001our pledge of allegiance h.r director melissa roberts would you mind leading us in the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and before we move into director's report we'll begin with a bit of a awards and recognitions dr battle thank you so much chair bugs and board members tonight i'm excited to recognize some of mnps's most effective and dedicated teachers for a wonderful accomplishment national board certification is a professional endorsement granted by the national board for professional teaching standards to educators who have demonstrated a remarkable depth of content knowledge and overwhelming evidence of accomplished teaching practices candidates for national board certification engage in an extremely reflective professional learning
002journey in which takes up to three years to complete they submit extensive portfolios that consist of student work video of instructional practice and a substantial amount of self-evaluative writing the learning process of certification focuses candidates analytically on the impact of their decisions about how to approach teaching it enriches their capacity to differentiate instruction for the benefit of every learner and it refines the way they think and talk about teaching and learning with their peers more importantly the impact on student learning cannot be denied the national board for professional teaching standards has provided more than a decade of research showing that students talked by national board certified teachers learn more up to an additional one to two months of instruction and according to the national board the positive impact is even greater for high needs students
003at the moment there are 65 national board certified teachers with active certificates who are serving in mmps and more if we included educators whose certifications have expired national board certification is an ongoing learning process every five years these teachers are required to demonstrate new growth in practice to justify keeping their certification as with the process for initial certification the requirements for maintenance of certification are demanding and portfolio-based extensive writing product submission and video analysis so here's the part you've been waiting for as we kick off 2022 mnps is thrilled to celebrate three teachers who successfully achieve certification and six who successfully successfully maintain certification all during a global pandemic first a huge round of congratulations to the following new national board certified teachers and if you are here please stand as i call your name
004first a kindergarten teacher at percy priest elementary school murray benson an instructional coach at glenview elementary school angela boarding and an educator i used to work with in my days as a principal a social studies teacher at john overton meredith mcginnis i am so proud of each of you just five educators in the state of tennessee achieved national board certification this year and guess what we have three of them right here in our district in mnps thank you all so much for your commitment to your work for your leadership and for pouring your talent and your heart into helping your students succeed every day this is a tremendous honor that you've earned each of you will be receiving a wall placard from the district in recognition of this achievement that you can place outside of
005your classroom please come join us up in the front for a photo so that we can further celebrate you come on up let's see overton mercy priest so uh [Applause] so all right and second we also want to say a big congratulations to the following national board certified teachers who have completed the maintenance of certification process if you are present with us tonight please stand as i call your name english teacher at antioch high school charles askins coordinative elementary literacy for the district kendra bush second grade teacher at fall hamilton elementary school lauren england few of them had a few conflicts and idea of instruction at chadwell elementary school alice miles mfps specialist for librarian training and development connie sharp and last but not least executive principal of bellevue middle school seth swihart i'm so
006proud of each of you as well thank you for investing so much time and energy in continuing your certification this shows how dedicated you are to remaining at the top of your game for the sake of our students i think it is so significant that we have teachers and school leadership continuing to invest in their craft if i could have those who have just completed the maintenance of certification process to join us up front for a quick photo we would greatly appreciate it come on up and board members if your districts were represented want to join us for this video antioch paul hamilton chadwell and bellevue congratulations one another [Applause] so madam chair if i can end with um as our teachers are heading out they've worked hard and had a long day that these
007teachers whether they're still in the classroom or now supporting teachers in other roles they're amazing assets to their school communities and to the district at large and i'm excited that more than 40 mmps educators are now on the journey towards becoming national board certified teachers i'm especially excited that candidate cohorts have developed within some of our schools teachers deciding to grow learn and certify together all with the support of their executive principals who understand the profound impact of this professional development on teaching and learning and i'm also thankful and grateful to katie enterline and chad prather and our mmps human resources department for all of the work they do to encourage participation in the national board certification program and to make sure teachers are aware of this great opportunity and are able to take advantage
008of it the district will work to increase the supports for these candidates and we will continue to provide an annual pay supplement of four thousand dollars to all active national board certified teachers this is on top of the historic raise that the mayor metro council and this board awarded our teachers this school year thank you all for your deep inspiring commitment to your own professional growth commitment to your growth of the of your colleagues and most importantly commitment to the welfare the joy learning and success of all of our students congratulations again all right thank you for that dr battle we will now move in to the portion of our uh agenda where we hear from the public we hear from you so if you have signed up to speak before us for three minutes
