve with hypertension that's truly incredible and then with target type 2 diabetes and check change as well um you are also one of the only two clinics for us to submit for all three areas which is
014just truly we couldn't do this work without you. So thank you so much um and thank you for um leading the way toward a future where heart health and overall well-being are the norm not the exception. >> So thank you superintendent school board members um Johnzie and the wellness team for taking the time today to celebrate for walking the walk um and doing this on behalf of the staff and teachers. we celebrate you um and the whole team. So, thank you. And we have uh this giant pile of awards to honor [laughter] which is part of our well-being today. We'll we'll we'll do some some lifts as we come up to the stage. Yeah, I'll leave this here and my glasses so nobody will know. [snorts] So, so thank you so much, Miss Thornhill. On
015behalf of Dr. Battle, we are thrilled and humbled to be honored for this work that is all about caring for our employees, which is such a high priority for all of us here. And to Chief of Human Resources, Lisa Spencer, and everyone on your team, as well as our partners from Vanderbilt Health for all the great work that made this recognition possible. Congratulations, and thank you all for everything you do. All right. One, two, [applause] >> [clears throat] >> like to thank Chief Spencer and David Hines and the team for all the great work they do um and help us keep being a healthy uh employees. Thank you. Um is that it? I think we're ready to turn it back over to Dr. Battle. >> All right, we'll turn over Dr. Battle for the director's
016report. Um, Dr. Battle. >> All right, let's try this again. Hopefully you all can hear me. >> Yay, we hear you. >> Congratulations again to all of the awardees, those that were acknowledged um this evening. I'm so sorry I couldn't be there with you all in person tonight as I've been under the weather, but let me just say again, a huge congratulations to each of our award winners and thank you for representing our district so well with your skill, your dedication, and your unwavering sense of service to others. Um, again, really excited to have so much um great leadership and partnerships happening all across our district. Um, now, chair player, I'll go ahead and jump into the director's uh report. um and tears up for that. Again, thank you um to our board chair, to
017all board members. Um first of all, thanks to everyone who has joined us for the who joined us for the celebration of schools parade and fair this weekend um that featured the Metro Marching Classic. It was a wonderful opportunity to highlight our schools and the great work happening across the district, which was capped off by an incredible parade and outstanding performances from our marching bands that showcase the talent and creativity of our students. Tonight you're going to hear two presentations um from uh myself and the team. One on graduation rate and another providing an update on the school start start time study. First you'll hear from Dr. Tina Stinson, our executive office of research assessment and evaluation. Um she'll share more detailed information, but at a high level we achieved the second highest overall graduation
018rate in our district's history. While while this represents a slight dip from last year's record high, it remains a strong indicator of the progress our students and schools continue to make. Looking deeper into the data, we saw record high graduation rates among several student groups. However, we did experience a decline among our Hispanic and Latino students, which contributed to the overall decrease. There are a number of potential factors, including recent changes in state and federal policy that may have influenced these results. While the overall numbers aren't exactly what we hope, there are many, many bright spots to celebrate and build upon, particularly when you are able to achieve the second highest graduation rate in the district's history. We will continue to focus our efforts on supporting students who have been historically underserved and ensuring every
019student has the opportunity to succeed. Please be sure to u engage meaningfully as Dr. Stinson comes in just a moment um because she will have um several different um celebrations and highlights that we should be extremely proud of um as a school district and as the Nashville community. Following that, we'll have an overview of the ongoing school start time study which we're conducting in partnership with Mayor Freddy O'Connell Metro Government and with the support of this entire board. We've already seen great engagement and engagement, excuse me, we've seen great engagement and feedback from stakeholders across the c county and we'll continue to gather input in the weeks ahead before bringing forward a more developed proposal for consideration later this year into January. Uh with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to
020Dr. Senza for the presentation on our graduation rates. Um, and again, I encourage everyone to just kind of lean in and engage uh with her throughout this presentation because there are several bright spots that we want to make sure um that the board is equipped with and that our entire community can celebrate. Dr. Stinson, I'll turn it over to you. >> Thank you, Dr. Battle, Madame Chair, board members, good evening. As you know, I'm here to talk about graduation rate, but as always, we start with our focused outcomes. Transitions is of course the most relevant here, but of literacy, numeracy, and positive school supports contribute to this important transition point. Um, and as always, we stay grounded in our four core tenants. [clears throat] Before I jump in, I do want to re recap some
