001for your grace welcome to this first school board meeting of the academic 2022-23 2023 school year and the first of august thank you all for joining us we have been called to order we officially have a quorum i believe i saw mrs cheryl mays with congressman cooper's office former school board chair and uh school board member elect would you please join us at the stat at the um podium for the pledge with everyone else please stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of for america it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thanks for that shout out chair bugs thank [Applause] you all right uh i would like to see a motion to accept or amend the the agenda as uh listed do
002we have a second second all right all in favor please raise your hand it has been unanimously accepted we will begin our evening then with awards and recognitions it seems like we have quite a few dr battle yes we do have a couple today this evening again good evening i'm chair bugs and board members everyone who's with us tonight i'm excited to honor two members of team mmps who won national awards this summer for their great work supporting and lifting up our students first up is dr brenda diaz executive principal of nashville big picture high school who was named the 2022 ted sizer school leader of the year from among the 81 principals who lead big picture learning schools across the united states there's even a round of applause [Applause] all right principal diaz stay
003up here at the podium so this award is named after ted ciser an educator who once said i cannot teach a child i do not know those words fit right in with our district-wide mission of making every mnps student known a mission that dr diaz and her team embrace fully dr diaz always signs off on her emails with the phrase leading with love and courage and she does just that daily under her leadership nashville big picture school works every day to build and sustain a culture of kindness that supports students in pursuing their dreams with a curriculum that is geared toward each student's unique interests their backgrounds and their learning style as dr diaz puts it i believe our goal as educators is to never forget to focus on the individual strengths and gifts of
004all students while we work to meet their very needs one student at a time i'm a radical leader because i unapologetically love children dr diaz we're thrilled to know that big picture learning also sees what we've all been fortunate to see on a regular basis since you joined mnps in 2017. thank you for everything you do every day for your students and your staff and congratulations on this great honor and if you don't mind we'd like for you to please come up and take a picture congratulations [Applause] hey john something for the nature academy okay [Applause] all right next up we have april gong a gear up coordinator at maplewood high school who won the nccep gear up professional of the year award from the national council for community and educational partnerships um april why
005don't you come on up come on don't mind i like to speak a little greatness about you uh while you're up front so for those of you who don't know gear up stands for gaining early awareness and readiness for undergraduate programs a federally funded initiative that works to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to go to college and to succeed when they get there ms gung is an ideal leader and supporter of students in this space she was a first generation high school graduate and college graduate herself and is a former high school counselor she not only understands her students but also has a passion for helping them get to where they want to go as ms gung says whether it be a four-year or two-year college trade school apprenticeship military or
006straight to work with an industry certification already in hand i love walking alongside maplewood high school students in their journey towards envisioning and achieving life success thanks to the gear up nashville and maplewood high school students and staff who support me and thinking big about this work ms gong you make us proud with the way you pour yourself into your students and their drive to achieve their dreams congratulations on this great award and if you would also grace is up at the front to take a quick photo to continue to celebrate you congratulations is it now or is it with the name you come up here too well let's all do it [Applause] thank you very much again dr battling congratulations to those staff members we know you're having a great impact on our students
007we appreciate what you do but now we will move on to our director's report after the first two days of school well two half days for pre-k in kindergarten we're excited to hear about what you have to say dr bella all right thank you so much again madam chair all right thank you again to this board for your vision for your support as we've kicked off another great school year most importantly thank you to all of our teachers our staff students and families who decide to make and call mnps your home for the 22 and 22-23 school year last year you all dug in and helped to dig us out of the effects of the pandemic and i'm excited to build upon the strong foundation that was laid last year in terms of academic growth
008and progress i'm also excited about the many new programs and initiatives that were developed and implemented particularly related to the social emotional learning needs of our students we are now home not only are we a one-to-one district technology wise we are now home to advocacy centers in all of our elementary schools and restorative practice assistants and peace centers in all of our secondary schools right i know we've got some partners here who've been on this journey with us so we're excited about that implementation so welcome to the 2022-23 school year before i get into our back-to-school updates i want to first kick us off with a video to show the excitement of getting ready for the first day back to school which was yesterday monday [Applause] [Music] welcome back [Applause] and it is going to
009be [Applause] [Music] mission [Music] uh [Applause] all right a round of applause for everyone welcome back to a great year all right so i had the distinct let me go back i had the distinct pleasure of kicking off the start of the school year visiting several of our schools this week they are filled with dynamic teams who are eager to ensure every mnps student is known so a quick shout out i want to give a thank you to east high school east middle school head middle magnet haynes middle school for demonstrating strong learning communities kicking off on day one i also had the pleasure of walking the halls at robert churchill elementary to support their new principal kenneth bonner who has introduced a new health system at the school named after some of the fine
010colleges and universities in nashville it's a pretty cool house system that you should check out yesterday churchwell students were greeted by fisk university students doctors from vanderbilt university students from belmont mmpd support hub leaders and many others it was an inspiring visit to all of the schools that i just shared and i'm excited to watch our students thrive throughout the school year now i am also pleased and excited to be a parent here in metro national public schools after a lifetime as a student and staff member my son is now attending pre-k and is off to a great start with excellent leadership principals teachers and support staff y'all he is ready to go so thank you all for all of your support as we kicked off this year and i know he will have a
011fantastic foundational year in pre-k let's see i might need some help here advancing my slide thank you so we still aren't in our ideal space for staff because like other districts and industries there's a labor shortage and competition for staff to fill vacancies across the board um as of yesterday actually we had about the end of day we had about 135 vacancies this number has actually decreased um throughout the day for full-time certificated vacancies so we're somewhere closer to around 100 at the end of today which represents roughly about two percent or less of our staff our total number of certificated teachers so we'll continue to push forward in that area ensuring that all of our students have high quality staff with regards to our bus drivers we're proud that we have retained largely the
012same number of drivers this last school year but we have more drivers who have expressed interest in coming back to mnps who have previously left due to pay along with more applicants we have an additional four trainees who started on monday and 10 more in process through interviews or background checks so that is exciting news that we're starting to build that pull and being able to feel the number of vacancies we've had in our transportation department for many many years and we're so thankful to all of our support employees including our drivers who safely transport our students to and from school daily we've been fortunate to be able to market our district above others by having the best paid teachers in the state i'm a new starting wage for bus drivers that is aligned to
013wego as well as an 18 an hour minimum wage for support staff and paid family leave for all of our employees in terms of steps we're taking to fulfill vacancies we have strong partnerships with area universities to identify recruit potential teachers we have our grow your own program which provides support staff opportunities to earn a teaching certificate which we have we have a number of our grow your own employees joining our certificated staff this year there are options available to hire permitted but not certificated teachers we are working with retired teachers associations to recruit retirees based on new state laws that grant greater flexibility to those staff in addition to previously existing 120-day positions for those who don't want to commit to full-time teaching throughout the year but provide needed support particularly when there are
014vacancies at the start of the year or when vacancies occur due to fmla or other reasons in addition to using general assistance or what we call sometimes permanent substitutes are regular substitute teachers to field vacancies principals may adjust their master schedules to balance their class sizes as long as they fall within state requirements for average and maximum class sizes as well as assigning administrators to support classes when necessary so again we are all hands on deck we're asking all of our certificated staff to make sure that our students have that quality leader and teacher in front of them on a daily basis so we will continue to adjust to meet the needs of our students as well as continuing to recruit new employees new staff members to team mnps our enrollment centers have also been
015extremely busy processing new applications and transfers for students over the last two weeks with nearly 9 000 families assisted about 3 100 k-12 enrollments and transfers process and 207 new pre-k students added in the first few weeks there are a lot of changes and enrollment numbers that students are added or withdrawn but we'll look towards our 40-day count to see where we truly are for this school year and how that might affect state funding or school-based allocation so we'll continue to keep you updated with those numbers we've also seen a steady increase of english learners over the last school year when we started with about one hundred 16 fifty and ended the year last year with nearly um seventeen thousand five hundred english language learner students now we're starting off the year with eighteen thousand
016four hundred el students or twenty two percent of our district so we're proud of the diversity of our students and to support them daily our el office has been working with the matthew walker health clinic to get these students vaccines and physicals and we launched a new 24 7 translation support service for live on demand interpretation to help our schools keep up with the demand and to stay connected with families we've been extremely busy over the summer kicking off for this upcoming school year this summer we have provided a lot of paid professional learning opportunities for our certificated and our support staff so that they can be ready prepared for the new school year and that is consistently the feedback that i've received is just a high level preparation for our team as we kicked
017off on yesterday on thursday of last week we had a district-wide in-service with thousands of teachers and support staff going to attend trainings aligned to their area of expertise we also instituted diversity equity and inclusion training for all staff to help align with our core tenant of identifying and eliminating inequities in our district as well as sel or social emotional learning training and literacy professional development along with many optional courses for teachers and staff to participate in let's also not forget we kicked off our year with a great together for teachers event hosted by pencil and other great partners at first horizon park with lots of giveaways and food and music and games and just lots of fun so thanks to again to our friends at pencil and our other sponsors for hosting our third
018annual now together for teachers event i also had the pleasure of kicking off our district y in service with our transportation team our paraprofessionals our low incidents teachers and therapists at mcgavock and hillwood high schools and had the pleasure of welcoming all of our new teachers in their new teacher orientation orientation at stratford high school i will tell you all the energy the excitement was contagious and i was truly inspired by all these valued leaders and all the great work ahead now family information center has been busy and hard at work as well they start off the school year family started the school year with lots of questions and we want to make sure that we're meeting the needs of our parents and our families and our family information center again has been hard at
019work fielding those calls and visits to provide them with the information they need for their students to be successful in the upcoming school year while also connecting them with the people and resources to tackle any issues they might be experiencing that will prevent that great start so more than 7 500 people or families have been serviced by the fic in just the last couple of weeks and so we are so proud that we've been able to meet that demand more so better this year than in years past so we will continue to expand align our resources and coordinate to be that first point of contact to support our families for the kickoff of the year now another exciting update so last year our schools won three state championships we'd have 15 individual and seven relay
020truck and field state championships and a wrestling individual state championship we had two mnps student athletes who won mr football and mr basketball as the best players in the state so more importantly 75 of our mnps high school teams earned tws caa academic achievement awards for their grade point averages as the fall sports season begins for cross country football girls soccer and volleyball we're aiming even higher this year in our athletic and academic success the football jamboree kicks things off for football thursday evening this week y'all and all fall sports will be in action next week this year we're excited because we're expanding opportunities for our students with the addition of cross-country and soccer guess where in elementary schools and cross-country in our middle schools how about that sports clubs for our youngest learners in
021elementary are third and fourth graders and expanding at the middle school level so in conjunction with the special olympics we're also increasing our high school unified track and field teams across the school district with the help of the tennessee titans who are adding girls flag football in the spring and one last addition yeah it's all worth celebrating our mnps middle schools have joined the tennessee middle school athletic association and will not only have the opportunity to compete at the district level but also at the state level so it is going to be a great year for athletics and mnps last week i had the pleasure of joining um chief drake chief john drake for an announcement relating to the safety and security of our students here in mmps particularly in light of the shooting in
