001not least uh I always want to encourage our community partners uh to volunteer in our schools. Um there is a volunteer opportunity in the Whites Creek Cluster. We're having our Whites Creek Cluster Fest on April the 10th and then we will also have uh several activities taking place at Alex Green Design Technology Magnet School. And so we want to make sure that uh you're aware of those opportunities to volunteer. Please reach out to the school and uh and they'll get you connected. And that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. District 2. Thank you. Um MNS art and music camps open this week. Those are very popular and seats go quickly. Um so I just want to make sure that families and all of us are aware in case we get questions about that. Um
002at Overton, the Evolve um web detection system went out on the 18th. It was implemented at our school in district 2 and it went quite well. There's been lots of feedback from the principal about how it's been pretty smooth. Um but that it has taken place. And then lastly, I wanted to make sure that we're all aware the chamber's ed report, the Chamber of Commerce's ED report was rescheduled and it has been moved to March 28th from 9:30 to 12:00 and it's at Giota. So the date is quite different than usual as is the location. So just to make sure everyone is aware as that can be a crowded event at times. Thank you. Thank you, District 3. pass. District five, district six. Sure. So, sorry, I was typing. So, just two things. Um, the
003Antioch Health and Wellness Fair will be held Saturday, March 29th from 10 to 12 um from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at Lake Providence Church at 5891 Nolanville Pike. Um, I will post this information on my social media pages and you'll be able to find it in multiple languages. Also, just a reminder that uh to all rising high school juniors, the application process to select our next student school board member, uh those applications are open now until 5:00 p.m. on April 30th. The applications are available on the MNPS website under the board of education tab. If you or you someone you know is interested in becoming our next student school board member, um those applications, as I said, are available now through March 30, April 30th at 5:00 p.m. So go ahead and get those
004applications submitted as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you. District 7. No. District eight, um we're about to have a celebration of the Hillsboro boys basketball team for winning states. Um, so I just I'm so excited and uh can't wait to congratulate them. But also um wanted to say that they beat Oakidge, which is where my husband went to high school. Um, and so um my children and I will have something to lord over him for life and we are very excited about that. So way to go Burroughs District 9. Um just um just a reminder that uh Promising Scholar if you're looking for summer information, Promising Scholars is open for registration and also rising juniors and seniors can apply for jobs through the MNPS careerbased learning program, earn up to $15 an hour. It's
005really exciting. They get high school credit, they get career skills, and they also get mentorship. So, I've shared it on my social medias already, but you can look on MNS's or mine. Um it's a really exciting opportunity. Junior school board member. I believe I have no announcements. I will be saving the scope conference for board reports. Thank you. Senior school board member. Good afternoon everyone. Um I hope everyone had a good break. I first wanted to congratulate the Lawson debaters Ethan Oakley and Chaz O Chaz Cington um for winning uh city championships. Um, and they along with me and my partner will be on our way to nationals next week. So, that's exciting. Um, I also wanted to tell everyone about the debate summer camp for grades 6 through 12th um, at John Early Middle
006School. It will be from July, it will be July 14th through 18th, and it is free, but you have to pay a $25 deposit um that you'll get back. But I highly encourage anyone in those grades if you're any if you're interested in debate at all to try it out cuz it'll probably be really fun. And that's all. Awesome. And uh board member Tyler covered a couple of things related to Promising Scholar as well as the workplace opportunities for high school students. Um I did want to follow up. I I uh had a visit this uh last week with Tulip Grove Elementary School that's in District 4 in my um area. It was a great visit. Great uh community elementary school. if you live in the area, check it out. Uh it's a phenomenal school.
007Um and it was a wonderful visit. So, just want to thank Dr. Jackson um for inviting me in um and showing me around. Thank you. Be there no further announcements, this meeting is adjourned. I call this meeting to order. Um, will I have President Jessica Stewart give us the pledge of allegiance? Okay, thank you. Sorry, I didn't know she was going to do this to me. Hi. 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. and Jessica Stewart is the president of SEIU Local 205. Um, I will entertain a motion to accept the agenda. I request that we move item 1D off of the agenda, the naming of Brick Church Middle School. Is
008there a motion? Move to approve with uh removal of 1D. Second. Mhm. Yes. Um all in favor of the to adoption of the agenda. Um all in h say it [Music] again. Yes, we were adopting the entire agenda. So motion to approve the agenda as moved. Okay. Okay. Motion to approve the agenda as moved. Um has been uh motioned by member Maize has been seconded by Dr. Nabal and Kenny. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? All right, we'll hand over to Dr. Battle for awards and recognitions. Thank you so much, Chair Player. Um I am going to jump into awards and recognitions. I'll do them a little bit out of order from what's listed on the agenda, but I will cover um everything. Um the first thing I'd like to do um because
009we do have some special guests in the audience today um regarding um an agenda item later on in the agenda. Um, I would like to take um a point of privilege to acknowledge um the family of Judge um Dinkens um who we will be voting on um a final vote today um to rename Brick Church Middle School um again after Judge Richard H. Dinkens. Um we have several of his family members here that I'd like to recognize if you all all don't mind standing as I call your names. His daughter Lashant Simpkins is here. um his daughter Zuri Walker is also here and his son Ian Dinkens. Um we just wanted to take an opportunity um to just thank you all um to again the board will talk about this later but um we really
010wanted to honor um your father, your grandfather, just for the entire family um his legacy and his work um that he led on behalf of Metro Nashville Public Schools. And so it is our honor um to take up this vote um later today um to officially rename one of our middle schools um in his honor. So thank you for being here. If everyone could please give them a warm thank you and welcome. All right. So we'll be looking forward to that vote later. Um, I also want to take an opportunity um to thank um the Save the Music Foundation um and recording and music artist um Britney Spencer for visiting John Overton High School um today. She spent quite a bit of time um with our talented students um at Overton High School. I see
011lots of faces light up. Y'all know who Britney Spencer is. Um she is well on her way um and has a beautiful voice and just a great u musician. um she took um really quality time out of her day today to not only um perform um for our students, but they were able to perform for her um and get some really quality feedback along with some other very notable artists um from from our community, several of them. And so just really excited. Um again, shout out to Principal Carwood Garner um who's the principal there, Mr. Barner, who is one of the music teachers um at Overton High School, to Franklin Willis, our director of visual performing arts. Um these are experiences that kids everywhere are not afforded um every day. So, we're extremely extremely thankful
012to Save the Music, Britney, and the entire team who pulled this off today. All right, so things have changed, so I'm going to get back in order. Um again, um another um just quick, um announcement. Um today I also had the opportunity to meet with coach Jeff Fischer um and the arena football team, the Nashville Cats um who came by um the support hub in this space um and delivered 100 tickets for each of our high school athletic departments so the student athletes and coaches can go to their home opener this Saturday or their second home game a week from Friday. Um so we great we greatly appreciate the cat's generosity and their support of our student athletes. um they shared with me many many times that they are looking to partner with us in
013many many more ways. Um so we are um very thankful for them and we'll be getting those tickets out to our high schools via our athletic director Mr. Mark North um really soon. So um thank you to the Cats and to Jeff Fischer for their partnership. And speaking of which um we have so many impressive and high achieving students and staff members to celebrate this evening. So we're going to go ahead and jump in. So, first board member Black tried to steal the thunder, but she deserves to steal the thunder. No, no, no. Um, this first one happened y'all just less than 72 hours ago, which was after we had put together the meeting agenda last week, but we simply could not wait another meeting to recognize our outstanding boys basketball state champions, Hillsboro High