02120 24 uh data because it's been a while since I've been here. Um, we had the highest scores ever in our TCAP achievement and EOCC scores. We exceeded pre- pandemic and every other rate. We outpaced the state in achievement in almost every um subject uh as listed up here. I won't read them all to you. We had significant gains in 19 of 21 grade subject level categories in grades 3 through eight. and we earned our fourth unprecedented fourtime level five T- buffs. Um, as Dr. Battle mentioned, we do have some highlights. The second highest graduation rate in MNPS history. Um, and thank you. um highest graduation rates on record for a number of student groups, including our black or African-American student group, our economically disadvantaged student group, our white student group, and our students with
022disabilities. In addition, um though, as Dr. Battle mentioned, we saw a slight dip in our graduation rate. We actually had 271 more graduates in 2025 than in 2024. the cohort was simply a larger cohort. And before I get into the weeds of this year's grad rate, um I'm just going to take you on a little longitudinal journey through graduation rate through time. Starting in 2006, the year before I started here, uh we were at 68.8% um graduation rate. um that was done in a very different way than our graduation rate now. It did not follow students over time. Uh it was simply something like the number of students who graduated minus the number of students who dropped out without ever finding the dropouts. Um so we had that for my first several years here. Um,
023and then we had our first cohort graduation rate and it was called the National Governor's Association cohort graduation rate. This rate, as well as all the rates before it, allowed students who had disabilities or were English learners five years in a summer and everybody else had four years in a summer. now and starting in 2011, every student, regardless of their disability status, their English learning status, has just four years and a summer. And we have to prove each and every student who leaves the district is enrolled somewhere else um leading to a 4-year high school diploma regardless of whether they are currently in our state or in our nation. Um, so almost all the data you see starting in well all the data you see in 2011 and beyond uses that cohort graduation rate starting
024at 76.2 in 2011. You see steady progress um through now landing at our current 83.6% graduation rate. So, I'm going to focus in next on post-pandemic graduation rates. You've seen charts very much like this before, but with um proficiency levels. Um the greens are gains, the yellows are uh not gains. Um you can see that though we did have a loss in this past year over the post-pandemic period uh we have gained almost two percentage points in our graduation rate for all students as um I mentioned uh and I think Dr. Battle alluded to um some of our student group data is um really to be celebrated including our black or African-American students who've made almost a six percentage point gain in this period. And if you look at our 2025 column, you'll see that
02588 88.6 percentage point grad rate is greater than our all students grad rate. um really um the highest we have ever seen for this student group. Our Hispanic Latino um student group lost a little bit a tiny bit of ground over this four years, but had been g gaining steadily until this past year when we had a uh 6.1 percentage point loss. Our white student group um is at 92% now. Um almost a 5% gain over this period. Um 1.7 percentage points of which happened in this past um 24 to 25. Our ED rate is also almost at five percentage point gain over this period uh with 0.3 percentage points of it happening in uh the last year. Our students with disabilities look at this 22 percentage point gain from 2021 to 2025. 5.6 6
026percentage points of that happened in the past year. And our LEP um student group again had been had been um rising. Uh we did see a little we saw a loss last year um but overall for the last this period four years post pandemic five years um 2.1 percentage point gain. Um, the LEAP student group is not synonymous with the Hispanic Latino student group, though there is some overlap. Students can be students with disabilities and economic disadvantage and LEAP and show up in any of these other student groups. Um, not pictured are some of our smaller um, student groups, but um, we did see, for example, our Asian student group at 96.2% 2% which is up um from 92.3. Um and with that I am going to turn the mic over to Chief Brace. >>
027Thank you uh board members. Uh pleasure to be here today. So, um, as I believe everyone knows, we have commenced on a on a lost screen. Okay. A school start time study uh with engagement with the mayor's office and uh metro government and the board of education. Um, going to run through some of this briefly. So, uh this is a partnership between us and uh a organization called formative that is an expert in transportation, school transportation particularly. Um and so we're engaging with them on a community engagement and um transportation study. It'll be uh driven um communitydriven. No decisions have been made yet. Um this is just the starting of the process. And so what we're trying to do is get initial feedback, just thoughts generally from the community and our stakeholders and then um