022uvalde so starting this past monday yesterday active duty mnps officers volunteered to visit campuses on an overtime basis to provide a visible layer of protection for elementary students in the morning along with check-ins by mmpd throughout the school day the school resource officer program like the police department generally is understaffed and they're working on a national recruitment strategy to get more officers here in nashville meanwhile they have a plan to ensure officers are stationed at our high schools and that each middle school has daily coverage in the form of an sro that will rotate throughout a sector and provide a touch point for principals who need assistance we've continued to iron out the details on the school ambassador program that would utilize retired police officers who police officers who will be unarmed but use their
023experience in training and unarmed and i should say i'm uniform not uniformed as well along with training provided by mnps on how to support students with different needs and address implicit bias we are still working to identify the source of funding that will be used and the mechanism for employment but chief drake has already been reaching out to those retired officers to identify candidates and to recruit them back into service in their community long term we will also be looking to expand our campus support staff positions that are currently in place at the middle and high school levels to also serve in elementary schools providing the extra layer of protection through the adherence to safety protocols and procedures pressure testing and providing support to staff in need of assistance in terms of the physical infrastructure
024of our schools we are continuing to leverage the four million dollars that was allocated by the city to m p s for one time expenditures the bulk of which will come in the form of completing the long-term vestibule project throughout the district we're down to 12 schools that are in some phase of design or construction and look to have that completed by the end of this year we're also meaning december we're also upgrading security cameras lighting fencing and making other security improvements where necessary and continuing to look at other ways we can provide security such as new technology that can be added to our existing security camera system to detect weapons and identify threats finally no investments will take the place of vigilance and practice by our school-based staff who must respond first to any
025threats before police arrive this means stopping threats from happening by keeping doors locked at all times and strictly adhering to visitor policies along with regular drills and training so that all staff and students will be on the same page in case a real threat does occur so that work will continue we will continue to review and make adjustments as needed but we are not only doubling down on our safety and security measures with our staff we're asking our students we're asking our parents we're asking our visitors to help us really comply and adhere to those safety measures we have in place to keep everyone safe all right no cost meals so over the summer we received approval to leverage our esser funding to continue offering no-cost meals to all of our students we had previously
026done so using federal usda waivers that expired which moved us back into the previous system of cep schools that are free and non-cep schools that require your free and reduced price lunch forms so we are asking families to still fill out the forms that will help us as we're collecting our data and information as we move forward but for the next two school years metro national public schools will offer no-cost meals to all students for breakfast and for lunch thank you and and finally i just want to provide a brief overview of our coven 19 protocols i'll say right at the top of this most of them are the same as the way we ended the school year last year in that mass are encouraged but not required and we have provided schools with resources
027to support them with that option a couple changes include that we will no longer be doing school-wide notifications of positive cases but whether classroom exposure notifications also students who have to isolate will no longer be allowed to participate in remote learning to count towards attendance because the state rules that allowed that in the previous year were only for the 21-22 school year and that has now expired so students will need to take an excused absence if they isolate because of covet 19 and we're asking families we're asking guardians to work closely with their schools because because it is our number one priority to support our students both in their health but for their learning academically we want to do everything we can to make sure there's no interruption in their access to their courses so
028please work closely with your school teams reach out to your teachers your counselors as needed and your principals to assist you throughout their process and we will continue to advocate for the things that are necessary to keep our students safe and to have as many limited distractions to their learning progress we also have our thermal cameras that remain available for schools to use and our coven 19 leave policy remains in effect through labor day weekend for our staff at which point that policy will expire but we will continue that from now until labor day as we phase into the school year now covet has become a part of our daily lives in this country and in the school setting vaccines and treatments have helped to lessen the impact of the virus but it does not
029appear to be going away and will remain with us it is a new normal that we have to remain vigilant and aware protecting ourselves and others when possible but moving forward with our lives and the whole work of teaching and learning and so again i think it's a huge celebration that we've kicked off this school year with all of our students learning in person all of our staff members in person and just continue to stay focused on keeping our students at the core of everything that we do and the last thing i'll share madam chair and board is that we are back in school in mnps so we welcome to the 2022-23 school year and it is going to be a great year let's do this y'all thank you for those updates dr battle uh
030do you have any statements or questions mrs tyler um hi yeah i have a couple of questions i'm going to start at the back and work my way backwards so if we're looking at our covert policy updates um so i noticed that for students who have gotten a positive coveted test they're allowed to have three excuse days with two extra days that could be excused at the discretion of the principal the cdc recommends that somebody who tests positive for covet isolate for five days so i'm just wondering why we didn't just go ahead and say for five consecutive days after you test positive you'll be given an excused absence i'm going to look at dr springer i believe our policy is five excuse days okay that's not what's come out to everybody that was that
031was an error in the communication we're updating all the website and stuff with that sorry about that no that's good to know that's what it is it is five excuse up to five excuse um absences wonderful thank you i'm glad you cleared that up um and then going back to our safety and security um so i've been hearing from a lot of my constituents who are really concerned about having police officers even if they are unarmed and not in their uniform they're really concerned about having police officers in elementary schools specifically so i guess one of my questions is what does this safety ambassador program do for our elementary schools that we think would actually keep them safer than increasing patrols outside to make sure that people in the neighborhood understand that there is a
032police presence there that they know that there's you know quick reaction time because there's going to be somebody in the vicinity of every elementary school i have no problem with increasing police presence outside of our schools because the idea was not with eval especially the idea was that the threat is coming from outside and so if the threat's coming from outside why are we putting somebody inside i would think that the the ability to stop somebody we would want that to happen before they got inside so we would want to have you know the police officers who are patrolling like you've already said to me that's that's a really great way to up the security to make sure that that's visible they know the neighborhood they get to know the people in the routine so
033they can see when something's off um but having somebody inside the school has just brought up a lot of concern because there's a lot of studies out there that show that when you have police officers officers in school there are disproportionate negative effects for students of color and also for students who receive exceptional education services so i mean we've talked about this a little bit already and i know you addressed some of that but i guess in the end my big question is how is having these people inside the schools as opposed to just increasing the outside presence a better way to deal with it um so i think there might be some confusion um in in the question so first off this is a two-pronged approach both protecting against external threats but also internal
034threats and and let's be real when we're looking at the data um the the chances of something happening in inside the school building is at a greater risk than the external threats that we've been seeing while they are critical and we have to protect against them we must do both um so in our two-prong approach with our external security in partnership with mmpd again grateful to mmpd and chief drake for for their continued partnership we are talking about armed uniformed police officers who will be patrolling who will also be checking in with principals to see if there's any concerns and the staff that they need to address so that is one level to this approach the second approach is to also strengthen our internal safety measures as well so while we have to guard against
035things like the unfortunate mass shootings that we've seen we also need to protect against other incidents that happen within the school building when someone is inside the building as well and so when we're talking about those school ambassador officers think in terms of our campus support staff that we already have these would would not be current mmpd officers we're talking about retired officers we're talking about civilians we're talking about individuals that we will train like we already do and collaboration with mnpd so that they can be equipped with radios and the proper training and supporting our young people we are and i am well aware of the studies which is which we've got which is why we've guarded against armed and uniformed officers inside of our elementary schools but it is my belief in the
036belief of my team and the belief in our partnership with chief drake that if we take on a dual approach with having those trained officers armed officers outside the building to protect against external threats and also supports inside that building to pressure test to make sure safety measures in place helping us review and update our plans flagging us when we need additional training around things that only strengthens our ability to keep our students and our staff safe so again i want to reiterate those safety ambassadors inside of schools are not mnpd officers they are not in our current plan plan to be uniformed or armed but working closely to build positive lasting relationships with our students and pressure testing our safety measures on a daily basis so that we know where we need to plug
037in and where we need to make adjustments it is a part of our school visit protocols we're testing out those safety measures but it is critically important to have someone on the ground daily doing that as well so that's what that two pronged approaches and why we've taken the approach around the school ambassador program and our internal supports and the partnership with mmpd for external partnership okay so will the safety ambassadors be employed by mnps or mmpd we're actually still working through those specific details the good news is that mnps is currently home to campus support individuals and leaders within our building so we have a strong foundation and start with regards to that job description training and supervision chief drake has already sent out a request to his retired officers and others he know
038who might be interested to help us build a pool but we're in the process as we're looking to secure funding in determining if they would be mmps employees or employed under mmpd i want to be clear that our sro program actually falls under mnpd and so we're just looking to make sure we have consistency to make sure we have alignment around mnps's expectations around how our adults interact with our students and the needs around safety in all of our school buildings when we spoke you had told me that these safety ambassadors will not be used for discipline inside the elementary schools how can we ensure that that remains the case in every like what what are we putting into place to ensure that that's our expectation we have a student parent handbook that has very
039explicit procedures that our schools follow again our campus supervisor our safety ambassador program is not new to metro nashville public schools they have not been a part of the discipline response and we will continue their practice as we move forward so ensuring that i think we can look back to our history and our practice around our expectations around those layers of support keeping in mind we have campus support in our school buildings we also have our school district level school security who responds to needs as needed our partnership with our sro program now our expansion around the patrolling for those external threats so we have multiple layers and again our history has been that our campus support individuals along with those safety ambassadors would comply with those expectations as we move forward we're also planning
040for training ongoing training between mnps and mmpd to make sure we're meeting our expectations yes i will say while i'm still not a fan of officers inside our elementary schools i do take a little bit of heart that they are not to be used for discipline that they will not be armed they will not be uniformed and that they will also go through our trainings as well and that it will be a consistent ongoing training to make sure that they are receiving the same kind of implicit bias and how do we work with kids who are neurodivergent how do we work with kids who have exceptional abilities i think that's extremely important and something that needs to be ongoing and i think we have over 100 campus support individuals in our schools right now close
041to 100 campus support so again those leaders are not new to mnps we are well versed in their role and their responsibility as well as training them for those positions okay and right now we've had i know i've seen outside of several of the schools in my district a much stronger police presence on these first days and i know several of my schools have appreciated the reminding everybody to follow the school zone speed limit i think that's really important and so they're very much appreciated for that and i think the question is are they gonna are they go are they expected to stay outside to kind of continue to do that or are they going to be coming into the schools because i think part of the question was these are uniformed armed officers and
042so what's yeah you know i'll say this i've been out in schools multiple schools over the last few days i have thoroughly enjoyed meeting um and just being able to introduce myself to our mmpd officers who are doing their patrolling they are there for the good of our learning communities i've just been so just excited and and impressed by their level of service um and wanting to do what's best and so what we've been communicating with mmpd as we're kicking things off with this extra layer of support that we'll stay in communication as we see needs believe you me they will be happy to to plug in wherever they can so we will continue to leverage them in that way and make adjustments as we move forward again this is new we started a pilot