014School. All right, as they come up holding that heavy but beautiful gold ball. Um, so the Burrows brought home the gold ball Saturday night after beating Oak Ridge um to wrap up a dominating performance throughout the state class 4A tournament in Murphy'sboro. They are the best. They are history makers and we couldn't be happier for coach T, all the players, principal Holddron, and everyone connected to the team. And I want to give a special shout out to the tournament MVP. Is Tyrron Fischer with us right now? He's all right. We'll recognize him again. So, we we brought home the gold ball MVP, Tyron Fischer, who led the tournament in rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks, as well as three other Hillsbor players who made the all tournament team. Cortez Graham Howard, who was also a class
0154A Mr. Basketball finalist this season. Xavier Washington and Lonnie Holland and Jaylen Herd and Max Bertner were both tremendous in the championship game on Saturday. We are so proud of everyone on the team for representing our district and our city so well, both on and off the court. Thank you for the example of excellence you set. I was so glad I got to be there and see you in action last week. And then at the celebration on campus after you got home from the championship game, y'all did not want to go home. It was a celebration and I'm thrilled that we can all recognize you here tonight. So, it is my complete honor again to present to MNS and to Nashville our champions, Hillsboro High School. Um I know they're busy people now, so they've
016got to run um after this recognition to get to the next. Um, but we know that we have our all city banquet happening this evening. Um, so again, let's congratulate them in grand style and we would like for you to pause before you leave so we can get a couple photos. Let's give it up for them. There you go. Here we go. One, two, three. One more. Congratulations. I don't know exactly. Now you know why I wore my green dress. That's right. Right. And just for the history books, it's the first time um MNS has brought home the state championship in the large class since 1981. Um so that drought is over. All right. So tonight, we're also thrilled to recognize 15 students who were recently honored by the National Education Equity Lab for their
017great work during the fall semester. The National Education Equity Lab is an organization we started working with last year to provide college courses from prestigious universities and our high schools. Ed equity lab believes what I believe that academic talent is spread evenly across our schools and we just need to make sure we're spreading the opportunities for our students around as well. So through ed equity lab we've had professors from Stanford, Howard, Spelman, Morehouse, Cornell, Georgetown, Arizona State, and the University of Pennsylvania, teaching our students in partnership with our own excellent educators. And these 15 students were recently inducted into the Ed Equity Lab National Honor Society for outstanding work in their courses last fall. In just a moment, I'm going to turn um the mic over to Michael Cass from our communications department to call
018out the names. Students, when you hear your names, please come up to the area right here in front of the board table to get your certificate um for me and and the respective board member. Please come on up. Um and we'll get a group photo at the end. So, Michael, give me just a second to transition and you can take it away. Thank you, Dr. Battle from Antioch High School. Let's give it up for Marvin Padilla from Cane Ridge High School. We're excited to recognize Leandra Davis from East Nashville Magnet High School. We have three outstanding scholars who were inducted. Kamani Cochril, Delena Carney and Jamaiah Orton. from Hunter Lane High School. Let's give it up for Zoja Williams. From John Overton High School, we recognize three top students. Colton Bourke, Emily Monasterio, and Kyla
019Scall. from Maplewood High School. Let's give it up for Janet Nino Martinez. and Ling O [Music] from Nashville Big Picture High School. We're proud to recognize Eater Gomez. And from Stratford STEM Magnet High School, we're excited to recognize three top scholars. Bernice Rodriguez, Isoma Echille, and Miracle Newbie. One, two, three. We just got it back together. One, two, three. One, two, three. Thank you. We got we got this All right. And I just want to make sure I'm extremely clear that we understand what they've just accomplished. These students performed at the highest levels while enrolled in college level courses while in high school. Credits that will transfer to their college transcripts. So in what in all of these prestigious universities and colleges. So again congratulations. That is very significant. It's huge and it's something you
020should be extremely proud of. All right. Tonight we're also excited to recognize eight high school wrestlers from across the district. four, four girls and four boys who won medals at the recent TWSAA state championship. These student athletes have excelled in a tough sport in which the outcome can flip in a split second. So, we want to make sure they know how much we appreciate their hard work and the way they represent all of us on and off the mat. I'd like for our high school athletics director, Mark North, to call out the wrestlers names. students, when you hear your name, please come join me and our board chair um up front to get your certificate and then we'll get a group photo at the end. Mark North. Thank you, Dr. Battle. Thank you to the
021board for uh recognizing excellence and it's great honor uh for me to introduce these outstanding student athletes. Uh first up from East Nashville Magnet High School, we have Kelly Summers, the medalist. the 114 lb weight. So this is something From McGavoc High School, we recognize Addison Brown and the 100 pound weight and also H Cox in the 138. She is the 2024 state champion and a threetime state medalist. McGav. Yeah. Still from Thank you. from Pearl Cone. From Pearl Cone High School, uh, Luria Kelly, who finishes a state runner up and is a two-time state medal. From James Lawson High School, we have Timothy Williams, medalist in the 126 pound weight. All right. And we have two more from McGabic High School. First up, the 285 pound weight class, Elijah Sumler. again. And also from
022McGavoc, finishing third in the state in the 113 lb weight class, Emanuel Claybours. It is his second state medal. And we have we have one wrestler who is unable to be here tonight uh from Stratford STEM Magnet High School. We're proud to recognize Demoria Ford who meddled in the 130 lb 38 lb. We're ready for a group picture. You want you want the coaches as well? [Music] two. One more. One, two, three. Thank you. Yes, sir. Where is yours? Well, congratulations again to our high school wrestling medalists. Um they were chatting up here. They are very competitive um about everything. So, I know the future is bright um for our wrestling teams. Um they've got some goals. So tonight we also want to recognize a couple of staff members um particularly from Antioch High School
023for their uh heroes heroism. January 22nd was a difficult day but these staff members were especially bright lights in the darkness with their actions to prevent further harm. So tonight we'd like to give a special recognition to this pair of heroes. First is Gwindelyn Purle. Miss Purle ensured the safety of several students and cafeteria staff by promptly closing the cafeteria gates. Additionally, she sheltered several students in the cafeteria pantry where she provided social and emotional learning support, keeping many students calm amid the crisis. Miss Purle, where are you? Could you stand up for us, please? We'd like to thank you for your quick and calm thinking and for the care you showed to each of those vulnerable students that morning. We greatly appreciate you. And in a moment, we want you to come up and
024we want to get some pictures with you and just celebrate you even further. Thank you. We also want to recognize Muhammad Cindi. Mr. Cindi played a crucial role as well in assisting with the evacuation of students from the cafeteria, ensuring they exited safely. He demonstrated exceptional leadership and composure guiding students to safety and providing reassurance during a highly stressful situation. Mr. Cindy, thank you. Thank you for making Mr. Cindy. Thank you for making sure students were safe and for helping them stay calm in the midst of very difficult circumstances. We had an opportunity to speak and Mr. Cindy told me I wasn't afraid. I had to do what was necessary to protect our children. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to both of you. Um I also want to thank um take
025a moment to thank Principal Nikha Bernett for her ongoing leadership. We've come a long way in these last two months, but we know there's still a way to go in this journey. And I appreciate everyone on the team for their good work and for their resilience. So, please help me in welcoming up Miss Purle, Mr. Cindy, and Principal Bernett so that we can acknowledge them and take a quick photo together. Thank you both. Justice. She uh she couldn't answer she So, as we transition in, I'd be remiss if I didn't take the opportunity to thank the entire faculty and staff um of Antioch High School, the entire community, um the city, everyone for rallying um to support um this journey that the school community is on. We know that everyone played a critical role um