028the team is going to take that back and come up with some more extensive proposals. And so right now we're in the middle of the first phase of the uh community engagement. Um this we've got an initial survey that's been out there. We've gotten uh more than 10,000 uh responses so far. Um we have uh already started to conduct focus groups. We had a team out there at the celebration of schools engaging with people throughout that facility. Um and we have some virtual town halls coming up. Um first one is going to be Wednesday um at noon and then next Tuesday the 18th at 5 to 6 from about sorry 5 to 6 pm. Um and we're going to engage folks in that way. And we're also having a series of small focus groups focused
029on a variety of stakeholders that um try to be representative samples of the community to hear their more extensive um qualitative feedback on this uh topic. Um, so we want to make sure that we have a broad perspective from a lot of different families and we're going to try to keep our website updated uh promoting it out on social media and through other channels like Remind and our callout system in the various supported languages. So right now we're at phase one awareness and discovery. So we've launched this um the team has gathered a lot of transportation data from our our folks to try to do some uh analysis around that as well as that feedback that they're getting um on a daily basis. um that's going to take us into a development of a schedule
030of options. And so they're going to take the information and the feedback they get and try to come come up with something that is feasible within the context of Metro Nashville Public Schools and the Davidson County. Um and then that will lead to another more extensive round of engagement including some town halls, surveys, feedback, etc. And then ultimately that will lead to a proposal to the board of education um that you can vote on and that proposal may be things the same or it may be changing start times but really we want to make sure that we are starting the conversation first with you know what do what do people want to see and then how do we how do we get there so that is pretty much all I have uh right now we've
031got a pretty limited but we're always happy to answer questions I'll turn it back to you Dr. battle. >> All right. Thanks so much, uh, Chief Brace and also, um, Dr. Stinson. Um, Chair player, we'll turn it back over to you to, um, respond to any questions from the board. >> All right. Is there any comments or questions from the board? Uh, member, what's our student board, a junior student board member? >> Um, can y'all hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay. Um, so how are we going to combat the fact that we're losing like graduation rates specifically from the Hispanic population given given that 14% of the metro national population is um Hispanic? Hello. Um, first we have to understand what happened this past year. I think we can speculate on various things. Um, but
032uh we are undertaking some study to as to to why we saw that graduation rate loss and reviewing the data. I talked to a school this morning that has a high yell uh and Hispanic population. Um reached out to various chiefs. Um so we're actively engaged in that. I'm hoping it's a oneoff, but we shall see. Um and I will invite Chief Perry up. >> Thank you for that question as well. What we're doing for all of our students and what we're doing is engaging in our cohort data a lot earlier. um than we have in the past. We typically do this in March. Um we have already received all of our cohort data for not just this graduating class, but even for the cohort after this one. So engaging in finding our students, knowing
033where they are, um and then making sure that we're documenting correctly. >> Yeah, let me let me add um here with this specific question. I think this is a a point where we all as a community have to understand what's happening around us. um both state and and federal policy changes does have an impact um on things like graduation rate. And so while we don't have direct control um over those particular matters, as was mentioned already, we're already um um studying that and and trying to get a better understanding of the implications it's had um for our students and our families. what is representative in the information and the data that's already been shared is that from historical standpoint the the strategies that the team has had in place actually is working. Um and so
034we've got to continue to double down um on those strategies as well as continue to advocate um at at levels uh much higher than the control of the district but from the state and federal uh perspective to uh make sure that we can continue to deliver on uh meeting the graduation expectations for all of our MNS students. But I think there's clear indications that the strategies that are there have been working um outside of some of those policy shifts. Um and then just looking at it from an individual uh student family basis also from a school impact um level. Uh we'll continue to do that as we will do for every other student group. >> Thank you. Uh Beverly, thank you. Um, my first question is about graduation rates. And I guess it kind of
035piggy backs off the question we were uh we just had, which is, do we happen to know any graduation data um about our Hispanic Latino populations across the state? Was this something we saw in other districts? Um, is that something that we would know or that we could share, >> Tina? >> Yes. Um it did decline at the state level, not quite as much as us. Um however, we have the plurality of the students in the state, right, >> enrolled in our district. Um, and uh, I'll just say a tiny word about the policy shift in that if a student leaves our district, goes to another district and is chronically absent there for s like and don't they don't attend for 60 days, they're coming back and counting in our grad rate, which is a