009you will see your name on the screens i will also call your names three at a time so please feel free to stand ready nope this not the time when we hear from pogue participation quite yet [Music] my apologies i've been so excited that we've made the shift to allow more community members to get here in time to actually participate during public participation that we've moved the director's report in front of it i want to go on record and say so i don't have to tweet about it later that we are doing this to make sure that more community members can be here so that we hear from you all for at least three minutes so with that in mind dr battle will move to director's report thank you madam chair again um and thank
010you board members and it's great to see all of you again after a last meeting that was early in december and what i hope was an enjoyable winter break for you for your families and of course to our amazing staff all right so our teams have been busy preparing for the start of the second semester which actually ended up kicking off um yesterday on monday um this year we started off the second semester with three days of professional development and planning time for teachers more planning time has been a frequent request of teachers and this is one of the ways we're accomplishing that goal also as a reminder with the support of funding for metro we were able to expand these in-service days to our instructional support staff to do planning and professional development within
011their school communities we had a lot of positive feedback from teachers about this opportunity to work with their colleagues and to prepare for the school year and we'll have similar opportunities in the upcoming 2022-23 school calendar as well we also last week shifted to a remote work so that we could further mitigate the spread of cover 19 in our school buildings as we prepare to welcome back students we wanted to give staff an opportunity to get tested for cover 19 and so our school nurse team opened up a site at mcgavock high school to do rapid testing we had more than 400 staff and students get tested and we did have to close the site on thursday due to inclement weather so we're very thankful we were able to meet a need within our community
012while we were all hard at work preparing to welcome students back on friday well the weather was not on the same page as the district more than three to five inches fell in davidson county on thursday with roads still in bad shape on friday causing us to close schools and use one of our inclement weather days as a reminder the calendar adopted by the board for the 2122 school year had four inclement weather days built in districts are allowed at a certain number of stockpile days through state rules that can be used either for inclement weather or in-service days for teacher planning and professional development if for any reason we need to go over our four days due to weather then we have backup stockpile days identified in february april and then at the end
013of the school year they can be used to ensure we are in person for the appropriate time based on state rules now as we start the new school year we're doing so in the midst of a surge of cover 19 caused by the new variant we are seeing daily case numbers and positivity rates higher than ever before but we are also at a point where nearly all of our students or staff have had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated metro schools have maintained some of the strongest mitigation protocols in the state while other districts have relaxed the requirements some of the best tools available to limit transmission remains masking and vaccines now i was optimistic back in december that we might be at a point where we could relax our masking requirements but it seems
014foolish to remove this layer of protection with case counts so high right now the new variant surges is forecast to spike quickly and fade quickly so hopefully in the coming weeks it will be appropriate to revisit these requirements one thing we've been learning over the last few weeks is that the k n 95 mass offer greater protection than cloth or surgical mass we have been distributing k9 kn 95 max masks that were donated by vanderbilt to our schools while sourcing new ones for both staff and students that we are purchasing while funds are available another mitigation strategy is frequent testing and our school nurse strike team has been conducting testing events at the following locations for school staff and students we have purchased additional testing supplies to meet growing needs and have been seeking out
015additional suppliers to ensure we have an adequate number of tests to maintain our current plans while possibly expanding testing now as i transition i wanted to share that we are really happy so far with the results of our push to get students to fill out their tennessee promise applications you'll see here that 90.45 of our respected mmps seniors have applied for tennessee promise by the deadline and that is 1107 more students who've applied compared to last school year 20 schools had more than 90 percent of their eligible cohorts signed up so the next step for tennessee promise is fafsa completion by february 1st and we are pushing ahead to make sure our students and families have the appropriate support and are aware of the deadline to to be in compliance now families play an important
016role in helping students prepare for the a.c.t metro schools wants to help parents understand more about the act including how to support their student as they prepare for the test free resources available to students test dates fees and fee waivers and the possible impacts act scores have we will be hosting an act webinar on february 3rd to provide further information to parents and families who want to support their students and again we're trying to make sure we're scaling up these communications as we've talked quite a bit on the board floor of bringing awareness to the multiple opportunities the the training supports and resources that are available to our students and families now on wednesday january 12th we will be welcoming tdoe leadership here at the boardroom to hold a town hall focus on their push