043of this at the end of last school year and through promising scholars which promising scholars didn't happen in all of our schools but we will continue to make those adjustments and right now they are assisting um with that work as well and we'll continue to make adjustments it'd be great in some of our schools if they could be used as crossing guards as well i know that they've lost some positions um if they're going to be there anyway man we'd love that help with not only the traffic but also just making sure our families and students are safe okay um i feel like i'm taking a lot of time moving backwards a little bit more looking at our professional development i just want to applaud the um increase in the hours of sel and dei
044um i think it's really important that we continue to do that and so i want to thank you for that and then i just want to also ask about um do we happen to know how many hours teachers got to work in their classrooms and plan during the last week because you just broke it down into hours so yeah many of what you see here most of this happened prior to the in-service week with with our staff so oh gosh our teachers came back on tuesday um they were in their buildings on tuesday and wednesday for in-service and planning time thursday was an in-service professional development day and friday was a full day if i'm the mistaken of planning for our teachers and so we've worked closely with our partners at mnea and others taking
045feedback as we built the calendar over the years to make sure we're being responsive to those needs but what you see represented here for the most part all happen before our kickoff of in-service okay thank you i'll yield the floor i apologies mrs masters thank you um so understanding that we're not sure who these security ambassadors are going to be employed by yet who is responsible for their training again we are taking a dual approach with our training it will be a collaboration between mnps and mnpd when we kicked off our training this summer again i'm so thankful to to both teams school security edie young his team maura sullivan our chief of operations and chief drake and his team at mmpd we kicked off this co-collaboration to to reset us for this year this
046summer we trained our administrators um on our security plans and got everyone um up to speed it was beautiful right it was it was a combination of our mmps leaders leaning in as well as mmpd adding the extra layer of support our teams meet constantly sharing information and updates and opportunities for professional learning and so we plan to move forward with a cross-collaborative professional development planning and implementation thank you for that so um and there's a possibility that you could be hired for that position and not necessarily be a retired colleague absolutely absolutely we are um so mnpd because of the pool they have and their retired police officers we definitely want to leverage that but we'll also continue to recruit and train campus support individuals so it will be a combination more than likely
047i do not anticipate that every position will be a retired police officer but we are planning to train these individuals in the work of mnps and building those relationships and again pressure testing our safety and security measures so we will continue to expand the campus support role and then to the sros that are in middle schools and high schools am i correct in assuming they also receive training beyond just being police officers there's also some concentrated training in integrating into a school absolutely correct and again that's why i keep underscoring that we're taking the learnings and the successes we've had through this partnership over the many years as we're looking to expand so when we're talking about the types of individuals and we're talking about professional development we're talking about when we come to the
048table to discuss any adjustments we need to make we're taking those lessons learned and those successes and to this expansion for our sros and our safety ambassadors and then what level of information do students receive about just sort of understanding that presence in their schools so we're asking our schools um to get students up to speed remind them if you go into summer schools you see reminders about what shouldn't happen when you approach a door things of that nature talking to our students we're asking our parents talk to your students as well we're asking for parents patients as they check in particularly through our raptor system and are identified as they come in but we're asking all of our schools to kind of plug in take the time to address the safety needs with our
049students everyone plays a role and that's what we're really pressing upon our students that they play a role too and there are simple things that they can do to help make our school safe and let me give one example i was at one school this morning and they even have student safety ambassadors where they're training their students and they're leading that and plugging in and supporting other students and learning the right way to stay safe at school i'd love if chief drake wanted to come and address the board at some future meeting just to sort of talk about his philosophies around this collaboration so just putting that out there um i'm sorry one more one more thing on that are students receiving sort of information and education about you know feelings of discomfort around that
050presence in the school and you know are students made aware of the school specific training that the officers receive and the intention of this presence in the schools well i think one example i will rely upon here in our middle schools part of our partnership with mnpd is that they're continuing their dare program where our sro officers are having conversations with students teaching them what to do how to respond if they see something you say something you know just substance abuse just things that students our students need to be aware of which include safety and security measures so that is one specific space that we've already started to plug in with and have over many many years in our elementary space that's still under development if you will because of this new expansion and into
051our elementary schools and it is those relationships and those conversations have long been happening at the high school but we'll need to continue to um double down um on those conversations i mean it's a perfect time to do so we've had some of these measures in place and for years past and you kind of just wonder like why well we have enough reasons around why okay and so now the conversations we're having we're not in the space of frightening our students but we want them to be aware and we want them to know what proactive measures they play and keeping us all safe and so unfortunately we have too many examples around why these safety and security measures are needed and we're trying to press upon everyone how they can play a role in keeping
052our school safe one more i promise that's it with the staff covered leave paul thank you for all those clarifications around the security measures um and thank you for paying heed to safety and security but also a welcoming and warm learning environment um staff covet leave so given that transmission of covet is as at the high level in davidson county what sort of ideas around what metrics we would need to be seeing are we considering at what point would we reinstate our staff covet leave policy we'll be doing what we've been doing over the last few years we'll continue to monitor the metrics that are before us and i think with anything regarding covet we will adjust as as needed it is critically important that you know and i always hesitate to say getting back
053to normal because i'm not really interested in getting back to normal i want to be better than normal as we're moving throughout this school year and and forward we will continue to adjust and i think this board in this district has demonstrated our willingness and our prior to take prioritization around safety to make the adjustments as needed at the same time making sure that we have our in-person learning environment that we're pouring into our students and our students stay at the core of the work that we're doing so i don't think that policy is any different from any other policy we have that we'll continue to monitor we've talked about the new cdc metrics that we've been using we will continue to review as we have been so our director of health and collaboration with
054our other chiefs we'll continue to have that conversation and make adjustments as needed this this current policy phase out gives us an opportunity to all get back in person hopefully adjust to anything that we've experienced over the first few weeks and summer so that we can set a strong foundation of success as we move forward so that is our hope that is our goal as we move forward i'll also highlight that our student policy has changed as well and so we do have to have some alignment with that we're providing some resources to our schools to address the need when someone is out but we've got to get back to beyond normal in operating our schools so that our students can show the state in the world again how strong they are academically how talented
055they are in so many ways at the end of the school year for schools to come and we know that you know that's not the only measure but we want to give our students the best shot at everything that's before them okay and then i just want to say thanks to the family info line and school choice office i mean even if you don't like the answers you're getting always the response is so fast um the handoff to someone who has the information if they don't know what you need i'm i've heard that from a lot of families so i did i just wanted to throw that out there that's it i'm finished thank you mrs elrod and then mrs pooperwalker thank you so we're hearing um a lot about the job description as a
056campus support individual as a campus support individual the position that we have funded through our school-based budget in our middle schools and high schools that kind of already currently pressure test security press procedures and kind of that process is that what that position is yes that's correct what is the difference between a campus support individual and a safety ambassador they're very similar the safety ambassador title was just in recognition of the partnership with mnpd and really elevating that role and expanding their role into our elementary schools and so we we use them interchangeably but that was just to signify the partnership with mnpd and their willingness to recruit and train um from their end and for us to bring our campus support model into the fold in conversation as well for us to build from
057okay because i know the campus support individual um position was a fairly new it was new to me as something that we provided across all schools yeah in our school-based budget and so i know that it's something we already provided of course at those levels of schools but the safety ambassadors are now going to be in our elementary schools but all of them as an umbrella all still follow our restorative practices model that's correct okay that's correct and for clarification we've for years had kind of a non-negotiable around campus support in our middle school and high schools it's been optional for elementary and now we're just kind of moving to the non-negotiable space we want to make sure we have their presence across all of our schools as we're moving forward and then for our
058sros i know that we have one at all comprehensive high schools and that we are hiring for vacancies or where not but mnpd is hiring for vacancies in our middle schools when are they anticipating that those vacancies will be filled well if i had a crystal ball i could probably answer that so for clarification we have two sros at all of our zone high schools at our middle and specialty schools and our magnet schools we have rotating sro officers right now we do have a we do have a couple middle schools who haven't assigned sro because our goal and chief drake's goal is to hire an sro for every middle school this is just our approach until those vacancies are filled all i can say is every industry is kind of feeling it it might
059even be harder in his face than ours currently but he has committed to continuing to recruit and to hire for those roles so that we do um get to our ideal space and so that's what we've communicated to our schools right now we're starting in this rotating base once they feel their vacancies we'll begin to sign again of the one per middle school as was originally intended in those conversations had said at the press conference that there were some upcoming academies and some larger number of graduates um of course my personal hope is that they're not new graduates that start to work inside of our school because it's a more i hate to say it's a more stressful environment but it has a lot of considerations that maybe are not as natural to some officers
060so my hope is is that they are ideally um not new graduates but we would be so happy to have that coverage of course yeah i don't i don't know all the requirements for their graduates but i would not say that just coming through that means that they come with no experience they might not be equal and i see more agreeing with that um so that's the first thing i was going to mention something else i just wanted to make sure we highlighted that oh chief drake has created a new kind of arm and division um in his department that's focused specifically around our schools and school safety so we're grateful for their prioritization but we also know that he has a number of vacancies in other areas as well so it might not be
061apples to apples move as they're bringing those comparisons when they're graduating those cohorts but he is committed to us prioritization moving with a sense of urgency to get us to our ideal space as soon as possible yes he definitely conveyed that in police departments across the country just like school systems across the country are having a really difficult time recruiting and retaining their staff as are we so um i appreciate that i guess on that note uh in a transition i saw on the vacancies we said that's about two percent of our certificated staff um that we have as a vacancy is close to about 100 of them what is our typical percentage of vacancy as a certified staff yeah so pretty pandemic this is probably trending below where we were pre-pandemic we have in
062years past been pretty significantly above about 100 vacancies throughout the last couple of years as we've been navigating the pandemic we've kicked off around 80 to 100 vacancies so it's pretty much in line with where we've been the last few years but exceeding where we were pre-pandemic i was going to say i know that i think it was last year where we had like the lowest ever um and so i didn't want to compare it just to last year's numbers but in a historical context okay and then i guess within that are there any trends that we're noticing within those vacancies are there certain um grade levels or subjects or areas or clusters or anything like that we're having a particular difficulty recruiting teachers chief spencer i look at you for this as well but
063it's it's what we've seen over the years some of the hard to staff areas el english language learner teachers exceptional education the specialized math sciences we're fearing pretty well with regards to our career and technical education courses so those areas seem to be the hardest to feel at this point if you saw a breakdown by tear you would see that we have a higher number of elementary schools than we do in high schools but that's also because we have tripled the amount of elementary schools than we do high schools and so we've been working towards moving from our ideal space to our reality of how many students arrive or in certain grades and classes and we'll be working over the next few weeks to balance that out so we could see some adjustments based upon
064that and meeting the state law class requirements but specifically those few areas are the hardest to staff for us right now and then speaking of hard to staff places i'm really encouraged by the amount of recruitment that we've had within our buses and transportation team um i think i heard you say that we have two people that are doing train or four trainees and then we have ten more in process how long are our staff trainees before they start to become have their own routes to kind of fill some of those vacancies as i know we've had some schools recently have to combine routes and that kind of stuff yeah fortunately we have some experts in this area i'd like to invite our chief of operations morph sullivan to the podium to respond specifically to