036new policy at the state level. >> Can you restate that? I'm so sorry, Dr. >> Yes. Um if a student leaves our district, goes to another county, >> um they are enrolled in the other county and they would be typically responsible. However, if they um are not enrolled and attending for 60 days in that district, they are being sent back to count against us. >> That is a new policy change. >> Okay. I was going to say I don't know of that. >> Okay. So, that is new. >> All right. Um my other question is about our students with disabilities. Uh the 22% change uh positive change of increase in graduation rate from 2021 to 2025 is should be celebrated. That's a really impressive number particularly with a student group that is historically difficult to
037move forward um in getting graduation rates and of course always um concerns of finding the right persons inside of our students with disabilities because we have lessening graduation rates of people with that certification as teachers. How did we or what factors do we think have played into this? What do we think has helped us get to this 22%? I understand we particularly this year has had a 5.6%. That's a big increase by itself. So what factors do we think we have found that have been beneficial and is there anything for us as a board that we should be acknowledged about um for funding or any future concerns of funding? >> As the team is coming um to respond um I must give a um shout out to um Debbie uh McAdams who leads our exceptional
038education department as our director. um as well as Deputy Chief David Williams, that entire team and of course all of our exceptional education um educators all across the district. Uh the last several years they've really u been really intentional around their continuous improvement work cycles um of improvement and uh pretty vigorous progress monitoring. Um and so um while the team is going to talk more tactical um strategies about some things that have taken place, I just wanted to commend both the mindset and dedication of our uh entire exceptional education um department for um just through graduation rate, making sure every student is valid and that they have what they need, including um strong partnerships u with our families um and and the community. and several board members have been a part of several convenings we've
039had uh with this particular um talented um group of um advocates and and leaders all across the city who's helped us really come to uh realize such positive outcomes for our exceptional education students. So team I'll let you talk a little bit more from a tactical perspective um some of the some of the strategies we've deployed um but just wanted to commend the entire team as a whole for this incredible outcome. >> Thank you Dr. Battle. Thank you for the question uh board member Elrod just to add on to what Chief Perry said and what Dr. battle said is really it takes a community but um it's about being systematic and so have creating a system at the school level the district level to know that I've got to to get a gened diploma in
040four and a half years I got to be really intentional about understanding what credit student have what they're missing and how can if they're missing credits how can I ensure that they are contacted and find a way to make up that credit as soon as possible and that's not just with students with disabilities that's every student that we have um so it's it's really knowing where you are and being really really relentless in ensuring that we're providing students with those opportunities to get those credits so they can graduate on time. Um, so [snorts] we talk about graduate, it's the on-time grad rate, four and a half years. Um, and we know that students with disabilities, we want them to earn a genetic diploma. They have the same set of expectations, those 22 credits. We got
041to make sure they have every opportunity to meet those credits. Oh, yeah. And our alternate academic diploma as well. Yeah. for our 1% of students who who fit into that category. >> Does that 1% of students count within this additional increase? Okay, that's what I believed. Okay. Okay. I appreciate that. >> I um and I have no other further questions. >> Okay. Uh we'll go to Vice Chair McKitty. Is it Beber O'Hara Block? Is it Beber Tyler? Thank you. Um, can you provide me some clarification? I I heard you say that we did have an increase in the number of students who graduated. However, our graduation rate decreased. Can you explain to me how that works and how we got there? >> I can try. Um, sure. I I I often get glazed looks, but
042basically the graduation rate, you take a cohort of students, you subtract out students who leave the district who we can prove, and you add in students who come into the district, and that's our denominator. That's the gra the potential graduating cohort. Then in the numerator is the number of graduates with regular diplomas and AAD diplomas. So the numerator increased the denominator increased more the the actual number of students who could have graduated >> increased. Gotcha. >> Thank you for that. Um the second question that I have the new policy that you mentioned around is it attendance or claiming with that that falls into graduation rate. Do you know what the impetus behind that policy was for? >> I do not. Um, it has been the case for a couple of years that if a student