026on um this particular day um including our students who are um just doing exceptionally uh well in so many ways. Um please know that um we will continue to stand with you. We will continue to support you um for the long haul. So again, thank you to the entire school community. So recently we had a reception for our team MNS members who have served the district for 30, 40, and 50 and even excuse me 30, 40, and even 50 years. We want to recognize them and thank them for their service again tonight by showing their names on their screens and asking any of them who are here with us to please stand so we can applaud you for all the great work and your commitment to our students, families, and staff. Check. All right, let's
027give them a round of [Laughter] applause. So, thank you again to our longerving staff members. We appreciate your dedication. We appreciate your service to Metro Nashville Public Schools. We also um want to just thank everyone else who was recognized tonight. Um a big night for awards and um recognitions. Um thank you board for allowing us an opportunity to recognize not only our staff members but our students um and our partners during this um time of our board agenda. So with that, Chair Player, I will turn it back over to you. All right. Thank you, Dr. Battle. Uh what an awesome time to be a part of MNPS and thank you for everyone for their accomplishments and more importantly their service to our children um and our education system. Now we'll move on to director's report
028um with grow together with MNPS. All right. Thank you. Um um Chair um Player, I appreciate you turn it over to me for the director's um report. Um as we know um our district has been hard at work um really accelerating outcomes for our students during our budget committee. Uh we celebrated all of the significant achievements um for our students um including being a three-time level five school district, being considered an advancing school district, um being represented in the top performers in the education recovery scorecard, celebrating historic graduation um rates. Um just lots of um accolades and accomplishments for our students who are supported by some of the most effective educators this country can find. Um we also know that that work doesn't just happen. um in those respective grades, right? It takes a true
029plan and a runway for all of our students um to have what they need and what they deserve. And so this um evening we're going to hear update around our growth together with the MNS um signature initiative um which reaches back and and really um encompasses our youngest learners um of Nashville and future MNS students um and current MNS students. And so at this time, I'm going to turn it over to our um um to deputy Dr. David Williams and also to our director um Lori Flemings in just a moment. So David, I'll let you take it away. Great. Thanks so much, Dr. Battle. Good evening, uh board members. We are uh again pleased to provide you with an update on our Grow Together work that we began just a few years ago, as well
030as some exciting updates that we have in the works that we're working on. Um as we get started uh just some brief reminders about why we believe that it's important to work in this birth to three uh space. So first of all we know that a brain uh a young child's brain is growing and developing rapidly. As many as 1 million uh neural connections are being made every second. Because of this they're ready to absorb and learn uh new and exciting things. And we also want to help Nashville families with young children access important resources and information to ensure they're providing a strong foundation for life long-term uh life success for their children. As former board member and um chair Dr. Jitri said when uh the late Phyllis Phillips and I presented this in the
031fall of 2022, I think she summed it up nicely. She said something to the effect of, and don't I'm not trying to quote her here. um after you have helped pull enough folks out of the river, at some point you have to go upstream and work to prevent them from falling in the river in the first place. So, I think that sums up uh the reason why we're doing this work really well. Uh and we also want to connect with families, lean in to support them where we can, and we want them to see themselves as part of our MNS family. So, here's a brief timeline of some key milestones since we began this work um in the spring of 22. So with Dr. Battle's initial vision uh that spring our teams met and identified
032some of our core strategies. These core strategies continue to drive our work uh today. Again, as we presented to the board in the fall of 2022, um you'll see that uh here on the screen as well. Um next uh we shortly after that presentation, we launched our website uh which is full of information and resources including events to register for community events. Uh you can register for our quarterly grow together newsletter and more. And our communications team has helped to design a page that is beautiful, organized, and easy for families to navigate. And even u more than that, because our website allows translation into our several top languages spoken, it's more widely accessible to more families. Uh Director Fleming is going to talk about our access for all uh classrooms and our halfday programs later
033in the presentation. Uh we launched those in the fall of 2023. Um I'm also excited to share and give a little demonstration about our care distribution. Another exciting one of our strategies she you see here that we're able to launch uh last spring. Um and then of course the work continues uh where we are today and beyond. Our grow together initiatives are divided into two parts. The birth to three space and then prek expansion. Each of these uh two parts has five core strategies. So I'm going to uh lead the presentation updating us in the birth to three space with those five core strategies and then director Fleming uh seated behind me will provide an update on prek expansion and the new exciting thing that we're working on. Um so first is our website. Well
034these are the let me go through these these are our five strategies. First we have our grow together website, playdates and child uh development courses, a text messaging service, family care bags, and then home and telea visits. So the first thing you can see is our website. This was launched again shortly after our board presentation the fall of 2022, launched in January 2023. Again, it's a beautiful page within our our larger MMPS site. Anyone watching live or anyone in the audience who wants to take out your phone, you can access through the QR code directly to our early learning uh birth uh birth to three grow together website. Um we also have the opportunity there for you to register to receive the quarterly newsletter. I personally receive it as does my wife uh because we
035have a young child and um again this is free. Just go on there, register. It's quick and easy. Currently we have over 300 families signed up but we encourage anyone listening uh this might be appropriate and relevant for to encourage you to sign up as well. We also have our our playdates and child development courses. One thing that was important for us was to uh ensure that once we launched our initiative is to immediately begin working with community partners to identify where some of this work is already happening. So we didn't want to be duplicative or redundant in that space um but maybe we could help accelerate their efforts or expand their efforts. Um so with playdates and and child development courses is an example of where we partner with the public library who does
036host playdates and story times at branch libraries across the uh city and we've able to join forces with them if you will to come alongside them and share additional information about MNS about our grow together program and provide free books that they can take home and we've served over 300 families in that space. Uh we've also partnered with Hispanic Family Found Foundation their sprouts program and community baby shower events. I'll also talk about that uh here in a minute. We've reached out and connected with over 500 families uh through those partnerships. Also, we have a a text messaging service. You may have heard a program called Ready 4K uh Ready for Kindergarten. The state launched this uh several years ago that has since been sunset by the state, but we've been able to internally continue
037to provide that for our preschool and pre kindergarten families. Um families receive two to three text messages a week. Gives them friendly tips. You're going to the playground. uh things to do when you're going shopping, things you can do with common household items, reminders of key registration uh dates or events, community events that they may want to uh sign up for and participate. Uh we would like to uh extend that service beyond our preschool and pre kindergarten families into our birth to three families that we connect with. Uh we do think um that working with our current uh employees who have young kids that might uh want to sign up for the service, our partners uh siblings of our current preschool and pregarn families think we have a good core base of families that we
038could connect with and our goal would be to exceed over a thousand families that would sign up for this service in the birth to three space. Uh but that again that is included as part of our operation aspirational budget that Chief Robles uh mentioned earlier. So, here's an example of our quarterly newsletter that I mentioned. Again, free to sign up. Um, it's available again in English, Spanish, Arabic. This is what it looks like. It's actually English, Spanish, Arabic going left to right on the screen. Uh, so you can see what that looks like. Again, um, laid out really well, uh, graphically, uh, appealing, visually appealing. Lots of great information. Uh, for example, the winter newsletter came right around with after the snow day. things you can do when it snows with your child at home.