065that question and anybody else she might want to tee up dr battle i'm going to invite ken stark our executive officer of operations here so that i don't say the wrong number of weeks of training but it is several weeks good evening um the typical process is it takes a couple we give them a couple of weeks to pass the written part of the test we help them study do that kind of thing then they go on to [Music] range on the road driving and the practice piece and that generally is about a four to six week process if they come to us brand new in this latest pool we do have a couple that are coming to us with experience which is something that we have not seen in the um in the six
066years i've been here and to be honest with you i haven't seen it in the 20 years i've been in this business that people just don't come with experience so if they come with experience in their cdl we can move them through the process in less than a week may i ask my follow-up question to mr stark of why are they coming with experience for the first time what can we learn from that my suspicion i haven't talked to them individually but i believe that the pay increase that you all approved in city council funded has made a dramatic difference our recruiting numbers our applicant numbers are unbelievably higher than they were even three months ago i mean i'm my assumption was that it was pay um for the same reason that i think we
067had such board support for pay i am very encouraged by that as i know this has been an area that's really been a pain point i will speak for my own district it's been a real pain point for my own district but i know it's been across everywhere and in all grade levels as well so i'm really encouraged that we had um not only a low number of certificated staff with vacancies of course that number would ideally not exist but it is a low percentage but um but also within our buses it's an incredibly important position as they are the first face that a lot of our students in the last phase that a lot of our students see and so it's a really important job and i appreciate your dedication to it and letting
068us know that we have a lot of good recruits coming up and that our families will be better served and miss elrod if i can um just mention here and again kudos to this board because our our salary studying we were able to do in compensation you know first spoke to retention right and so it is good news that we've been able to retain a large number of our drivers coming into the school year into ken's point it's going to take some time because of the application process but we feel like we're on a good path to put in a good dent in where we've been with those vacancies but if i spoke directly to parents and students right now and our staff i spent some time with our transportation department last week and it's
069it's a new day the the culture the climate within the department setting the right conditions for them to thrive and just be a part of every student known i mean they are the first individuals our students interface with as they're coming to school every day and so i was deeply encouraged and inspired by my time with our transportation department and the family feel of plugging in and making sure our students have what they need and so again to our students families our staff the transportation team is working hard daily to make sure that we're meeting the demands of our routes keeping our students safe and increasing our communication around things that naturally will happen and come up so our families are up to speed around what our routes are looking like so thank you for
070giving an opportunity to share that thank you all right mrs walker let's be quick one quick thing when you're looking to hire the ambassadors or campus support really urge us to prioritize folks who speak two or more languages and really are from within our immigrant communities as much as possible so that families and students can speak with them my second thing is this the raptor system um can be a barrier for immigrant families to come into schools and participate if they're required to produce a state id which some families cannot get so i'm just curious what are the um options for them to participate in the school community if they cannot go through the raptor system maura can do you want to respond specifically i guess i should have sat in the front the if
071they don't have the id they can just the the raptor system has a mechanism for them to enter their information so they can just type in their name and the address kind of stuff and that and in all schools okay the other thing i just want to say on the um ambassadors i'm i'm a little where first of all i do want to say that we have heard and for a number of years now that our elementary principal is crying out for more folks and buildings you have buildings with a principal a secretary a counselor and teachers often and so to have another adult in the building can be a game changer i recognize we've been really trying to use advocacy centers and so forth and so on i think that's great i want to
072make sure this is not a fiscal cliff that we're entering where we are providing all of the support personnel and that we can't sustain it over time i know that's also a concern with community achieves with advocacy senator stafford's sort of justice staff i just want us to be mindful that a potential recession combined with esther cliff can be we could be back in a really bad place in three or four years i just want to make a note of that right mr little how would they go about it if there were community organizations that wanted to participate is there like a direct line or a website that they could reach out to mpd to get more details and learn the process yeah our from our end the campus support position it always is pretty
073much up on our website that anyone could go in and see the job description and apply for but we're also looking at to answer your question but also to speak to the comment by uh miss people walker we're looking at some additional layers of support where we can leverage our community partners and mentorships and you know other ways of supporting our students as we're moving forward so many of you might be familiar with the program as i'm talking about this i'm losing it watch dogs yes so we're having conversations about how we can take the scale programs like watch dogs which stands for dads of grade students who can come and plug in provide that extra eye and ear mentorship to our students as well so we're having those conversations along with some work around
074our parent universities to get parents up to speed and support it um as well but that particular position we kind of leave open um throughout the year um so that we can continue to recruit new individuals you know just is it something that can be highlighted on the website like temporarily so they can like go straight to it like it's like it's a market that says hey if you're interested in watchdogs or being a campus support or is mnpd providing something where if they needed to go through that department they could have a contact yes so we'll leave it up on our website now i know mmpd is doing something and as soon as we secure funding for the positions we'll continue to broadcast it um at on a larger scale maybe even having a
075banner on our website so you can see it immediately yes sir thank you all right mrs player a quick question for the professional development um why is the literacy hours significant lower than others is there an explanation for that for slide seven so um right now um if you don't wanna be kind of backing into the question um our dei and our sel training is required for all staff certificated and support staff in fact my team and i just went through the training around the ourselves and hours will be ongoing so that is required for every mnps employee so that is one reason the second reason is if you recall last year we kicked off our required literacy training for k-5 teachers and our plan for this year was to kick off their required training
076for our 6-12 teachers so that is also a difference that requirement for k-5 teachers happened last year this year we focused on our 6-12 while there were still additional offerings from our great teaching and learning team throughout the year those requirements weren't there but we definitely had lots of teachers take advantage of it all right thank you dr battle thank you for this report we will now move on to public participation during this time uh everyday community members will have three minutes to present their uh speech or any concerns or suggestions they might have at the end of that three minutes which you will see in the markers or seeing the uh goodness gracious the timers at the end of that three minutes you'll hear a ding and we asked you complete that last sentence
077and finish whatever you were about to finish saying please just send us via email with that we'll begin with the first three adam skelton shawn monique hicks xanth joiner adam skelton shawn monique hicks xanthe joyner all right natalia del pino good evening to the board my name is natalia del pino and on monday i started my senior year at mlk magnet i stand before you today representing noaa's education task force to discuss my experiences with advanced academics i began my experience with advanced academics in metro national public schools in the 8th grade i joined the im2 class at jt moore and as soon as i realized this i was cloistered off from my other students i was divided from the rest of the grade i spent my entire school day with the same 30 students
078i felt separated and i felt like i was not a part of my school community my experience at jt moore was not a diverse experience in the classroom i loved the students i was surrounded with but i noticed that there were not that many students that looked like me as i grew in advanced academics and started my high school career at mlk i realized that offering advanced academics lets students know that they are capable of doing more at mlk we see teachers teaching advanced academics that represent our student body this encourages students to challenge themselves and achieve higher goals advanced academics indicates a school that encourages post-secondary study for a diverse group of students all of our students are encouraged to take ap classes above our three ap requirement at mlk we are encouraged to
079take these classes because we are encouraged to get those college credits out of the way in our journey to post-secondary greatness i have a passion for advanced academics i just applied to take physics c for my senior year of high school as my math credit and i'm so excited i love school i have school spirit coming out of my ears and part of that is because i'm challenged every single day at mlk and i'm surrounded by a community of students who supports me in that journey and i thank you for your time thank you anita kaimwak kamawitz kevowitz yes thank you my name is benita kamowitz and i live in district 8. i'm a member of noah's education task force and i'm a retired educator first i want to applaud you dr battle and your
080team with your excellent work mnps improved on tcap scores and our students made greater progress than the state average but is our progress equitable i took an educational statistics course when i was pregnant with my first child i learned for example that a particular teaching method would be best for five out of six students i wondered though what if this child in my belly is the sixth student the district's equity roadmap says equity is when every student receives what they need when they need it to develop to their full academic and social potential regardless of their race nationality genders sexual orientation disability ethnicity language religion family background or family income every student but in the 2021-22 school year black students in mnps were two times less likely than white students to be enrolled in gifted
081and talented education what if this black child who doesn't get a chance for a gifted class is my black child and black students were 3.2 times more likely than white students to be suspended what if my black child is suspended what happens to her self-image to his future in high schools that serve mostly black students have among the fewest early post-secondary opportunities such as ap and dual enrollment courses what happens to my child my black child's chance to succeed our equity roadmap defines the goal but achieving equity has only begun it requires involving the community measuring progress identifying weaknesses and importantly making the results public noah wants the mnps school board to adopt the educational equity policy that addresses all aspects of the district's work noah wants the board to adopt the resolution for racial
082equity in advanced academics kids grow up fast if we take five years to realize results from our wonderful equity roadmap my black 8th grader will be out of the system by then so we have to act now act strongly and act together thank you for your time thank you bethany riddle johnson hi my name is bethany riddle johnson and i live in district 8. i'm an mnps parent a college professor and a leader with noaa's education task force and i'm here today as well to speak in support of both the educator educational equity board policy and the resolution for racial equity and advanced academics one of our goals over the past years has been to lift up student voices around the importance of equity in advanced academics today i want to remind you of some
083of the experiences that students have shared with you at previous board meetings to complement what natalia just shared because students are why we all do this work so autumn jemisin a brilliant black woman who graduated from hillsborough high spoke of the skills she learned in her ib courses that prepared her for college at dillard university including how to manage her time efficiently and when and how to ask questions that bring her clarity she also shared her concern for her younger sister who attends hillsboro because autumn experienced lower expectation and supports for black and brown students to pursue advanced academics compared to white students at her school gwen johnson shared the many ap course options that she has had at mlk with the most options in the district and now ap classes have helped improve her
084note-taking critical thinking and essay writing skills clara hanala shared her story with you in june including her positive experiences with encore and the many important schools she excuse me skills she has learned in the four ap courses she has already taken at mlk including organization and note-taking skills she also shared her concerns that other students in mnps do not get the same opportunities safa sawara shared her story with you in july including the lack of enough working computers when she attended john early middle school and the very limited number of students and teachers who looked like her a brilliant black muslim young woman in her advanced academic courses and middle and high school she emphasized the urgent need and benefits of diversity the district's equity roadmap has set a vision for the district we at
085noaa applaud the board's support of equity and emphasize the urgent need for action so that every student has the opportunities they deserve both the educational equity board policy and the resolution for racial equity and advanced academics are important ways to push forward for equity and mnps i urge you to adopt them both at your next meeting thank you thank you claudia shank good evening my name is claudia schink and i live with my family in district 3 and i appreciate the opportunity to speak to you all tonight i am here to talk about the current entrance requirements for mnps academic magnet schools in particular map and tcap testing before i came here tonight i took a poll of about five kids in our carpool ranging from seventh to eleventh grade and about two to three