043was enrolled for 60 or fewer days, they could a sending district, a receiving district could send the students back to us. And we do it too, by the way. We just had more come back this year than we um shifted out. I don't know why they changed it to enrolled and attended. I I do not know. But um essentially um as Chief Perry mentioned, we we have these cohorts of students um and this changed this year. Um and some of the students may have left in 2022, right? So it was very difficult to if we didn't know that this was the policy to go back and find them. So essentially it shifts the responsibility of finding and tracking chronic absenteeism in the receiving school back to the sending school district and we're trying to work
044out ways to figure out how to do that. Um which it's difficult as you can imagine. So just for clarification, if a student was enrolled in MNPS but went and enrolled in Shelby County schools in a totally different city 3 hours away, if they had chronic absenteeism there, it's still our fault. >> If if they did not at least attend 60 days, yes, it shifts back to us. member uh Heroblock. >> Um I I do think this is an important conversation to have just for folks to understand how the literal movement of the graduation rate can work. Um so two things on that. Um the way I'm understanding the explanation and it makes sense to me. So students in the Hispanic and Latino population, probably more students were leaving this year without having documented that
045they had gone somewhere else, which is the requirement that we need in order to be able to say that we know where those students ended up and therefore they're not actually part of the graduation cohort. Um, and if we hadn't seen them graduating, then that wouldn't increase our graduation rate. And if we hadn't had documentation that they were leaving, then that also wouldn't increase our graduation rate. Um, and so that explains some part of the the the loss there. And I I think it's a really important point that we've seen that Dr. Battle made in response to Ava's question that in basically every other student subgroup, we've seen improvement. At the same time, I think there's probably a remaining question that is not sort of logistical and statistical in the way we're talking about it
046right now that is about that is I think a little bit more behind Ava at least what I would imagine your question to be and what I think is important which is if there aren't going to be major shifts in either state policy or federal policy um and as we are thinking about the things that have led to increas inreases in graduation rates with the general population of students at MNS. What else do we think we could be doing um to to try and address either the specific population of Hispanic Latino students which is a large percentage of students in the county um >> or and our fastest growing group um or you know to continue to accelerate graduations graduation rates overall. I have one that y'all haven't mentioned yet, which is we've been hearing
047a lot about the A strategic plan, about the clusterbased um pathways, but are there other things that y'all are thinking about that you would put into this category? So less like the finding students and graduation rate documentation and more the how are we improving overall support >> and as if I don't I can't see if somebody from the team is at the podium but um I what was shared um earlier I'm drawing a blank on who mentioned this I think it was um I can't remember who mentioned But one of Tina I think mentioned like part of this is leveraging some of the structures we already have in place like early um like leveraging our navigators, leveraging our counselors, leveraging our teachers and building um those relationships and lines of communication um continuing to leverage
048things like our community achieves team um so that um we can provide support information um guidance as needed and within the realm of the law. um so that um our students continue to be enga engaged, continue to show up and continue to obtain the credits they need to meet our graduation requirements. And so part of that conversation is having those individual conversations to continue to um uh both personalize but also look at trends of things that might be top of mind for students and families and how we can within our realm of control support um those um students and families towards a successful um graduation. So that's why those conversations are are are critically um important at this time. It was also mentioned that um schools are leveraging their cohort lists uh much earlier and
049sooner than we have in the past. Um again from as early as that ninth grade year. Uh making sure that those four-year plans and those supports are in place from from start to finish. And that's probably going to be some of our key um levers to help us begin to rebound with that particular with this with this particular student group uh to make sure that their graduation rates are, you know, again rebound or and are at the rates um of all of our other student groups across the district. >> Thank you. And I appreciate the clarification. Um I I think it's important just to say that when we talk about things like engaging in cohorts, what we're talking about is looking at which particular students are we worried about? um gaining the credits, making it