039Um, so really timely and relevant information there. Our next core strategy was to distribute care bags. This is again one of our five strategies in the birth to three space. Um, really excited about this. Um, we distributed starting last spring a little over 200 care bags at the family Hispanic Family Foundation Community Baby Shower and that was to new or expectant or recent new moms. Also distributed over 100 care bags through community partners, the Matthew Walker Community Baby shower, other events around town, the AMAC Community Health Fair and Nashville Public Library events. Um, I do want to acknowledge that we received funding originally from PNC to get our initial wave of our care bags uh out to families. Again, you can see over 300 families that we reached that way. Uh, we also have included
040this in our model school grant with the state so we can continue to fund that. And again, our goal is to increase our distribution by 30% this year. So, I'm going to pause here for just a second. I do have a little show and tell. When we talk about care bags, this is not this is not just a any old bag. Okay, this is a nice bag. There is a phone charging port on the side. It's not self-powered though. I will say that. Um, a growth charge for your child if you're like me and you don't like to mark your walls at the house. A bib, a grow together bib. I'm ready for the oo's and the a's now. A little little onesie. Little onesie. I don't know if my son would ever have fit
041into that. Um some books cuz what family doesn't want books? And the high contrast books that are great for for newborns. Um there's some other goodies in here. Uh we do have outlet covers cuz everyone knows you need outlet covers. Again, they're branded with our Grow Together logo. And then this is anformational postcard. So this is kind of the the key to tie it together. Um tells the families about our initiative. We want their feedback and then there's QR codes where they can again access once they go to the website. That's how they can register for other events and then we have a way to keep track of them and follow up with them. So there's postcards including there. Um other things in there. I'm not going to go through everything, but I think you
042get the idea. There's a painting pad in here. Um and I think once your child grows up, you may still want to use this bag for other things. It's uh high quality will hold up. So the the final uh the final aspect the final core strategy here for our uh birth to three space is the home and telea visits and this was as you can understand uh a core strategy right when we were coming out of COVID um and again working with our partners we didn't want to be duplicative in this space uh but we have identified three community partners that do offer home and telea visits again they are listed on our uh grow together website with a direct link uh so that a family is interested in accessing that resource they can go
043on uh click that link. It will take you right to that community partner, Nashville Strong Babies, uh Nurses for Newborns, and then Nurture the Next, our three that we have identified uh through Davidson County that provide uh this service to our families. Um with that, that concludes the updates for our birth to three. I'm going to turn over to Director Fleming to go through prek expansion. Thank you, Chief Williams. Good evening, everyone. I am so excited to talk to you guys about our prek expansion. I stand in front of you as a proud MNS graduate and also soon to be four um children graduating from MNS May 16th. I'm really not counting down y'all, but I'm very excited. So for our prek expansion, oh so care bag events, um of course we always want to
044document um when we go out. So these are some of our um places where we did distribute the care bags. They were great. Um the families love them and especially at the Hispanic um family foundation Plaza Mariachi. They paraded them out and it was sort of like a great show and tell. So, it was really wonderful to be able to participate in that. And in the corner, we have Matthew Walker and that's where we participated and distributed um quite a few care bags as well. All right. So, I'm going to talk to you guys about the five course strategies for prek expansion, our half-day program for preschool three-year-old students, including more students with IEPs in our gened classrooms, increasing our prek classrooms, creating an early learning hub, and then supporting transitions from prek to K.
045So, for our prek expansion strategy for our halfday program for three-year-old students, we did pilot this in 2324 at Ross Early Learning Center. The preference for families was for the AM session. This school year, we opened up the half-day program to families across the district who were seeking that type of program for their children. And then for the upcoming school year, we will be moving the program to the southeast area of town to J Moss and AZ Kelly, adapting our model to where our student growth is in the city. Students who participate in the half-day program do have the option of remaining on the wait list for a full day program as seats become available. Our second strategy is including more um students with IEPs in our gen ed classrooms. This is our access for
046all program. And so access for all allows us to serve more students with IEPs in our gened classrooms. Before in a typical classroom of 20 prek students, we would have 18 gened students with two students with IEPs. With access for all, we're able to serve four students with IEPs along with 16 GenEd seats in a seat in a classroom of 20. This gives our students an opportunity to be in a more inclusive environment, least restrictive learning, working, growing, collaborating with their peers. The numbers on the screen show where we started in 2023 2024 when we piloted. And then upon um the 2025 2026 school year, we will have 160 students with IEPs that we have included in our genet program. This model replicates what takes place in our K through2 classrooms across the district. Our
047next strategy is increasing pre-k classrooms. So this school year we currently have 180 um classrooms across 65 school sites. With the opening of Percy Priest, we're going to have our first um prek program at Percy Priest in 2025 2026. And that will give us 66 sites with 182 classrooms for the upcoming school year. That means that 87% of our elementary schools will now have a pre kindergarten program for families. And this is in addition to our four early learning centers. We're also excited and planning to add a new early learning center in the Hillwood um high school building pending an award of capital funding. It will take approximately 12 to 18 months to retrofit that space to be in compliance for early learning classrooms. The wait list in that area does support this proposal. The
048addition of the Hillwood Early Learning Center will enable MNPS to have an early learning center in all quadrants of the city. Our next strategy is to create an early learning hub. So the proposal is to build a demonstration hub and within this demonstration hub we would house infant, toddler, preschool, pre-k classrooms for employees, on-site training as well as behind the glass observational capabilities. This space would also house the space for early learn for our early learning department. This proposal would require capital funding, but it will also provide an opportunity for our very own MMPS high school students who have a passion for working with children to volunteer, to do an internship, to gain experience in this pathway. It's a great opportunity for this district to springboard them to pursue their interest in education, and we
049want to cultivate that spark for our students. Our next strategy is supporting transitions from preK to K. So, our 2024 kindergarten readiness fair that we had last spring was phenomenal. We were able to double the amount of fair attendees. The services that were provided over the 2023 2024 school year. Our next spare coming up soon, April the 5th, Lent Health Center, 9:00 am to 1 pm. All the cool people are going to be there, so y'all need to come join us. You going to be there? Okay, I'mma look for you. So, we're really excited about that. We're also working on kindergarten preview day, and this has been expanded to two sites we did in the summer of 2024. We plan to have five schools participate in kindergarten preview for summer 2025 and planning is already
050underway with those principles. We're also streamlining kindergarten registration through our parent portal campaign and this is to increase the number of MNS preK parents who are registered to the parent portal to streamline their kindergarten registration experience. When we started the campaign in the fall of 2023, we were able to increase the number of registrations by 110%. So, we're currently in the K registration season and we're encouraging our preK families to register for the portal as we speak. This allows them to become engaged with our district in a way that will follow them up through 12th grade. They will be able to follow attendance, grades, assessments through the use of the portal. We also worked with Raising Readers Nashville to promote and work on a kindergarten readiness community navigator pilot program. We had several MNPS employees
051who served on action team 2 to help bring this to fruition. Volunteers were trained to provide information on kindergarten reg kindergarten readiness, how to register for kindergarten, and these volunteers also went out into community events to provideformational tables at daycarees and other community events and sites. There are some of our pictures from the kindergarten readiness fair. We got school mascots. Um, lots of people come out. We had a school bus experience. The readaloud on the school bus, the transportation group, they do a great job um with encouraging families about transportation, having them come on the bus, asking any questions. It is a great time to be had by all. So, our next thing that we're really excited about, MNPS employee childcare grow together academy at MNPS. The planning stages for this started in fall 2024.