086teacher friends about what they thought about map and tcap testing and as you might suspect they were not in favor of testing but it was more than just not wanting to take a test the number one issue that came up with all the kids i spoke to was i am more than my test results followed by map and tcap create such anxiety that i am unable to focus on a two-hour assessment and do well what it comes down to is that entrance requirements for mnps academic magnet schools are not equitable for students who have non-traditional learning styles such as my son and don't perform well on standardized tests studies have shown that test performance doesn't necessarily correlate with future success universities across the united states have begun to remove entrance requirement request requirements like act
087and sat scores because they are not equitable for all student learners at the beginning of every school year we tell our kids do your best we don't expect all a's but we want to see a serious effort being made our son made all a's and b's and by all accounts from his teachers knew the subject matter well and should have been accepted to the academic magnet in our pathway because because of his performance on mcmt tcap tests he was not eligible to move on his homeroom teacher wrote he made a lot of growth and did really well in my class over the year i do think that he has the capacity to do advanced work in the subject area he is a wonderful kid i know he will do great things should we not listen
088much more to our teachers who spend time with our kids on a daily basis is it not disrespectful to once again disregard our teacher's input if they are teaching the content with content which prepares students for tcap and students have the minimum gpa then no additional testing requirements should be needed the current requirements for minimum tcap and map scores are completely arbitrary i suspect that this has more to do with an easier way to eliminate students with potential these are kids who are in the process of learning after all because of the low supply of academic magnets instead of being a true indicator of whether a student would be successful in that environment if high schools like mlk and hume fog are so successful why haven't we replicated their success in other schools in mnps
089we have a am i supposed to stop i'm sorry i said my apologies yes but you can finish your last sentence and then just send us the recipe email if you don't mind okay um we have a high demand for such schools and until we can meet the demand of families with the supply of successional schools we will continue to lose these families to private schools and surrounding counties thank you very much thank you [Applause] thank you lynn woodward elizabeth hines missy hamilton hi everybody good evening board and everyone um i'm so happy to be here because i want to be your new best friend why i'm here is that i am the president of the board of the bell garden which is located on the bellevue middle school if you can't tell by my
090outfit i was there today during covid we became we've always been there on the bellevue middle school campus right there in the background with our school garden but during covid we realized we needed to become more of a hybrid community and school garden and it worked we used our time wisely and over time we developed programs for exceptional education gifted and talented we support our teachers science teachers outdoor classrooms we're implementing a sustainability club because for me it's always about with the kids it's research propose implement but what i'm looking for and the reason that i want us all to be best friends you can look us up on the internet you can see the bell garden for fancy we're on the facebooks but what i'm really really looking for is the board's support to
091pass down to the administration because what i never knew growing up in metro schools and don't tell my kids i don't know this because they're both at hillwood and i would be mortified i did not understand the way that the school actually worked so imagine if you're me and you've worked with your own board and your non-profit and with your community we have one acre we spend all of our time educating developing these programs and then a new principal comes in and says you're out i did not understand this i thought everyone wanted a school garden and it's just the most miraculous thing ever so i'm asking you to be best friends and come out and see me i'm also asking for you to support the teachers and support your principals i attended the stem
092and steam in service at east middle school last week and i got to have this session with all the educators and everything and they were like but i don't have time i'm like we've got the program but i have 30 students and i have to deal with discipline and we've got the program so what i'm asking is for you to please know that there are groups of us there are colleagues behind me in green shirts we're here we're here to support you but we want your support so we can show up be best friends have all the students again we are great with social emotional needs and i'll tell you right now you want to talk about punitive you send those kids out to me to pull weeds and we'll see if they ever talk
093back to a teacher again trust me hi miss missy i see you but i also especially in working i want you to know that we see you and we're here for you and all the students thank you for your support thank you nancy [Applause] steden hello nancy stanton following up on missy's comment nashville schools need school board leadership to bring students out to study nature directly teachers at many schools do this but we cannot succeed without support from the center for example nashville teaches students the life cycle of butterflies with a kid caterpillars and food arrive by mail and grow and pupate in small plastic containers this allows students to see metamorphosis but misses an important part of the story most butterflies lay eggs on only a small number of host species they have evolved
094over millennia to use that plant and cannot use other ones the loss of these host species is a major cause of the current wave of extinction among insects our way of demonstrating metamorphosis doesn't teach this it's easy to teach in the garden one of our most beautiful butterflies is the gulf fritillary its host plant is our state wildflower the the beautiful passion vine at park avenue school for the last six years we've grown passion vines over our mahonia bush in front of the school these plants are a focus of students attention students want to know from the start of school when will there be caterpillars in most years the vines are covered with caterpillars so that every child who wants to hold one can they know they have to return the caterpillar to the passion
095vine because that's all the caterpillars eat students will sometimes get to see butterflies laying eggs they will get to hunt chrysalises um and it's an experience that they will remember for a lifetime last friday when i showed up to meet new teachers i found out that groundskeepers had torn out every single passion vine from our courtyard gulf fritillaries which come to our garden will find no place to lay eggs and students have lost the precious educational opportunity for this year what we need is leadership our leaders need to make it clear that school gardens are an important educational space and must not be destroyed we need to make it clear that people who maintain our school yards must communicate with the schools before taking major actions such as cutting down plants or heavy mulching there
096are many ways of doing this we know that we've tried them all but none of them work without the authority of the central office behind them please as missy said be our best friend thank you miss debbie and cover [Applause] it's interesting good evening dr battle members of the board my name is ann cover i'm 2804 west london avenue i'm a pastor a retired pediatric nurse practitioner and an urban farmer i suspect everybody here tonight can understand the connection between burning fossil fuels and the overheating effects of excessive carbon dioxide sent into our atmosphere where the majority of it stays for centuries i give thanks for the work that is already underway by our district to make sure that our school buildings are more energy efficient thus burning less fossil fuels and at the same
097time i ask how many people here tonight can make the connection between methane gas emissions and waste food in our landfills or overworked and eroded soils in our field and flash flooding these folks probably can sitting here the st high school students but how many others here tonight can make the connection between water conservation and capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and the saving of old growth trees of planting native trees and plants and restoring soils a couple of years ago i couldn't have made those connections for you but after a lot of reading and the discovery of practical hands-on experience that i have in a church garden that i still manage we began to realize that our practices were restorative we attracted the garden attracted good bugs butterflies enriched the soil and conserved water
098so this summer even in the midst of extreme heat and dry conditions our garden donated lots of fresh vegetables to three summer food programs one of them being for families of tusculum elementary school in south nashville outdoor hands-on nature education is important it teaches students to observe and appreciate the world we live in and depend on many of our students though do not have access to shaded outside places to play let alone creeks and woods to explore what better place to learn about natural education that and at our school buildings starting with the youngest teacher the youngest children outdoor nature education is not a nice extra it needs to be a fundament fun death fundacult much foundational piece of our education and as nancy said and others many of us in the community are here
099and ready to help make it happen in every school thank you thank you next is basim farag basum did i oh i apologize we have them marked incorrectly on my sheet i was given thank you so much so we are starting with millie really and so now you're on milly flat and just spoke oh so that was just ann that went so excuse us millie flat can you hear me just fine yes uh i'm with the stewardship sorry sustainability stewardship advisory committee i'm a volunteer gardener for nancy stutton the person who also talked to you about the gardens a little bit ago i'm also here to talk about learning outside and incorporating nature into the classroom i i feel like i kind of have a little bit of expertise on this because i went to
100your schools as a student for about 12 years i'm a current college student myself and i know based on that experience that students generally enjoy going outside uh they like having recess it was my favorite part of the day i feel like it's pretty unsurprising when the picnic tables are closed outside of my like school and senior year and we weren't able to get to it during like the covet thing everyone is super upset i feel like if we incorporate this sort of like joy of nature this sort of fresh air and this escape from the brico block classrooms that we have i think that we can kind of like we can put a new sort of joy and to t into learning it's good for the soul kind of um i know based on
101my time in mps you guys encouraged the use of multi multiple different learning methods like kinesthetic learning uh auditory visual now that we're sort of incorporating everything into like in person like learning we're able to utilize all these forms of education and it's so good it's great we're able to um utilize like a bunch of different like uh materials and whatnot um so for instance sorry i am reading this it's just that i didn't write it all that well so for instance if you have like different dirt types you can bring in like a loam and a sand and a clay and you can show how they interact to create the soil in nashville um that would have been really useful when i was taking an ap environmental science class from my own house um
102it'll make like lessons more memorable and impactful if you have plants that are like photosynthesizing you explore the leafs and how they catch sunlight and how one side is shinier than the other you explain that they'll remember it because they see it and then whenever they see a plant they'll say oh that's doing the thing if we foster a love of like the environment and tennessee's extremely biodiverse like environment especially considering like all the stuff going on up in the rockies students will begin to sort of like the students will begin to sorry i lost my place they'll treat nature with respect as it deserves as they grow older which is extremely important considering the climate that we have today global warming is becoming more and more of an issue we're like running out of
103fresh water the national geographic like wrote a couple years ago but a plastic bag they found the bottom of the marianas trench i feel like if people become more aware of what's happening around them love a better earth thank you so much thank you jason all right we will get back to the right pattern millie flat and then amy flat that was millie that was millie flat we have really gotten it mixed up here and i apologize that's all right i'm amy flower amy hello honored members of the board dr battle i am a gifted and talented educator for park avenue elementary and on thursday i was able to meet with my colleagues and it was wonderful we're going to be studying bees this year for first and second grade and i began to talk
104about our garden and how excited i was because we had a passion bond it has big purple flowers and it had drawn in 10 minutes that i was standing there and watching five different species of bee and i said man my school my inner city school that's something that none of you have and then i came back friday and this is what was left we need some rules in place to protect these assets this is not the first time this has happened last year my second graders planted bush beans and they were mulched over and killed we've had our our little uh small plants that we had wildflowers have been mulched over we had a sign if you could just give me the rules i know that if it's in a bed that's about this
105tall surrounded by wood they won't touch it if it's in a big pot they won't touch it if it's in a bed about the same height as the wood but it's rock they'll tear it out they'll weed eat it they'll mulch it if it's in wood that's about this tall they also mulch it but i really need these rules written down so then i can build a garden that will outlast me so if you could give me some direction or some connection so that we can make this last because now i'm going to be scrambling to figure out how i attract those bees now thank you susanna photopolis beautifully said thank you good evening and thank you my name is susannah photopolis i am mom of two metro students and the founder and former director
106of plant the seed a local garden based learning nonprofit that partners with mnps let me ask you what's growing in your garden right now many things can be grown in a school garden grade level academic standards in language literacy math and science are met alongside the real needs of a growing garden i believe this kind of hands-on learning prepares students for academic success and there is data that proves it works a pre-pandemic study conducted by vanderbilt peabody showed that pre-k students who experience this kind of garden-based learning showed more than one percentage point differential in learning literacy indicators compared to their peers who did not have this programming improved literacy is grown in a school garden this kind of learning also makes students more engaged learners and real world problem solvers students in the garden
107demonstrate critical thinking skills cooperation with other students and increased confidence through lessons in the garden students gain a greater appreciation for the natural world around them and they begin to think creatively about the positive impact they can affect problem solving skills are grown in a school garden students in the garden develop social emotional intelligence that allows them to feel and exhibit empathy toward other non-human living things a young learner overzealously over watered a tender seedling and broke it at its stem he looked over at the garden facilitator with sweet tears in his eyes and said i'm sorry i don't think i can handle this as he handed over the watering can this student felt the loss of that plant naturally in this teachable moment the garden facilitator comforted the young student and encouraged watering at