017to redesign the broken bep formula in our conversations with the commissioner city leaders and others thought it was important for tdoe to hold a town hall event in metro nashville considering we are the second largest school district in the state we are funded at the third lowest per pupil rate and davidson county generates the most sale tax revenue in the state the town hall will invite public comment and each speaker will have up to two minutes to share the thoughts focused on student funding funding of course we do want to make you aware that community members will have the opportunity to sign up to speak while at the event the funding town hall which starts at 6 30 p.m tomorrow night will also be streamed right here from the board room on the metro nashville
018network so with those updates madam chair i will turn it back over to you thank you thank you for your updates uh dr battle do we have any questions our feet need feedback from school board members this is elrod thank you i have a question about the potential expansion of our testing sites so i heard a lot of really great feedback on how easy and helpful it was to be in the small gym this past week over at mcgavock and i'm glad to see that we have some other testing sites available to students and to staff because us testing is going to be the best way for us to make sure that we have all the staff and everything else that we need what and how are we going to be making the decision for
019expansion like what would that look like and what are going to be our data points that we're watching to see if that needs to happen or not um thank you for your question ms elrod um i'll invite dr springer to the podium to respond to your question and then any follow-up as needed thank you um thank you for uh the comment about expanding the sites we definitely know that we want to prioritize the safety of our students and our staff as well and so we are basing our expansions on the data that we see day to day as you all know we have daily updates about the coveted race within our district so we will make those adjustments accordingly so we'll use a database decision to determine expansion and of course that takes resources so
020aligning resources definitely will be part of the conversation as well so as mentioned we're also purchasing additional test kits so that as we're identifying uh we can match that with the resources and our school nurses will continue um to serve as a point of contact for those expansions absolutely may i make sure i understand the expansion data so basically we're going to be watching our because we do get daily numbers so we'll be watching those to see kind of where there's maybe a surge in certain areas i know particularly antioch southeast nashville has been unfairly hit in the past throughout the entire pandemic so we'll be watching those and then potentially providing expansion if needed based upon those numbers that's correct okay got it thank you thank you any others all right go ahead mrs
021tyler yeah i've had a couple questions from constituents just about how when a testing site is indoors how do we oh can you hear me sorry when a testing site is indoors how are we ensuring that we're being as safe as possible to not have a bunch of people who might be positive hanging out together um i know my response has been you know every time i've come during covid for something it's been you state you check in you go back to your car you know that kind of but i just didn't know exactly what was going on and just to clear that up so that we know that we're actually being careful about that and are keeping that in mind absolutely so um mostly our first line of defense is to have our sights
022some outdoors as appropriate and we know that based upon the weather there are conditions that must be set um and and a temperature that must be uh is required to make sure that the tests are valid so when that happens in and uh it goes below the threshold then we move those sites indoors we move those sites and doors we're very cautious about um the amount of time that a staff member would be with a family or a staff member providing those services to make it short simple and and to the point and then also just those social distancing mitigation strategies that we always have in place and masking are definitely observed during that time as well we're talking about nurses who are providing these services so they are highly they're on alert about making
023sure that we maintain those mitigation strategies so top of mind making sure that we are following uh the guidelines within our control we don't want to spread by helping out our family so yes okay all right thank you you're good yeah that's fine all right well thank you again dr battling staff for that report we'll now move on to public participation where we do get to hear from the community members three minutes at a time i will call out your name three at a time just so you know when you're coming up but your names will also be listed on the screen you'll hear this sound at the end of three minutes and then we ask that you finish your last sentence and feel free to submit whatever remaining statement you'd like to us via
024email with that we'll begin with heather freeland dr berthena dabara mckinney and jane ryan heather freeland dr rothena and obama kenny jane ryan all right jeremiah wooten after him amber whiting and anna barnes good evening board my name is jeremiah wooten i live in miss bush's district and teach math at oliver middle and miss albrod's district um at the august 24th board meeting ms tyler asked dr battle and i quote last year part of the big push towards making every student known was really opening up the support hub to the schools and having members of the support hub going out to our schools is that something that has continued into the school year dr battle responded yes it is in a different structure from last year and that word and a different structure is doing
025a lot of work in that sentence dr battle went on to share an anecdote about a support hub member who spent the day working as a sub for what was either a teacher who was absent or may have been a vacant position on the first day of school and this led me to believe that support had members were still assigned to a school and at least in rare instances able to come to campus physically and perhaps even cover a class i'm sure that's what many of you all thought as well after all that's what dr battle said and i imagine you all would believe that but apparently that was not true to reiterate dr battle clearly said and i quote from this meeting every support hub member has essentially adopted a school and we have