052Employee child care would initially be offered to children 11 months up to three years of age and we want to utilize an existing MMPS school site. We want to reach our MMPS employee families at this early stage. We know that there is a need for child care across our city. We also see this as a way to attract and retain quality teaching staff and of course create a pipeline for our preschool and prek programs. We want MNPS to be the first choice for our MNPS employees for their children engaging them early and then metriculated into our elementary schools and beyond. So, as we began planning, we leaned in on the expertise of our construction and planning department to get some information and some numbers as to what that would look like for an initial buildout
053for opening for classrooms. And as you will see on the screen, there are several things that are needed to start the employee child care. And then as we look at what that would mean for us, we want to look at the we're considering operational costs as well. Um costs would be per child. We want to take in consideration the cost of child care um in areas around the area. We also know that we need to be competitive so that it is indeed a benefit for our employees. So this would be a capital budget request and you'll see the timeline that has been supplied by construction and planning and then once capital funding is awarded the design and construction would take 12 to 10 10 to 12 months overall to complete the project. And then at
054the bottom of the screen, because we are always looking to expand our reach, it would be an additional 872,000 to take three classroom to three classrooms to convert it into two classrooms for employee childcare because there are some support storage spaces that have to go along with that. So, we're really excited about this. We've been planning and looking toward the future to be able to offer something else um for our teaching staff. So, how can the board support? Please support our request for capital funding. Sign up for grow together newsletter. Um encourage others to do so also. community events, advocate for community involvement, and support our efforts for our grow together through college and career. We want to make our imprint from zero all the way up to college. And with that, I will turn
055it back over to Dr. Babel. All right. Thank you so much, um, David and Lauri. We appreciate this um wonderful update around growth together with MNS. I will turn it back over to our chair um to entertain any questions. Are there any questions or comments? Um Chair Mazize, thank you for that report. Um I just want to encourage my uh colleagues if you have an opportunity on April 5th, please go to the uh prek fair. The best time I had is watching little ones who had never experienced being on a school bus experience that for the first time. They didn't want to get off. They thought the bus was going to go with them that day. It was the most fun that you will ever experience. So, if you have an opportunity, please go. Thank
056you. Member Young. Thank you, Chair. Um the capital request for the the for our own academy I I see the number of classrooms but do we know like an estimated what would that capacity be as far as how many students of ch I mean children of employees would we be able to serve? Yes sir. Great question. Our initial buildout uh to do the conversion um it takes three existing classrooms the way they are designed now takes three classrooms to convert to two. It's a 3 to2 ratio. But our initial uh plan would be to have four classrooms that we would serve and that gets us between 45 and 50 children that we would be able to serve in those four classrooms. And then um as far as backtracking to the first part of your presentation,
057as we're reaching out to folks with young children, um are we making sure that we're trying to maybe connect with adoption agencies or other sort of way? I mean, I guess I want to make sure that we're touching all parents that maybe are are coming into parenthood in a non-traditional fashion. Um especially for a lot of my friends, that's how they're uh choose to become parents, and I just want to make sure we're not leaving them out as we're like making that outreach. Yeah, I appreciate that. uh that question and concern. Uh go ahead, Laura. You're looking you're leaning in. Oh, no. Oh, no. I appreciate that. We'll we'll make special note and and because of that question, I want to point out I know she's very shy, but she's in the back. Marishelle Bonafasio,
058she is our community outreach coordinator for kindergarten readiness and she spearheads a lot of this work. Great. I know that that's probably already on her radar. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah. I'm sorry. Not shy anymore. So many board me. Um yeah, so we are that we have not really looked into that and that's a great point to look, you know, adoption agency. So we will put that on our list, especially if you have recommendations. Um please let us know. I will I will reach out to some of my friends and see because that's not something I've explored. But um I know that's a growing number of families. That's how they choose to become families and I want to make sure that we're including them in this mix. We definitely do. Thank you. All right. Member Elrod, thanks.
059I think that's a great suggestion. Uh, Zach, I we um we went through that process many years ago and so there's a lot of families I think you could reach there and it's definitely a part of the the home check and everything else that you have to do. So, I think all those additional classes would be super helpful. I have a lot of questions. I'm sorry I've run out of water as well. Um but early childhood is um early childhood education is probably my special interest if you will within education. So I'm gonna start from probably where we ended and go forward so I can go through the presentation where I've written my notes. My first question that I have is um on slide 18 the 2.5 million I is that for capital only is
060or is that including operating? I thought I heard somebody say it was operating cost as well. So this fund, this amount is for capital and retrofitting the spaces and then we're looking at operating costs as well. Okay. Would may I ask why we would have operating costs if we're going to use a community partner to run our daycarees? So that's something we're still looking at. Uh couple ways sort of depends on how we get there. we could s simply enter into a lease a space lease agreement with a partner provide the service and then they would collect any any fees directly cut us out that that might be the preferable way to go. Um so that would not that would remove us from needing to allocate operating costs that we would outsource the service anyway.
061So uh we think that's we're still figuring exactly out how that uh flow would look for for funding. Um, but it could just simply be that we're just entering into a lease agreement with the agency to provide the service. Yeah, I think it's we're early on on developing the RFP process and and and all of that, how involved or not, uh, we will be in the operating of the daycare. So, this to be determined. That's fair. I know that part of the excitement when we've talked about it whether it was in 2022 as a big goal that we had set to now when we've talked about it with the city um part of the enthusiasm for funding was you know it's just capital though it's not always just capital um but there is some you
062know excitement about that and so I just wanted to make sure I was speaking eloquently if we got that as a question um so I appreciate that and I also wanted to make sure this initial buildout would also be at Hillwood. Correct. That is also to be determined. Um we have some historical survey data just kind of a um um assessment of where um the demand would be um for child care. So we have some ideas, but it's to be determined officially where this might go, but it is it is unlikely in the early stages for it to also be at Hillwood. Am I accurate on that? Right. So, we've looked at a few sites and and just want to be clear once we get started, we don't see it as being limited to that
063one site because obviously where we're looking at where the need is uh where families work and live would be a consideration for convenience. And so, ideally, we would have these uh this opportunity, multiple sites around the district. Yes. Uh but again, we want to start with something initial and grow into that. But I will say there is potential expansion pl space at Hillwood if we decide to go that direction. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, on the kindergarten fair and preview day, may we be informed of when those are? I would like to attend one. And if you have sent that to us, I apologize for missing it. Um, but it sounds like a great experience. I appreciate the buses included. um touch a bus and touch a truck experiences are always exciting for young children,
064but particularly with school bus safety and if we want to say school bus etiquette, uh that's an important lesson to be just starting to be acquainted with. So I appreciate that it's not just a classroom in the school, which of course is an important part of it, but as we like to say here on the board, our bus drivers are typically the first people that our students become aware of and come in contact with. So, I think that's a wise strategic and learning opportunity. So, thank you for doing that. Um, I like that you guys are including people into the parent portal and doing those registrations. I bet that has helped with continuation of usage as they get into kindergarten. I want to make sure I understood they're not using that in prek. They're only
065they're signing up to use it in kindergarten. There's not information for them there in prek. the newsletter and the other things are outside of that. So for prek, they're using it to be able to have that seamless registration into K. Okay. And then they're also able to see attendance if I'm not mistaken. Okay, that makes sense. Okay. Okay. I mean, I'm sure as the portal grows and its capabilities grow, so will what parents can see, but at this time Yeah. I I was just going to add it's moving away from we were having um and this is years back we were having families enroll and register in pre-K and then enroll and register again in kindergarten. And so this has allowed us have a more seamless process that once you go through the registration process
066in prek you're there for in our system and then you can easily go in and update be rolled up to your school so on and so forth. So it was um really from a support perspective for our families um to maximize the accuracy and the number of times and frequency they had to go in and reenroll. That's wise. That's wise. Um for the prek expansion strategy update and creating an early learning hub. That sounds exciting. Um I know that it was mentioned that's on slide 14 uh that MNPS students may be able to work with inside that early learning hub. Do we have an academy that matches along with that or is that simply students that are interested and maybe self-appoint themselves? I'm I have I missed that we have that academy somehow we have
067teaching as a profession right at several of our high schools um and now so students from that pathway would be a great opportunity for them to pursue this particularly if it's early childhood that they're interested in. Okay. Okay. Yes. Okay. Um I'm glad that Hillwood uh if if we're able to get the capital funding. I think it is the right thing to do for not just Nashville, but it is a shame that there's it's the only quadrant currently that doesn't have an early childhood center or ECTs. And I think it's um the wise thing to do. I appreciate that. Um, you gave us a percentage and I missed it on slide 12 of a ratio of class for a group of 20. I think it was our students of IEPs versus um, general classroom students.