108the roots not at the top and together they planted a new seedling in its place connection to an empathy for other living things emotionally connected real life learning practical application of the concept of interdependence all of these things were learned in that one moment in the garden as well as a hands-on solution to the broken stemmed ceiling empathy is grown in a school garden students from the studies from the greater good science center in berkeley california show that two of the greatest predictors of long-term contentment in adults are feeling a part of something and being able to connect to moments of awe and wonder students in the garden have countless opportunities for moments of wonder and connection to something bigger than themselves don't we want our stone students to know that kind of contentment as
109adults contentment and connection are grown in a school garden dopamine and serotonin you know the feel-good chemicals those increase while cortisol that stress hormone decreases when outside in nature and especially when one's hands are in the soil after the better part of three years navigating a lingering pandemic our children need this type of opportunity as an integrated approach to their school day i'm sorry that's your time now more than ever please support efforts to increase meaningful sustainability and outdoor education opportunities across the district thank you jason farag seamus party sheamus purdy i apologize good evening my name is seamus party and i'm honored to be standing here on behalf of a youth flight organization schools not jails tennessee our schools are a backbone of the city and our communities and this board is it is
110an extension of that however the continued support for cops and schools and the recent amount the recent announcement of effectively introducing cops into elementary schools are antithetical to the goal of serving communities as i said to the city council in june as a lifelong mmps student now a junior at hillsboro high we have been privy to the detachment of the social aspect of people to police who have been increasingly utilized and dealing with the underlying social issues of bullying mental illness and other socioeconomic factors unfortunately the recent move to maintain and expand the presence of cops in schools is counterproductive at best and at worst actively harmful countless studies testimonies and testimonies from the community have shown that sros are a net negative real life events such as uvalde texas has been routinely mentioned over
111the couple past couple months have shown that sr is an overwhelming waste of money in our horrifying failure despite countless signals showing as that sros are harmful to schools we continue to sustain and expand their influence ultimately jeopardizing our youth's future while progress has been made and building restorative schools mnps openly accepting another six million dollars worth of effective cops in elementary schools is a significant step back while these new costs may be disarmed plain clothed and renamed no amount of antibiotics training or vague platitudes and not being involved in routine student discipline will fix inherent structural issues of police and schools realistically the massive rise in srs can be directly attributed to racist fear-mongering rhetoric in the 90s when we have students being pepper sprayed in hunter's lane essential medication being stripped from students
112and students anxious to even go to school all due to cops something is fundamentally wrong when mnps attempts to approach school safety two critical pieces are seemingly missing student input and a holistic approach even despite to the two student members on this board time and time again students in a holistic approach are seemingly forgotten and rhetoric in action which is why i'm here tonight we need to look at the why of these incidents and take action based off of that a glimpse into the reality of schools from a student or teacher's perspective is essential above all mnpscs to listen to the community and the day-to-day testimonies from within we need mmps to take action by fighting mmpd and openly pushing city council to divest from sros and instead invest in our students however this is
113not being done the safety preservation and prosperity of our youth are reliant upon the removal of any form of cops from schools an investment in a holistic approach that solves the underlying socio-economic crises in our schools thank you thank you alison ecker good evening my name is alison acker i am a former public school teacher and a parent of an mnps first grader in district 9. i'm here tonight to express my concerns regarding the new school safety measures for elementary schools that was announced on august 2nd and the subject of some discussion tonight i very much understand the impulse to add additional security measures after uvalde i am afraid for my daughter too but some of the new school safety measures are not responsive to the concerns raised particularly at an elementary level about an
114outside intruder coming into the school to do harm i don't know the data that was mentioned earlier about threats coming from within the school but i wonder if that data is different when broken out among the upper grades versus the younger school students i understand that this program and the safety ambassador program would be staffed with retired mnpd officers who would be unarmed and essentially radio to the nearest police precinct in the event of a threat it's unclear to me what value they're adding relative to the potential risk if officers are intended to identify an intruder from the outside of an elementary school there's no reason for them to be patrolling inside of the school or even entering the school building at all i'm also concerned about the intent to staff this program with retired
115mnpd officers who it seems to me may have a more fixed mindset about issues like student behavior and discipline the value of social emotional learning and issues of equity and inclusion for kids the plan also calls for on duty mnpd officers to act as a visible presence in elementary schools studies have shown that's not effective and has a negative effect on student academic performance and trust in adults at the schools and as sheamus said so beautifully just a moment ago it does not actually work in preventing school shootings that's what the studies show what i'm afraid they'll end up doing is harming the learning environment my daughter was so excited to start first grade yesterday and as we drove up to the school she had two questions for me what did i think her teacher
116was going to be like and why did she see so many police officers there and what i'm worried about is that she will end up having more harm come to her than good as a result of this policy thank you for your time thank that you this portion of public participation um please pardon my interruption but i was supposed to speak tonight as well um could you give us a mama give me your name and then mrs bobo would you mind um it's grace olsen it did not appear to be on the list we're doing some fact checking out a look at the google form there was some miscommunication with my sign up with a group leader but i do believe that i have very valuable facts to bring to you tonight and seeing as
117how some people did drop off of the docket but i'm sorry our policies would suggest that we only allow students or only allow community members to speak when they've signed up adequately were you able to sign up no man there was miscommunication with my director that we were supposed to be signed up at the same time so we could speak in order ah no it wasn't an error on our part oh you're go right ahead thank you so very much i really appreciate it hello everyone my name is grace olsen i am a senior at mlk and i represent district 5. nature education is something that has been put off for far too long in my 11 years within the mmps school system my classmates and i were never given the opportunity to step foot
118in nature nor taught about the environment let's get back to the basics back to nature where we love to learn and evolve from i guarantee that every one of you all got to explore the outdoors during your school age years nature is not a privilege it is a necessity it has proven that nature promotes learning through increased self-discipline attention span and physical activity students that are involved in nature-based learning have a higher gpa which would inevitably increase mnps's graduation rates equity is the first major issue mnps says that they are making strides towards combating the issue of equity but are you all truly doing everything in your power my school is located only a few blocks away from jefferson street according to brookings the area surrounding jefferson street has the highest incarceration rate in the
119nation at an astonishing 14 percent and a child poverty rate at 42 percent compared to the new national average of 14 percent these children do not get the opportunity to go outside and play much less learn about the environment they are worried about how they are going to feed themselves stay out of trouble with the law and try to sleep at night before having go to go back to school the next day that is exactly why we have to bring the said nature-based education into the school system we need to introduce it to the curriculum to get people outside so they know they can make change or at the very least know how the earth functions and grow their own food in every section of the mmps curriculum and instruction page online there's something closely
120related to students understanding the world through real life experiences the environment is the first step to understanding the world quite literally why would we not start taking steps to achieve this goal although we have to abide by tennessee learning standards i believe that i will use my personal found knowledge about the environment more so than i will ever use polynomials or logarithms at first we can take these simple strides towards introducing nature-based education in the classroom there are already states that have easy to follow models why do we need to keep coming up to this podium to discuss this urgent matter we the students and teachers are the ones experiencing the effects of your decisions considering the people behind me in green along with the majority of this mnps student body i feel confident saying
121we want direct action all we are asking is for you to work with us what are the next steps moving forward we demand action thank you for your time all right that concludes our public participation we'll now move on to the consent agenda we've already adopted the agenda as listed do i have a motion to accept the consent agenda so moved all right we have a motion do we have a second a second a motion and a second all in favor please raise your hand all right we'll now move on to a2 extension of k5 literacy instructional materials adoption we are ready to discuss this in the teaching and learning committee meeting some of us were not here for it i'll entertain a motion this is uh poopa walker i moved to extend the adoption
122of wooden wisdom for k-5 literacy through the 28-25-26 school year all right do we have a second a second all right we have a motion and a second oh this is a discussion yeah discussion we have a motion and a second discussion mrs taylor hey tyler goodness uh yeah we did not discuss the extension of the literacy instructional manual during our teaching and learning committee that i chaired so i'm a little disappointed to see that we're just putting it on here to move forward i have i have real concerns about the witt and wisdom instructional materials there was a reason why the board decided to only adopt it for three years as opposed to the typical six and it was because the board at the time before i even i was even on it already
123had concerns about the rigidity of the curriculum itself um i am i thought i'd have a bit more time to get myself ready so i'm trying to find my notes real quick but one of the biggest complaints that i have heard about this curriculum is that it is very scripted and that there is not a lot of wiggle room for teachers to be able to do anything outside of what it says you're supposed to do for that time um and so therefore there are moments where they're not able to meet the needs of every student in their classroom because they're expected to stay on the script of what they are told they have to say the whole point of having a teaching degree is that you spend time learning how to best educate different types
124of learners and when you have a classroom full of different types of learners we need to make sure that we are respecting our teachers enough to let them have the autonomy to meet those needs of the different students in their class and that we're not sticking this curriculum in front of them and saying now read and then i hope everybody gets it from what it says so one of the things that i had asked previously is i've been told that there will be more autonomy after the first year because the first year is all about getting the fidelity of it to make sure everybody understands it so if there is going to be more autonomy in this next year what is that going to look like what will be different for a classroom teacher what
125will be different for our students and how will that difference be communicated out to teachers if we continue to use this curriculum so this because we've already ha we did not have this discussion my apologies maybe i misspoke because i wasn't here for it so for the presentation so we've already had the presentation this is a conversation amongst the board because this is another consent agenda item so i pulled it off consent agenda because i thought it might be controversial for our past discussions and so uh this is for us to potentially ask questions from the committee well i just asked several what does more autonomy look like what will be different for classroom teachers what will be different for our students and how will that be communicated out to them yeah so i will
126invite my team up to the podium i think we have addressed some of these questions a few times regarding our first year implementation of width wisdom our expectations for implementation across the board what professional development looks like and the fact that it's not considered a scripted curriculum that does provide for intentional autonomy around certain selections throughout the implementation of the curriculum but dr bellamy i will kick it to you first so you can share that the updates that we have previously discussed thank you dr battle i'm going to ask executive officer david williams to come up he's also got some members of his staff who work directly in supporting the curriculum alia washington whom you've all met before and kendra bush are with us tonight as well and they can speak to specifics about the
127questions of flexibility autonomy and things of that nature so i'll go ahead and ask david i think as david williams is coming i will also note that um for several weeks we've provided some updates to the board particularly specific to whitten wisdom and our phase one going into phase two with our whitten wisdom curriculum so you can also reference that information that has been sent out multiple times david williams thanks for the question the opportunity to follow up i know we ran out of time at the teaching learning committee meeting uh on july 12th but as you said i think it's important to talk about where there is flexibility but also i think it's equally important to talk about where we need to maintain high expectations and consistency across the district because literacy reimagined at
128its core was about excellence in equity and so if we compromise on expectations and the integrity of the materials the rigor of the materials we have created an inherently inequitable system so i'd first like to outline five things where we think we need to maintain uh consistency and that's of course with the instructional block having the 90 minutes for winning wisdom and 45 minutes for foundational skills we do think it's critical that we provide access to all of the complex sex that are included in the curriculum the knowledge building curriculum in other words we think it's critical that schools all across the district are providing access to the same set of cortex we also think it's important as you think about the assessments that are included in the materials those are also key to implementing