026a structured way of making contact with a principal and then being on site across a month's time throughout the year at a recent fac meeting at my school and if you don't know fac stands for faculty advisory committee it's a group of educators nominated by the faculty of the school who make suggestions to administration and work together to to solve issues and one of our biggest issues right now is classroom coverage i asked about who our support hub member was and could they possibly come to campus when we have a big surge in a big group of absences and we were told no this doesn't exist this program ended last year i sent my principal the link to the board meeting and was told that she reached out to the support hub and that there
027was not a member of the support hub assigned to oliver who could come on site to the building that that was not an option this year so i respectfully ask you the board to look into this programmer initiative was dr battle telling the truth i like to believe so does this initiative of sending support hub members physically on-site to school still exist i hope so if so why are some schools being told it doesn't exist while others have those support hub members covering classes and just to add it is january and i still have students every day missing their legally required intervention time because their buses are late why can't we figure that out thank you you amber whiting anna barnes bethany riddle johnson good evening chair members of the board my name is bethany
028riddle johnson and i live on loan oak road in juniper walker's district and i am an mnps parent and college professor i am here with the noaa education task force we are here to recognize and advance black brilliance asserting the need for equitable access and support for advanced academics for all mnps students regardless of their race ethnicity or zip code we all agree that it's the right of every child regardless of their race ethnicity or place of residence within davidson county to access a challenging curriculum to help them grow academically indeed mnps core tenant is to identify and eliminate inequities and one of the mnps core values is excellence which embodies the belief that all students benefit from high quality instruction and high expectations each year in every subject and in each classroom as an
029educator myself i know the advantages of advanced academics and i know how to navigate school the school system to ensure my children have access to them but i've had to mostly figure this out myself and not all families know of the many benefits of advanced academics or how to access them thus and as i'm pleased that dr battle recent just mentioned in her doctor's report this consistent and sustained effort by mnps to improve communications with families and here to extend it to regularly communicating with families regarding all advanced academic offerings their benefits qualifications for the programs who to contact about enrollment into advanced academics the actions parents or guardians can take to help their students meet criteria for enrollment and as we also know though students current early post-secondary opportunities in mnps high schools depend
030on their zip code they are not equitable with really large discrepancies across schools as highlighted in a tennessee article tennessean article last month thus mnps must earmark dollars to expand advanced academic opportunities in schools serving the most black and latino students who are currently underserved so in closing we must work together together to address the inequities and advanced academics that get us to the mnps core tenant identify and eliminate inequities thank you thank you linda robinson good evening chair bugs board members and dr battle my name is linda robinson i reside in district 1 and represent the noaa education task force let me say thank you to dr battle and chair bugs for their consistent modeling of what community involvement looks like most recently helping to equip the black faith community with tools to help
031identify and eliminate inequities and lead the way to ensuring that all our young people including historically underserved populations are on the path to being all that they can be i'm here today to encourage the district in its commitment to advancing black brilliance and asserting the need for equitable access and support for advanced academics for all mnps students regardless of their race ethnicity or zip code we all make up the fabric that is called mnps and as part of this tapestry we bring different values and life experiences if we are to ensure we speak with one voice around issues of equity and access it's imperative that we provide all stakeholders board members district leadership administration teachers and staff with the tools and training that looks for encourages and develops black and brown brilliance for too long
032yearly testing has reduced the same results black and brown children are at the bottom we all know what insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different results we must push ourselves to do better to be better we must begin with training training that dispels myths diminishes biases and promotes cultural understanding and the belief that all children but particularly black and brown children can excel in advanced academics if provided access and support we must ensure that every mnps employee interacting with students has provided training in implicit and explicit bias cultural competency and identifying gifted and talented students equally important is that board members in district leadership understand and speak with one voice around these issues these however cannot be one-and-done trainings the polarization in our society today demands that these be ongoing conversations and interactions
033in which we challenge ourselves to push beyond our lived experiences and be open to new opportunities i know that there's only so many hours and days for training however it's necessary it's a necessary challenge to create environments in which the educators we place in front of our children have the tools and training needed to see all of our children as brilliant to not provide adequate training is to perpetuate the systemic racism that exists in many institutions we must work together to address the inequities and advanced academics that get us to the mmps core tenant identify and eliminate inequities thank you thank you dr paula pendergrass gwen johnson all right do i start okay um good evening chair members of the board my name is gwen johnson and i attend mlk magnet high school i'm here