050through, getting to a point where they'll um feel like they they are poised to graduate. Um and so I just wanted to make like a slightly finer point. >> Can I Yeah. >> Yeah. And and I thank you for clarifying that um board member block because what is often thought about as graduation rate is the seniors that are in the school building at the time of graduation and it extends far beyond um that. when you're talking about your cohorts, it goes all the way back to that first entry of into high school into ninth grade regardless of where the student ends. Um, and so that's that's important for um the the board and the community to um realize is that you could graduate 100% of the students who are are with you um or who
051who have been tracking with you and still not meet their graduate graduation rates along with students who started with you for five years ago who may have transitioned somewhere else. And so um that's what that cohort uh really represents. I appreciate you servicing that. >> Yeah. Yeah. And graduation is a 13-year effort, but it's really the graduation rate is certainly a very specific four-year effort, right? And it's not just the the senior year. I I and I just want to I'd be remiss if I did not take the opportunity to say how excited I am about the school start times um bell study. Um so, thank you to your team for engaging um in that. And I just I know there are we have these um different phases upcoming. I'm just wondering how frequently we
052might expect or the public might expect just to hear more about uh what we're learning. >> Um Sean, would you like to respond to that? I think you've got the workflow. I think it's going to be pretty frequent here over the next couple weeks [snorts] or months as we u enter this the second semester of the school year. But Sean, do you want to give a more detailed response? >> Yeah, so we'll we'll share those engagements. we'll send out sort of semi-frequent reminders about the survey. Um, so that'll be about uh two two more weeks of engagement on that side and then it'll take a few more weeks to come up with sort of those scenarios that will then be brought back out to the community. So, we intend to have pretty frequent updates on
053online and and you know at the board meetings as needed to to make sure everyone's sort of looped in on what's happening there. But I think uh there will be significant interest in this. And so uh I in imagine there will be continual uh conversations about this particularly once we get to those scenario conversations and people have something to react to. >> I I think it's been really well publicized so far from what I can tell. I mean I feel as a parent and as a community member like I've seen it a bunch of places. So thank you. >> Thank you. >> Member Tyler. Um yes, so just a quick clarification because my other questions have been answered. So thank you guys for being very thorough in your questions. Um but um for the school
054start times, you said that there are two upcoming virtual halls and one's on Wednesday, November 12th at noon to 1 and one's on Tuesday, November 18th from 5 to 6. >> Yes, correct. >> And I know that it's on our website. Are there any other places where people can find out how where do they need to go to be able to participate in that? >> So, it's on a, you know, a website or calendar on the website and we're going to be sending out a message tomorrow morning through Remind um and also on social media, not tomorrow morning, the morning of uh sending people the link and letting them know that um it's going to happen. So, just sort of a a update there. So, we'll continue to push it out in those channels. >>
055Okay. And then what's the structure of that town hall going to look like? Are people going to get a chance to to speak or is how is it going to work? uh it'll be a little bit more structured just because you know you could have several hundred people there and it can get kind of chaotic. So what we'll have is we'll have some uh moderated Q&As. We'll have people from both formative and the district there to help answer questions uh some surveys, live surveys during that process to get some feedback uh from them as well. So, um, just a variety of those tools to kind of it's it's a lot it's a lot going to be a lot more informative on that side than it will be, you know, as much engagement just because we're
056still on the early side of it once we get to the um the scenario uh things. We're planning to have more in-person town halls where we can actually have, you know, sort of get those reactions back and forth because right now it's very sort of um conceptual and so that we're just trying to get that initial feedback and then we'll have that more deep engagement in person once we have that opportunity for people to react to something. >> Okay. Well, I just want to again take a moment to ask the community in general to make sure you participate in this. um personally am I'm am have been pushing for a change in our school start times especially at the high school level. So this is something that's important to me and I would love to
057see the community come out and speak up. So make sure we hear your voice. Thank you >> any other questions, comments? All right, [snorts] we'll move on to Thank you, Dr. Battle, and thank you to your team. Um that concludes the director's report. We'll move on to public participation. Um, we have two people. Okay. Uh, KB Butler. You have two minutes. >> All righty. So, my name is Kamie Butler. I am the founder and CEO of Black Lemonade. Um, our job, our work is really turning lemons into lemonade for the minority and underserved youth. Um, I come here representing a family that lives in district three currently. Um, but our organization actually serves in district 1, 3, 4, and five with the hopes of serving in all of y'all's districts. Um, definitely want to thank