068Can you retell me that percentage? I apologize. So, for our access for all classrooms, we have in a classroom of 20. It's a gened classroom 16 gened students and four students with IEPs. Okay. Okay. How many are any of our access for all classrooms are they grant funded or are they all funded through our budget? So our access for all classrooms they are all most of them are locally funded through our budget but we do have a few sites that are state funded. They're VPK classrooms. Okay. Okay. For just for some additional context um we had have had historically three types of classrooms. We've had self-contained for students with the most intense needs. We've had blended which would serve eight students with IEPs and eight genet students. And then we had the genetic classroom and
069essentially we're moving to maybe a two classroom model where we just have gened classrooms and student with IEPs are there self-contained still being a service that would provide for students that need that. Okay. So essentially moving shifting our model and that's allowed us to be budget neutral in the sense that we instead of having say a blended classroom and a gened classroom at a school we just have two gened classrooms at a school and I think that would be really help with help with enrollment as a parent that tried to enroll their twins into prek. It became difficult with one with an IEP and one with the other and there were not because they were grant focused at that school. it was hard to get into one and the other one couldn't get in and
070it it became difficult. So that's wise as a streamline as well and for usability and accountability, all that kind of stuff. So I appreciate that. Um thank you everybody for sticking through with all of my I'm excited questions. Um the the diaper bag is real cute. I think we all agreed. Um P I'm not surprised that PNC is your grant funder. That makes sense. That's their that's their foundation focus is early childhood. Did you is the grant just for this year or is the do we are we still going to have those pass this year? Yes. So the we there are two initial funding sources and we're always looking for other ways. Okay. Uh PNC was the first. We also included this in our model schools grant with the state department. That's what you mentioned.
071Thank you. And so um con constantly looking for other opportunities to to fund these. Okay. Are we allowed to partner with like the library has a new early childhood reader program where they're trying to get families to come in and get uh library cards earlier for their children to get them access to books. Are we allowed to partner with the library on that? Is that an option? Yes. So, the initial strategy here wasn't for us to try to saturate the entire city with all of these services. We've worked closely with our community partners to really determine who's doing what fair so that we're not duplicating um services and programs. So, a lot of this you will see partnership um opportunities where if they're providing that then we'll connect, we'll share out the information, we'll share
072the resources and vice versa. They'll send families to us for other um supports that we're providing. I mean, that makes that that specific example makes a lot of sense for the newsletter and maybe the text as they get into P3 and P4, but um okay. So, I appreciate that there's some overlap between the two. Um, and I believe that's it. I want to say, uh, it is still a great loss without Phyllis. Um, so I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, member O'Hara Block. Um, I just had an overall, while we're on this slide, an overall question about enrollment broadly. Um, so this talks about the number of students served in these classrooms, but can you just talk a little bit about like what the enrollment looks like in preK broadly? And then are we
073seeing an expansion of enrollment? How do we figure out then where we're targeting our own expansion based on that? Okay. So, at the end of last year, we ended with 3168 students enrolled in preK. And currently, as of March 7th, I believe we're on track. We have 3,080. Um, we had a few more students that enrolled after spring break. So, we will enroll students in our genet classrooms up through the last 20 days of school. And then our students who have um who go through the IEP testing process, they can enroll up to the last day of school. Once students are tested and parents determine that they want the services, we provide a place for them to be able to get those services. Thank you. And also just I'm really excited to see new preK
074classrooms at Percy Priest and in addition to the other classrooms we've had available in the Hillsboro cluster. I think it'll be a great addition. So, thanks member Elad. Sorry, I I did have one more question. Under the aspirational budget, um when we had our budget committee meeting, there was a an item underneath aspirational budget for grow together with MNPS for $.3 million. Do we know what that is? So, we can speak to that. And if you don't know that, that's okay. You can get back to me. That's fine. That's okay. That's okay. That was just a connection I'm quickly made. So I appreciate you letting me come back to that question. Thank you. Okay, Vice Chair Nibal and Kenny. Um, thank you so much and thank you for this presentation and I'm really excited um
075that we're expanding in the prek space and really investing or beginning to look at investment in the zero through three space. Um I think it'll be critically important um as we look at the trajectory through post-secary. Um I do have a couple of questions maybe um and if you don't have the answers if you could just get back with me. Um when we look at the rate ratios for that 0 to3 space are we looking are we following along DHS or DOE related to those regulations and and what it will look like? And then the second question combined um after that is um I know the state um has talked a lot about um funding around the expansion of early childhood centers. Is there a way for MNPS to tap into any of that funding
076um to help with capital or operating cost as it relates to the early childhood space? All right. So, first question, um, we looked at the compliance ratios for the Department of Education. They currently, um, are our licensing agency for all of our 180 classrooms across the district in preK. So, those ratios and those numbers came from their rules and regulations for us to follow those. And then, can you repeat the second question? funding from um the state as it relates to the early childhood space. So in our planning stages, we're taking into consideration different funding sources. So that is something that we'll continue to look at. Um so we don't have an answer to that question right now. Um we we just initially started looking to see where those funds could come from. We know
077that we need to have, you know, an influx of capital funds to at least get off the ground and running, but then we'll come back, our committee will come back and take a look at it as well. Thank you. Any uh member Maze, just really a quick question. Do you have currently have an idea of what the um the number of of children on the wait list in Southeast Nashville? for prek specifically. So, not at this moment. We have one that was as of January um that I have access to, but we um families apply every day and so we can get those current weight list numbers for those two clusters in the southeast for you. Thank you, member F. Question. Um, is there a waiting list based on like space or is it just
078overall like hiring the staff to support or are we just looking at space? Like where is the waiting list accumulated from? We're looking at capacity of the classrooms. So none of our classrooms can go over 20 except for Monasuri um because they're multi-aged. But our waiting list are is dependent upon how many students can go into a particular classroom. And southeast the southeast part of the city has our highest weight list. So it seats um against registrations. So it's space like we don't have the classroom or the stab. I mean it's it's a new Okay. Cuz I was like just coming from a previous meeting that I had with MHD, they're going to be doing like support hubs in some of their um housing development agencies. and some of these support hubs may provide like