034with the noaa education task force we are here to recognize and advance black brilliance asserting the need for equitable access and support for advanced academics for all mnps schools or students regardless of their race ethnicity or zip code completing advanced placement courses helps prepare students for college and career success improves access to college scholarships and to college admissions and passing ap courses reduces college costs and helps students graduate early everyone deserves these opportunities mlk has the most ap classes offered in the district with 24. i get to pick from a wide range of subjects including ap literature ap human geography ap environmental science and ap calculus ap classes have helped improve my note-taking critical thinking and essay writing skills because of this i feel prepared for college and i believe every student should be able
035to be confident in themselves going into higher education these skills have also helped me in my non-ap classes bringing up my grades overall increasing my chances of going to college unfortunately i have not seen these opportunities distributed equally in the sciences white and asian-american students are over-represented in my ap physics class black and latino students deserve equal funding and prioritization as white students ap courses teach valuable skills and increase chances of attending and graduating college on time thus mnps must earmark dollars to advanced placement or to expand advance academic opportunities in schools serving the most black and latino students we must work together to address the inequities and advanced academics that get us to the m ps4 tenant identify and eliminate inequities thank you [Applause] autumn jemison hello mnps school board leaders i am reading
036this for a brilliant black young woman who is a graduate of mnps as she is away at college today she writes my name is autumn jemison i'm from nashville born and raised and have lived in the woodland waverly neighborhood my entire childhood i am here with the noaa education task force we are here to recognize and advance black brilliance asserting the need for equitable access and support for advanced academics for all mnps students regardless of the race ethnicity or zip code when i was younger i moved to many different schools as my parents were sampling the best schools for my sisters and i to get a solid education i attended schools like glendale christ the king battleground academy and hillsborough high school my alma mater coming from a family of scholars my parents wanted us
037to have access to different perspectives and be able to adapt to change at hillsborough i was a candidate in the ibcp program taking history of the americas and language and literature as my advanced courses currently i go to school at dillard university in new orleans where i major in film and double minor in accounting and english i can confidently say if it wasn't for my years in advanced classes i would not be prepared for the content i'm learning now in school how to manage my time efficiently or when and how to ask questions that bring me clarity in mnps racially diverse schools in the district such as hillsborough high tend to have the largest racial inequities in enrollment in advanced academics a trend seemed a trend seen nationwide i experienced this first hand respectfully hillsborough
038does not apply the same attention to their black and brown students and motivating them to join advanced classes as they do their white counterparts even in regular classes teachers are not teaching black and brown students to their full potential or pushing them to consider advanced classes to inspire more of a challenge this promotes a cycle of students undervaluing their potential for earning a college degree and it limits their abilities to learn skills and critical thinking innovation and creativity i have a little sister who currently attends hillsborough and i'm worried for her education i don't want her to have the same experience of not feeling heard in her advanced classes i leave you with these questions what does educational counseling look like for black and brown students are the teachers getting the support they need to
039create a safe learning environment for the students to learn what content needs to be implemented in these training sessions for teachers to remove their biases the methods of education must be modified for the upcoming diverse leaders of change in closing i urge mnps to expand eligibility and increase access for black and latino students thank you thank you joanna wade good evening chair bugs and members of the board i'm dawana wade and i reside in hermitage where john little is my board representative i'm also a former mnps parent and the current guardian of a freshman at mlk i'm here with the noaa education task force and we are here to recognize and advance black brilliance asserting the need for equitable access and support for advanced academics for all mnps students regardless of their race ethnicity or
040zip code it's very clear that there are and have been egregious racial disparities in school discipline with black and brown students being over represented in punitive discipline consequences in mnps those same racial disparities are evident in academics as black and brown students are underrepresented and gifted in talented programming in mnps there's certainly a connection between these two issues and it boils down to the need for continued focus and efforts around teacher diversity anti-bias training and social emotional learning all things the advanced academics and seo committees are advocating for in an effort to address and eliminate these disparities nationwide teacher race is the factor most associated with gifted assignment for black students so much so that black students are three times more likely to be assigned to gifted reading programs when previously taught by black teachers
041than when taught by non-black teachers unfortunately mnps teachers are predominantly white women which does not align with the diverse student body of mnps mnps must accelerate efforts to diversify the teacher workforce by employing and paying well more black and latino teachers now and once this acceleration has been achieved it's imperative that all teachers all school personnel all faculty staff building leadership senior leadership bus drivers cafeteria staff everybody receive regular ongoing consistent anti-bias and seo training not training that's optional and only for some personnel who interact with students training that is required and for everyone in the absence of this training it becomes too simple for us to overly rely on punitive consequences to behaviors therefore removing black and brown students from the classrooms and decreasing their opportunities for advanced academics it's time for new culture