129with with the integrity that we want so those include end of assessment new module assessments new read assessments focusing question tasks and those are the tasks and that's that's that's the outcome we want students to be at this point and we think that we have to maintain that that level of rigor the lesson components themselves so there are certain component components of the lesson the welcome the launch learn land uh wrap and deep dive and then again another thing when you think about the way the modules are structured the way the curriculum is designed it's important to sort of stay on sequence if you start pulling out this lesson i'm going to skip over this one or teach them out of order you're pulling threads out of a tightly woven fabric of learning and that
130that can create lots of challenges so that's that's the fidelity side we don't use the word fidelity we use the word integrity because we agree with you that it's important for students for teachers to be able to adapt to the needs of their students but again not compromising those high level expectations so some examples of integrity where teachers would have autonomy would be in the instructional routines these are the means to those ends right so if they want to swap say i think pair share with a mix and mingle instead of a jigsaw they could do a 3-2-1 reflection they can certainly adjust from partner work to small group and also the teaching learning agenda our teaching and learning meeting on july 12th we talked about how our el and our ee departments have worked
131very closely with ela to say if we're going to keep these expectations in the tasks the way they are what are additional scaffolds and supports that teachers can employ what are some strategies they can use to give students who may need extra support that additional support so when we talk about integrity um it's important to think about the flexibility that teachers will have and but also maintaining the fidelity so we're not compromising the rigor so in order to answer your question i thought it was both it's important to address both the way that's going to be communicated is certainly going to be ongoing conversations with our coaches with our principals with our executive directors we want to make sure that everyone in our system charged with supporting elementary literacy really really understands where it's important
132to maintain the rigor but also where those flexibility options exist thank you i'm glad to hear that there is going to be some autonomy i understand that you can't teach lessons out of order if the lessons are supposed to build on one another that makes sense to me i also understand that it's important to make sure that if you're referring to a text that you have access to it so i understand that there are some things that need to stay there i just want to make sure that our teachers are aware of what autonomy exists because there has really been a feel of almost choking as far as not being able to do more than what has been placed in front of them and and i i'm really very glad to see that the el
133and ela departments have been working together to find supports because that was going to be another question of mine so i'm glad to see that some have already been put together are we going to continue to have the weekly sessions where they have to meet with their coach and the coach goes over how to do a lesson or now that they've been through that for a year are they going to have a little bit more autonomy to kind of spin that planning time planning that expectation will still still be in place the the goal last year was to really deeply plan for one lesson you know and so on average they are teaching three lessons a week and so we thought that if they could replicate that intellectual preparation that they're doing with their team
134that that they would intake that and be able to apply it to the other lessons that they would teach that week so we'll still continue to have that but those are going to be they'll be deeper and they they will probably be able to get through more than one lesson they may be able to extend to two or three but we will still have that same collaborative planning expectation i think it's important to point out that it does take a lot of prep if it were scripted it wouldn't require all this preparation um i mean i've read the materials i've seen where it's scripted um i understand that sometimes a lot of prep makes it seem like it's not but there are definitely scripted components of it um so i don't know i don't like
135this idea that we're trying to pretend like it's not every curriculum has scripted aspects to it it wouldn't be one without that because it and for our first year teachers that's actually really helpful because they haven't had the time in the classroom to figure out how to do it i have heard back from some younger first second year teachers who have said that the scripts have been very helpful for them because they wouldn't have known how to do it otherwise but i don't think we need to pretend that it's not scripted when there are definitely scripted pieces of it i just wanted to make sure that our teachers who have experience under their belt who have a proven track record of getting their kids to where they need to be that they are not being
136driven out of a classroom because they're being told that they can't teach the way that they know is going to be best teacher retention is extremely important to me even more so than getting new people on board it i think when we lose teachers that have been doing it for years we lose more than the sum of our parts and and so we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to give our teachers the ability to do the job we hired them to do is there a way for our teachers to give feedback if they feel like they'd like to try something different and they they've been told by their coach that that's not something they're allowed to do is there a way for them to provide feedback feedback about about how
137they're teaching about what they're being required to do is there i i would certainly i want to have a conversation with their coach okay you know and as again we're going to continue to work with our coaches uh because just as we have our teachers provide differentiated supports for students we provide differentiated supports for teachers as you say a new teacher versus an expert teacher um and so we want to we want to have those conversations that's why it's a little nuanced to stay here specifically specifically where they have flexibility versus not you know sometimes it just sort of depends on where the teacher is in their comfort level with implementing the material so the first place i would say is the coach we also have our lead coaches that are assigned to school and
138that can also be another layer of support to work with the teachers and make some of those appropriate decisions and then i know that i've seen we actually already talked about the amount of hours that people have spent in literacy and and that sounded like it was mainly the older students that were in that literacy training based on what you said but yeah that was that was just the required portion for six to twelve this time yeah um have our k-5 teachers gotten any more or is it just the ones who maybe didn't get through the training last year are now taking it right we required two days of uh training for our k5 teachers last last year and we required the same two days if they were new tim mps we did that this
139summer but there's ongoing supports of course uh through our schoology groups as well as our coaches etc so there's ongoing supports but that was our initial implementation training okay okay well i appreciate you coming up here and giving me all this information um thank you very much all right mrs masters thank you um yeah you might as well stay for just a second so our teachers is it being explicitly explained to them that they do have autonomy in this implementation are they given autonomy i understand that goal setting and you know tracking metrics is a part of the process are they setting their own goals so that we're acknowledging that different teachers may pace through it differently they may want to focus on certain areas differently than the teacher across the hall from them you
140know as long as the overall curriculum is being followed i'm just kind of wondering about and this might be a question for mason bellamy as well how clearly are they being told you do have autonomy within this so that they aren't feeling sort of that that pressure i appreciate that sentiment uh both you and ms tyler express we don't want teachers to feel suffocated i mean that's i taught for a long time and and that's certainly not something what we want our teachers to feel um so i do think it's a come on upon us to communicate again specifically where you have some of this flexibility to really make decisions instructional decisions that are best for your kids that is critical i think we all would agree with that where i would have a little
141bit of an issue with again straying really far you know from doing something radically different from the teacher across the hall and maybe changing the pace too much is we have a 30 mobility rate and so as kids transfer from school to school and they're on different places it's really going to be really confusing for students and for families to try to navigate being in wildly different places so the mobility rate that we have uh within our district is something that we have to pay attention to and again consistency and equity are critical david if if i'm correct if i'm remembering correctly in the curriculum itself there are places where it calls out where there are some options for flexibility and adjustments it is called out and the curriculum is self-correct minute scaffolds recommended differentiation
142points that's right um but miss masters i would say that some some variance is natural i mean some variance is going to happen but again if i'm making radically different choices and i'm going to skip to the third module and we're in the first quarter you know obviously that's going to be a percent of challenge okay i do understand that i guess i just i think that part of the the beauty of a truly amazing teacher is the ability to have that constant communication with their students and you know if the students get really excited about something to take a moment and dig in on that a little bit further because all the students are unique and and they're unique when they come together in the classroom and i just think you know it pains
143me to think um you know like the amazing third grade teacher that both of my children were fortunate enough to have would feel forced to to move forward and to not be able to relish those moments with the students have a name yes um is a teachable moment and so i just want to be sure that that is communicated to our teachers i want them to feel um it's all well and good to have the best paid teachers in the state but i want them to also truly understand that we recognize them as professionals and they i mean they come into the classroom with a lot of training so i don't think we need to be teaching them how to teach a lot of knowledge a lot of expertise a lot of training as you
144say and and i think one of the one of the other ways that we have expressed our respect of their professionalism is to provide materials there's been so long where they had to go source and pay for their materials so at the same time what we're doing is providing materials so now it's how to best use these to meet the kids where they are what their needs are so i certainly agree with you on that point all right mr i'm sorry mrs pooperwalker mr little i just want to um i know we uh we aren't in the business of doing causality but i am very encouraged about the progress we've made this year i think implementing a change after we just got started on this would be unhelpful i also think we're about to implement
145math new math standards i think asking teachers to take on another round of change would be hard i also really believe that our literacy scores have been too low for too long and to have ambitious you know rigorous standards that teach and i'm not saying teachers don't want to be rigorous and don't want kids to excel but i think we have to do something different and i feel like this is something that i'm encouraged by and i support and i would like to see us play it out and see and and do the full implementation and then have that discussion again i think the reason we took the three-year well i was here for that vote uh to cut it in half was simply to acknowledge let's give this a moment we've done that i'm
146encouraged by our results i think we need to stay the course so thank you mr little that was just it's speaking to the academic achievement so i won't repeat all right mrs tyler um i just had a couple more questions teachers last year were writing lesson plans and they were having to fill out a sheet for their ell students and they found that really too much paperwork that ended up with the same results are we going to require that of our teachers with the ell students or is this new um work together with the ela department going to end the need for that extra sheet because if they're already writing their lesson plans they can just write the supports into the lesson plans and not have to do the same thing twice agree you know
147so if i have an el student have the ilp the individualized learning plan and i'm begin providing scaffolds and differentiated support for those students that is that is my lesson plan how i'm providing those supports are how i'm going to enact my lesson plan okay and then also we had talked a little bit about um schools are who gets to decide what happens during plt because as a district we've been saying you can pull kids during that time but some principals have been saying no you can only do lexia core or i-ready during that time and so now that you've had a chance to meet with the principals for the school year have we made it clear that that time is is really to be used at the discretion of the teacher for yes maybe
148i ready for most of the kids while the teacher pulls a small group right i will tell you that is an ongoing uh something that we are constantly having to communicate and reiterate and reinforce and so it's not that we've just had a training we met with principals and we said this but that's something that we'll constantly reinforce with our mtss coaches our exceptional education coaches uh through our eds through our principles to make sure they understand so if i have a student who's identified based on my screening process who's in need of say tier three math intervention if they're going to be on i-ready here's how i implement i-ready right and there's always going to be a teaching component as i said last month there's always going to be a teacher component and an
149online component that's part of what makes it you know uh a sufficient intervention curriculum so so um to answer your question we haven't necessarily nailed nailed that down that's always an ongoing thing about how to best spend that time how to best speak me student needs because it is personalized learning time and then again as a follow-up how to continue to implement uh those programs with fidelity i think one of the challenges that we've had to be honest is when we shifted to iready and lexia we did that because those could be delivered in a virtual setting and so now that we've shifted back it's how do i come back off of that a little bit to enact the in-person part and so that's something that we're going to have to continue to work on
150um if if a teacher has concerns about wanting to maybe pull a small group during that time and being told that they're not allowed to who would they bring that concern to their principal and if their principal's the one who's telling them that they can't who would they bring their concern to dr bellamy yeah so i think they'd start with their principle and having a discussion with the mtss team that helped decide which interventions were most appropriate for those students if they get to an impasse and the principal has determined that that is the intervention they'd like to see they can always reach out to their mtss coaches they can always reach out to their executive director of schools i have a great relationship with my friends from mnea there and there are oftentimes that