079tutoring and different um access to like some of those prek early development childhood programming. So, I was like that could be like a good partnership because they're actually going to have spacing. Um they're going to go in and like actually renovate some of the homes, knock down the walls and open up and create like different spacing. So, that's why I was asking, is it a space issue or is it just we don't have, you know, it's it's probably more of a funding issue. But I think my team would agree. We would be an advocate for universal prek, but you've got to have the funding um to do so. You've got to have the space to do so. You've got to have the staffing. So, it's it's a um multifaceted, you know, kind of plan that
080you have to create. um if I believe if the funding was there, we would expand as quickly um as we could given the demand in each quadrant because you do have to make sure um that the the weight list or the need is being met within the respective communities. Okay. Thank you. Member Nibbal Kenny, I just have a quick question. I I think I know, but I just want to ask um around teacher certification for prek. Um, are we seeing a challenge with with getting certified teachers in that space? Are do we have a pipeline in place to support it? Kind of where are we in that in that space to be able to support preK? I am so glad you asked that question. You're welcome. So our um exceptional education department received a grant
081and part of those grant funds we have a pipeline of teachers who are able to attend classes and receive certification through David Lipkcom and in return their fees are paid their practice tests are paid and in return they agree to come back and teach in MNS for a certain amount of years. Um and so right now we have I want to say it's three co cohorts and David Lipkcom after they take so many classes they're able to get a license to where they can teach in prek while finishing up their practice test in their lensure and then when finished they will be dy licensed in early childhood. So they could teach an exceptional ed class or they can teach a gened class. So, we want them to teach, you know, whatever class that, you know,
082their hearts desire, but having that integrated early childhood license is really going to be a game changer to help fill some of the vacancies. And I serve on the state's teacher pipeline um committee, and this is an area where they are um creating um some additional flexibilities um moving forward given the growth particularly in prek and all the um requirements that are there. So, will these Thank you for that. And I'm so glad to see that that's happening. Um, do you anticipate them rolling it back also to the zero through three space or will we not have to worry about that in that space? No, they don't have oversight of of that. I mean, these two conversations are very different um when you're talking about early childhood versus the certifications required in the prek12 space.
083All right. Thank you very much. We appreciate your presentation and all the good information that you gave to us. Thank you. Um, and congratulations to Lori. She was one of our 30-year employees that was recognizable. Proud employee of MNP. Thank you for serving us. Um, if the board will grant me, I'm going to insert uh chair's priv chair's privilege here. Um, the Dinkens family have to leave, but I want to move up the vote um, so we can mark this occasion while they have been very patiently waiting for us to uh, to vote on this. So, may I have a motion uh, to rename uh, Brick Church Middle to um, Judge Dink? Moved by member uh, Taylor, second by member Maize. Um, I just personally want to mark make sure we mark this time in
084history. I had the privilege of knowing your father, um, being in the political arena. Um, and he was a very special jurist. Um, I've actually seen him in the courtroom, believe it or not, uh, monitoring a lawsuit that was working through a system. and he was always the standard which I when I've recruited other judicial candidates that I judge their ability and their passion to what your father's legacy was in the Tennessee law but in Nashville law but more importantly what he did for the se the desegregation of Metro schools. We would not be here today if it wasn't for your father the long um and tedious and um historic nature of his work. um and probably innovative nature of the work too. Um I think it's very important that we mark that. I think
085it's apppropo that we're actually starting learning together because he was always looking toward to future and the fact that we had a presentation regarding kids from zero to three I think is um divine intervention of saying this is what his legacy and purpose was that the desegregation was not only for the current students but the students of the future and that the fact that we have achieved what we have in metro schools um and being a minority majority district um that was of your father's doing and we would not be the awesome school district that we were with the diversity of kids and more importantly the success from those kids um would not have happened without your father. So, I just want to take this time and just actually mark and thank you for your
086father's legacy and for what he has done um in the judicial arena um on the state level and on the local level, but more importantly what he done for Metro Schools and it's an honor and a joy u when I heard that his name was recommended I actually like did a little did a yell and cheer for that and so I just want to make sure that you knew from the board perspective of why this is so important that we're naming the school after your father in this time and under this era. Um I want to give it to member um Taylor to talk about the committee report um for the naming of the school. Thank you board member player. Um I had the uh pleasure of chairing the uh renaming committee this evening and
087um just to briefly give the report uh the recommendation was unanimous to uh change the name of Brick Church Middle School to the Richard H. Dinkens Middle School in Nashville. And so I want to thank my fellow board members for uh for their support and voting for this. And uh I'm going to turn it back over to Chair Player. Thank you, sir. Um now I hand over to Dr. Battle. All right. I also want to take um an opportunity and acknowledge our executive principal who will be leading this transition from Brick Church Middle School to um our Richard, Judge Richard H. Nikkins Middle School. And that is principal Robin Beard Tilman. If you could please stand and be recognized so that we can acknowledge you. And thank you. she has been phenomenal um in this
088process and we're excited about what's happening um in the school community. So, thank you uh Principal Tillman. Um I don't want to put you all on the spot, but we do want to offer you an opportunity if you would like to share anything or any remarks, no pressure, but if you would like to um we would love um to offer you a few moments. I'll be brief. I see the two-minute clock right there. And I that's not for you. That's for public participation. We just wanted to uh thank you all on behalf of all of us uh for this honor. Um education was something that was really important to my dad and he truly believed that it was at the core of a strong community, strong city, and a strong family as well. So I
089thank you all for this recognition. I also thank you all for the work you're doing in continuing to advance that mission. You know, it's not something that you know when that case ended, our work's done. you know that really the work that started then. So I just want to thank all you all for all your hard work and making sure that his legacy continues to improve and you know the next generation have split it through them one day you know. So thank you guys again. Thank you. Thank you very much. Your father was a very warm and more importantly he was a very downear man. If you knew him there was no pretention. And if you saw him without his robe, you wouldn't I say this affection, you wouldn't know he was a he was
090a judge because he was so down to earth and so personable that he made everyone feel warm and welcome. So it's my privilege to have this vote happen. All in favor raise your hand say I. I obviously no oppose. Um and it passes. So Brick Church is now officially Judge Dinkens Jud. Sorry. Yay. Awesome time. Thank you. Um, now we'll have uh Mr. Surface come up for public participation. And thank you for your patience, Mr. Surface. Thank you. I didn't see it on the agenda, so I wasn't real sure. Yes. Uh, good evening board members. Dr. Battle, my name is Tom Surface. I'm in district 8, Aaron O'Hoer Blocks District. I am a proud parent of two M&S grads. I taught math briefly at Overton High School and I co-chair Noah's um education task force.