058you all for the hard work that you guys do and that you um, consistently continue to remove barriers to support our youth. Um, Black Lemonade's history, we serve in the capacity of out of school time um, opportunities for our youth. Um, about a month ago, I ran into a situation with u, one of our families who I mentioned um, currently lives in oh, excuse me, [clears throat] currently lives in district 3. Uh, they actually grew up in district 1 um, and had to make the decision uh, to move into district 3 to be in zone. they faced um home home insecurity um which led to them moving into district three but wanting to still attend school in district 1. And so as I hear you guys talking about um the graduation rates, the attendance and
059the barriers that kind of all fall into that, I think that this um example or this story can help um in determining, you know, school times and removing additional barriers. Um, this family again faced homelessness, moved from district one to district three. Um, they were told that district 3 was their new zone. Um, but when they started attending at that school, they realized that they were in a PR zone, which I come come to find out is called parent responsibility. Um, again, this was normally a family who was a family of eight, two parent household, white house picket fence. um unfortunately ended up being a one parent household. Seven people in that house. Mom is the only one um taking care of this family. Uh they live in a PR zone. They have no form
060of transportation. Um and there is not a conducive it's not a looks like you're more than welcome to send a statement or a note to the board uh with the rest of it. >> Yes. So, their transportation to school is not just conducive, especially with the weather coming in. No sidewalks, they're having to trespass. It is a 30-minute walk. So, I just wanted to um the board to consider uh looking at the PR zone moving forward. >> Thank you. >> Uh Craig Harris, >> yes. How you doing, board? Greetings MNPS board members. My name is Craig Harris. I'm a college student scheduled to graduate next month majoring in communications and minoring in journalism. I am also the proud parent of a future Belmont business graduate minoring in Japanese and a military dad. Um I have
061served as a homeschool instructor and am a licensed minister minister solid and ethical faith and active community member and multi multi-organizational volunteer with professional and academic references. Um, I am extremely passionate about enhancing our students educational experience. Looking forward to utilizing my degree as combined experience serving individuals with behavior, mental and developmental disabilities. I actually applied for a teaching assistance position this year, but MNPS employment site and application process continuously malfunction. Another matter for another time. Um, I'm here today specifically to complete a journalism assignment which requires me to listen carefully to the matters covered today, take notes, and convey the information into a story for local news sources. While I have this opportunity before the board, I requested to speak to an important inquiry or address an important inquiry based on my goals after
062graduation. Um, I have developed a new project-based curriculum focused on innovative methods of interpretation that enhances comprehension, critical thinking, and digital literacy that I believe significantly will benefit Metro Nashville students and improve literacy as well as behavioral outcomes at school, home, and in the community. Um, I speak today to ask for the official process to get this new curriculum approved as a pilot program. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Harris. And if you have if you have any other comments, you can email it to the board, too. >> Yes, ma'am. >> All right. Thank you. That concludes public participation. We'll move on to governance issues. I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. Is there a motion? >> Motion to approve. has been moved by member Maize. Is there a second? >> Second
063by member Taylor. Uh any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Any oppos? Oh, sorry. I do a roll call. >> All right. We need to do a roll call vote because member Fain is virtual. Uh Dr. Seir, will you please do a roll call? >> And Miss Fain, if you could turn your camera on, please. Member Fay, you need to turn your camera on, please, for the vote. >> I >> Thank you. Mr. Taylor, >> I. >> Mr. Taylor votes I. Miss Lrod >> I. >> Mr. Elrod votes I. Mr. Young >> I. >> Mr. Young votes I. Dr. Namckini >> I. >> Dr. Namckini votes I. Miss Fain. >> You have to You have to state again. Member Fain >> I. >> Miss Fain votes I. Miss Maize >> I. >> Miss Mazize
064votes I. Miss O'Hara Block >> I. >> Maher block votes I. Mr. Tyler >> I. >> Mr. Tyler votes I. Chair player >> I. >> Chair player votes I. Madame chair you have nine eyes. >> All right. This agenda passes unanimously. Um we move on to board reports. I just want to say happy Veterans Day to all of our employees who are veterans or serving in the reserve. So thank you for your service and hopefully join tomorrow's day. And then next our next meeting will be December 9th. We will not have a meeting in two weeks due to the holiday uh Thanksgiving break. So our next meeting will be December 9th. Be no further business. This meeting is adjourned. This has been a service of the Metro Nashville Network. If you would like to see
065this presentation again or for more information on this and other programs, visit nashville.gov.