151they bring in an mea rep and michelle and i'll have a conversation on fridays paula i saw her here as well so there's a variety of different ways that we can intervene and really uh bring all the interested parties together and make a determination about really the only thing that matters and what's best for that child right exactly and so oftentimes our professionals do have some disagreements as to the intervention that could be best which is why we follow the team approach and so i would just encourage any teacher that is frustrated by that to as david said start with their principal and if they still feel like they're at an impasse that professionally they can't get past then they they would pursue that just like they would anything any other decision that they wanted
152to kind of ask questions about or support they can reach out to their aed they can reach out to their mnea supports their mtss teams coaches um talented staff we have from alia washington or i mean they can email me directly as well okay all right thank you mr dr bellamy all right thank you now for the questions can you repeat restate the motion i move that we extend the adoption of wooden wisdom for k-5 literacy through the 20-25-26 school year all right all in favor please raise your hand he was second it was a restatement here all right all opposed one opposed all abstaining one abstaining right thank you we will now move on to announcements we'll begin on the end with our senior student board member ebenezer thank you very much um first
153off i just wanted to mention that this would be angely's last official meeting and we all just want to say we care about you love you very much and we wish you the best at duke um second of all i just want to congratulate everybody with the last couple two days i guess especially the seniors you know i'm very happy that we made it so far and it's surreal sometimes to to feel like the big man on campus even though the freshmen are still taller than me but you know and that's pretty much it thank you thank you dr gentry um just want to say congratulations dr battle we chatted a little bit this morning about how school started off and is starting off and it does sound like it is going well i'm really
154looking forward to letting this week settle in and then going in and stopping by and saying hello i'm really excited about the new principalships um and and i just want to say that the you know the right word is but the boldness to do what's necessary and to do what's unexpected uh for our kids is something that you have demonstrated consistently and being very selfish especially in district one where the challenges are are multi-faceted you want to hear the comment about 30 mobility rate in the district overall when i represent a district that has schools with nearly 100 percent mobility rate sometimes because we sit um you know in a proximity to so many homeless shelters and so that turnover rate is extremely high and so it's it's difficult and i say this often especially
155being a board member when the constituencies that we represent are so different and their concerns are so different and having to really understand the need to better understand so i appreciate the questions to better understand the district-wide decisions that have to be made even understanding that there are these nuances within our districts but you know i've used this example before and i won't go deep into it about evidence-based order sets so when we went into our hospitals and created evidence-based order sets the doctor's complaint was are you going to tell me how to do medicine you're just this cookbook medicine it's not nothing no curriculum that you put in front of a teacher is going to erase the skill sets the talent that they bring into the classroom their ability to recognize the needs and
156the opportunities that are presented by their students for them and so i would just encourage um if a teacher is really feeling um and so i want to say this though this curriculum isn't the first thing that has happened in public education to tie the hands uh or to make a teacher feel like our hands are tied right i mean um we wouldn't we just bring phonics back bottoms have always been there but but you remember but the whole concept the whole idea right but that's my point phonics has always been there and so the ability to teach a child will always be there um you know regardless in my opinion regardless of of of the the framework um that gets put there but again dr but i just i just i can't emphasize enough
157um how refreshing it has been to not stick with the tried and true and really make those decisions like we've got you know at one of our schools in district one we've got a new principal from california he's not even from here y'all and he's a he and so you know it's it's it's just really making those decisions that are not easy sometimes going against public sentiment probably going against what may feel like the majority just because we give it and elevate it and give it air time but it's not but really taking a look at what's going to move the needle and do and make the difference for our students and so i just want to thank you for that specifically and then again congratulate you on a great start to the school year
158thank you this is pupa walker i want to just start by saying i'm excited about all the back to school stuff um hillsborough burro bash on august 14th jt more back to school carnival on friday i want to say thanks to all the staff uh for making sure schools were ready on our for our kids on day one i want to wish happy birthday to christian bugs and sharon gentry on monday they celebrate a birthday happy birthday i want to particularly call out ken stark for a minute who got on a team's call with the julia green pto leaders not an easy task sometimes parents who have serious questions about bus transportation legitimate questions he handled it he was prepared he was gracious he was generous with his time he was professional he made us
159all look good so thank you ken stark i know he's got a super duper hard job right now with bus bus driver stuff and finally i want to congratulate erin o'hara block for winning my seat she's going to be an amazing addition to this board i'm really excited for all of you to get to know her and congratulations erin thank you mrs bush no announcements thank you mrs bush mr little um just want to highlight as jenny said the community partnerships were back to school just in my organization propel we did one that had a lot of latino and families from 37207 so just to see the need and people coming out schools came out metro police came out another community vendors and then also as we talk about school safety i think community partnerships
160being able to to help out without being armed i think i see a gentleman from guardian angels who's reached out and he's willing to step up and i just think these are things that as we hear parents concern we also see the community step up and want to fill the gap even if it's volunteer and then the last thing and i know he's not here today but i want to thank dr sevier he met with a couple of education fellows last week and just kind of going over some things and questions ahead but just really took the time he was candid but he was also serving mmp as well so thank you for that dr sevilla of your listening thank you mr little mrs elrod thank you so i have two remaining back to school
161events happening this week the first is at mcmurray middle um theirs is on thursday the 11th from 5 to 6 30 that's when their parent open house will be as i knew so many other families were busy last week with their back-to-school experiences and then the creve hall elementary's annual back to school picnic will be held on august the 12th from five to seven in the school parking lot that's always a big event so please be advised to do that i always encourage families to join their pto pta that's always the best way to figure out what's going on inside your school and what the needs are there so get hooked up that way and of course if you need any help we're always help you know happy to plug you in to the right
162place on that i also had the honor of getting to speak to united for hope about two weeks ago and i really wanted just to publicly say that i appreciated all those community helpers in our community model schools that we have those assistants that we have from those places of worship are instrumental to specifically some district 2 schools and providing meals and tutors and other things and so i really appreciated that opportunity and getting to speak to them and thank them for their service on behalf of the board thank you thank you mrs ilrod mrs player i just want to recognize the uh the passing of shankar white dukeray she is an msm mps alum and she was also a teacher at buena vista she was also my classmate at fisk and she was also
163just featured in the feature film of elvis i'm singing making her national debut she was literally part of the soundtrack of my college career at fisk and she was just about to go back into teaching after her career before her her untimely passing so just want to give condolences to to the family but then also just someone who had a very big passion for kids and if you knew shanka she had a big spirit a warm and motherly heart and made everyone feel warm and welcome and loved like no one else and i wish he would be able to come back to mmps and sing to all the kids and be able to brag that she was in a big national movie but i just want to recommend this is recognized that someone who's a
164former teacher and a former student of mmps that no matter how you start or where you come from that you can have a big and beautiful life and make it to the big time um and show that even with your adverse experiences you still can succeed and soar so i just want to honor uh shanka white du garay's life thank you thank you miss player mrs masters i want to add to what frida had to say about that and i just i wanted to let everyone know that with help from mnps communications we were able to put together a certificate for shonka's family her one of her friends and another mmps classmate had reached out asking us to do that and i'll forward that to all of the board members um and i just heard
165from her friend saying thank you for taking the time to create this beautiful beautiful certificate for my friend um and i just i was really moved that her classmate mates from maplewood high school knew that being an mmps graduate was such and so important to her that it meant something for us as a district to to honor her and i did not know that you were her classmate wow i also want to say thank you to council member emily benedict and to our east precinct commander of mmpd and to our ndot team and to pgo leaders at dan mills elementary school just before school was about to get started we all met up on greenland avenue to talk about the hot mess that is drop off at danielle's i get to say that because i
166went through that drop off for eight years and em counselor benedict and i sent a letter together to the families letting them know that there is no parking on that street there's never been parking allowed on that street but everybody just does it anyway and i've got to tell you emily benedict has been out there two mornings in a row very nicely and lovingly letting people know what the deal is with help from mmpd and ndot will be putting up more signs very soon they've been ordered so thank you councillor benedict for that it was just a great representation of a wonderful partnership i'm also really excited that we passed as part of our consent agenda that our staff will now be eligible to ride the mta buses at no cost and i'm very i'm
167very proud of the work that our contracting team did along with mta to make sure that that could happen and that they could be a part of that and i'm excited about the rollout of that for our staff i also want to reiterate especially considering claudia schink's comments tonight about magnet schools that i am still very much interested in having a work session to talk about our magnet schools perhaps appropriate for the next retreat and i am planning to recommend some amendments to our magnet school policy at the board level be on the lookout [Music] and finally i want to say as a recipient of a plant the seed grant while i was a pto volunteer i'm personally devastated by the notion that a garden so generously funded and so lovingly grown could be so
168carelessly destroyed as a result of what surely was simply a lack of communication so i would like us to talk about how at the board level at an administrative level we can keep that sort of thing from happening when community members parents families students teachers have all worked so hard to create something so i'd like to i'd like us to continue that conversation as well um i think that's it thanks thank you mrs tyler um yeah so up several things um one i want to recognize angelis last time she's going to college next week um so big changes i'm looking forward to onboarding our new student board member in september is that correct and ebenezer being our big senior on the block now i don't know why you didn't wear your burger king hat here
169but glad to see you back i also wanted to take a moment to again congratulate dr diaz from nashville big picture high school it's just such an honor for her to receive not just within mnps not just within the state of tennessee but a national recognition of her excellence and the good she does for all the students in her school so we're very lucky to have dr diaz and i'm very very proud of her and what not and what national big picture does and then also i met with the bellevue optimist club last week and they are interested in plugging in into mnps schools and so we're talking about what's the best way to do that and um i just want to invite any other groups who would love to find a way to plug
170into the mmps schools to reach out to whoever your board member is and we'll find a way for you to get there i think we're only going to be stronger with more community support so thank you all right mrs master said one last thing i just also wanted to say that dr bell and i both got to speak with the mayor's neighborhood academy and talk about school getting started and thank you for that opportunity to the mayor thank you and to our graduate anjali thank you um happy start of the new school year i hope everyone had a great and restful summer um i want to start off by saying that i had the honor of attending and speaking at the kickoff event for teachers last week with abenezer so i just wanted to emphasize
171our thank you to all teachers throughout mnps for all their hard work mnps students are prepared for the future and success and this wouldn't be possible without the teachers mentors and adults in our schools okay so to current high school seniors college admission season has officially started and as someone who finished my fair share of college applications last year i know how stressful this time can be so i'm offering a very laid back service to all mnps seniors that need help with s ideas and readings scholarship information advice and whatever aid i can help in any way so this would be completely free and available until roughly september 1st because i do have classes but i do want to remain to be a resource for mnps if you have any questions or if you're interested
172i can be reached at angely.kimbo at duke edu um [Laughter] my first and last name with a period angely.kimbo at duke edu [Laughter] [Applause] um and because this is my last meeting and i'm leaving next friday i just wanted to say thank you one last time to this entire board and to the district for all that is being done to put students first thank you thank you you will certainly be missed but ebenezer i'm sure you're ready to mentor this new young junior so thank you both uh yes so thank you all for all the bashes that took place over the uh the past week maybe two weeks i'm sure our community is just still i don't know bursting with joy and wallets are still a little bit more full because volunteers stepped in to
173support and donate to our students that's really it i'm just so excited for the the beginning of this school year and the end of my term as chair so be there no further business this meeting is a giant [Music] 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 [Music] you