091So I first want to congratulate you all on the success that that we're seeing the the great um progress that is making. I want to congratulate the board administration for the the good leadership. So thank you for for that. But I wanted to talk about the budget very quick because I know that's happening. uh budget next year. Um Noah has thousands of members in our community and we will advocate for full funding of uh public education. So we are on your side and uh we are ready to contact the mayor at the appropriate time that the council at the appropriate time as well in support of uh of fully funding the budget. There's a couple things I want to promote. We support uh full funding full and expanded funding of wraparound services including community achieves
092family resource centers and so on. We support fully funding and expanding um uh the the peace centers, advocacy centers, restorative practice programs uh and hope that those will be fully implemented across uh across the district. Um, and so the, as I say, we we will see you tomorrow at the public meeting and we're looking forward to getting more details about what's going to be proposed and we will be there to advocate for those uh as we go. So, Thank you. All right, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Um, is there a motion to accept the consent agenda? So moved. There's a motion. Is there a second? Second. Second. Moved by um member vice chair Nalan Kenny, second by member Fain. Um all in favor say I. I. Any oppose? All right, the consent agenda
093passes. We'll now move on to board reports. Um we will start with the scope conference. Um and school board member Wyn is going to present. All right. Thank you, chair. Um, so on the Tuesday of the spring break, I attended the Tennessee School Board Association scope conference. Um, so I believe that stands for student leadership some of something. Um, but it was at uh, Belmont University, so we had the honor of being able to like see that conference um, their dining hall, explore a little bit. Um, but overall I had a lot of fun. Um, I'm sad Christine wasn't able to be there, but I got to work with a very diverse uh, group of students. So similar to how you guys kind of work with those schoolboard members um for TBSA, they brought their
094students from all across Tennessee. So a lot of also students from rural areas. So that was a refreshing perspective. Um so the conference ranged from issues that came from lengthening the amount of school days to zero tolerance policies. Uh so we got the cards on that before and my debate was on extending the school the school year from being 180 days to 200 days. Um so I actually served as my group leader. So I went on to present um our argument onto the stage and then I also was a conference officer candidate. Um so yeah, we simulated a board meeting kind of within the first period of the day and then we went to lunch. Um and then we had the grand session. Um and then uh board member Maze would be happy to share
095pictures of that. Um so I had a blast. Um I think it was a lot of fun and I'm excited to hopefully attend next year as well. And just one quick thing to add, she was um I had several uh school board members come to me and say how impressed they were with her. She did a phenomenal job at the conference. So, thank you for representing Metro Schools. Like, of course, she's the best. Um now, we'll have Diona Hill by member Maize. Oh, yes. So, just a quick thank you to my schoolboard colleagues for joining us and for parents from I think it was Rosebank, wasn't it? Rosebank Elementary School. We had a couple of parents that joined us for the day on the hill. It was um it was a good day and it
096was an exclamation point because it was my birthday and I got to hang out with all my friends. Um, one of the things that um that I really enjoyed about this day was that we had some very intentional conversations with legislators. And interestingly enough, um I saw just yesterday um the Tennessee Holler had a post speaking to Representative White where he actually talked about how he voted no on the um the bill to refuse enrollment for students. and he said the primary reason that he did that was because he had had conversations about that vote instead of having folks yell at him and scream at him. And I just in my own mind I just decided that that was because we were in his office and we were having those conversations. So it is a
097very important I want folks to understand it's very important to have those conversations with legislators. Um and it could change someone's mind. So whether or not that's accurate, I'm just going to say it was us. So I just want to say thank you to all of you for providing uh some time in your day to spend on Capitol Hill. Hopefully uh well, not hopefully, but advocating for all of our children. It was uh it was a really good day. You know, of course, you know, there are those knuckleheads, but it was a really good day overall, and I'm very thankful for my colleagues for being there. So, thank you. Thank you. We will have the legal conference report. Um so this past weekend, Dr. Nam Kenny and I um attended the Council of Great City
098Schools Legislative and Legal and Policy Conference in DC. Um so Council of Great City Schools is an organization that represents 78 of the nation's largest urban public school districts. Um we were there with I'd say like around 150 superintendents, staff, school board members from a host of those uh those districts. We um had the opportunity to spend I think some good time with people from Atlanta, Charlotte, Birmingham, New York, Durham, Phoenix, LA, DC, all over the country and talk about um some of the issues that those folks are experiencing, some things we're experiencing, good strategies that people have. Uh the conference itself covered a number of different issues that we are all experiencing right now. So, um we spent some time talking about challenging state legislation. Uh so we talked about the um we we
099spent a lot of time both hearing about and then being asked about and getting feedback on in particular the legislation um that would uh look to challenge PLR veto and um the ability of immigrant students undocumented students to attend uh public school. There was a lot of conversation around that. Um we also had uh the opportunity to learn and hear from folks on research and strategies to support students. So um all different types of students and uh and and to hear the type of research that is being done both by um the council and also by other folks and they talked a little bit about some of the NATE findings um and the things uh uh the the sort of success that we've been having um and we received some uh some positive feedback on
100that. And then we spent a lot of time talking about current federal challenges. So obviously um the uh reduction in force at the department of education um the uh executive order to shutter the department of education as best the uh the administration can without the support of Congress. Um and then they're hoping with the support of Congress. We talked a lot about title funding, about continuing resolutions, about budgets. Um, one thing that was news for me that I think we all need to be aware of is the potential of uh the ability of Medicare um and Medicaid cuts to actually really harm um our budget from a district perspective. Um and then we talked they they also presented a number of different things on uh court cases, court strategies. Um, I think one thing there
101is just, um, in addition to thinking about all the things we need from a budgetary perspective, I think it's inevitable that over the next couple of years, we're probably going to need additional legal support, um, and the legal uh, offices for the city are probably going to need a lot more funding um, because there are going to be significant not just legal challenges, but also just paying attention to the number of lawsuits that are going on and the way in which that can impact um the district. So, I'm not going to lie, it was a little depressing. Um Bertha and I had a great time. Um but it was definitely uh it definitely was sobering. Um at the same time, I think um a couple of big takeaways and and and I think we're both
102happy to share things that we learned, but um the Council of Great City Schools offers great services for us. Um and so you know to the extent that we as board members in addition to Dr. Battle and her staff need information about what's happening federally or connections to folks in other places that are experiencing similar types of things. They're a great organization for that. Um and then the second thing that was awesome is just the thing that you all have heard previously when um when Bertha and others have gone to these conferences like everywhere we went people were like you're from Nashville. We love the team in Nashville. Dr. Battle's fantastic and her team's so great. And it was a lot of like, no, no, you don't know them. It's cool um from us. Uh
103so, um so I mean, there's a lot to be paying attention to obviously from a federal perspective. Um and yeah, fingers crossed, but they're they're going to do the work for us, so that's good. Thank you very much. Budget committee. Yeah, thank you. Um, thank you so much. We during the we had a budget committee meeting today where we discussed the proposed um FY26 budget um and went into detail about that. Um, I invite everyone who did not make it to that meeting to pull up the video on YouTube um, under the MNPS Metro government um, website um, where you'll be able to review um, what we discussed in the budget. Also want to invite you to the community budget meeting that we will host tomorrow 5:30 in the wellness center. Right. Yes. Okay. Um,
104and um, thank you All right. Be no further business. This meeting is adjourned. 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.