042consistent across the district which acknowledges the intersectionality between teacher diversity social emotional learning supports and anti-bias training and their power to promote access to advanced academics for students who are most often left out of the conversation we must work together to address the inequities in advanced academics that get us to the mnps core tenant identify and eliminate inequities thank you lynn hoyt followed by billy sanders and michelle sheriff good evening chair member of the board members of the board my name is lynn hoyt i live at 160 haverford in board rep tyler's district and i am an mmps parent as a noaa member i am here to recognize and advance black brilliance asserting the need for equitable access and support for advanced academics for all mmps students regardless of their race ethnicity or zip code
043my three children all participated in encore now gate and it's a gifted the gifted and talented program i'm a pr i'm proud that mps offers high level academics for its students it should it must but should it only happen with a magnet school selection should it only favor white students the best behaved students the students with the most available parents i reflect on my time in mnps and what i describe as working the system i was one of those visible west nashville parents to me it seemed access to advanced academics has always been capitalized on by parents that had the time to advocate for coursework i know you're aware of these inequities and this history and i thank you for your work to address it white students and mmps were two times as likely to
044be enrolled in advanced placement classes compared to black students in the 20 20-21-22 school year statistically this is because mnps high schools that serve mostly black students offer many fewer ap courses than racially diverse schools in the district why is it statistically mmps high schools serve mostly serving mostly black students offer fewer ap courses i have some insight the mid-december tennessean article on disparities in advanced classes is a worthy analysis it shows what high schools had the most academic offerings and it correlates with high schools that have a history of strong parent involvement and ptos mostly in west nashville i know it's very tough to get parents engaged many don't trust their engagement is welcome or will make a difference or school culture makes engagement transactional not collaborative collaboration is critical to equity and support
045of the public system it is made even harder because we feel cut off by covid thus mnps should set clear measurable goals for advancing access to and success and advanced academic opportunities and commit to publicly measuring district progress towards those goals including sharing a comprehensive plan by the end of the school year mnps should also provide publicly available clear transparent and easily understandable data on advanced academics in the open data portal updating each semester and disaggregating by school race and ethnicity gender whether economically disadvantaged english proficiency and disabled disability status all students benefit from high quality instruction and high expectations and all parents benefit from being a part of building those academic pathways we must work together as a school and a community to improve advanced academics access thank you mnps core tenant 39. billy
046sanders good evening my name is billy sanders i'm an attorney and i live in school district one i have three children who graduated from metro public schools and participated in advanced academics i am here with noah to advance black brilliance and urge you to pass the resolution asserting the board's commitment to equitable access and support for advanced academics national data shows that when given the opportunity black and latino students are successful in advanced academics however there are undeniable disparities in educational opportunities for advanced academics for black and latino students in metro schools and nationwide for example white students in metro were four times as likely to be identified for encore in the 2021-22 school year compared to black students why is this metro schools should use data to find out and to identify and eliminate
047the barriers that prevent black and brown students and particularly those from low-income backgrounds from early access to advanced academic opportunities my daughter grace who is now a professor at the university of pennsylvania says that early access to encore was important to her because of the manner in which they experienced learning and knowledge she said she experienced many things hands-on and they were not graded on it but they were expected to do their best and being with other gifted students required her to be challenged and push herself she also believes late access could cause some students to be intimidated and second guess themselves thus all the more reason to provide support to help black and brown students to succeed once enrolled metro schools should also expand eligibility to advance academics in addition to universal testing expand
048the use of recommendations based on a range of qualitative data that is behavior that is observed and cannot be measured with tests some students may show giftedness in an area that is not being fostered in the classroom disruptive behavior may be a signal for a more challenging curriculum our curriculum that needs to include the students culture and history i'm a strong believer in the motto of the united negro college fund which is a mind is a terrible thing to waste we must afford all children the opportunity have a challenging curriculum that allows them to live up to their potential we must also encourage them and provide them with the tools and support they need to succeed our society is diminished because we have failed to foster minds that could be solving so many of the
049problems in our communities and world your core tenants say you want to eliminate inequities and want to foster high quality instruction and high expectations each year in each classroom let's work together and get it done thank you [Applause] sheriff and dave rosenberg greetings chair members of the board and doctor battle my name is michelle sheriff i am a nationally board certified teacher and president of mda our organization amplifies teacher voice at the district level and endeavors to address educator concerns that is why our ongoing partnership with mnps is important i want to say thank you and recognize the partnership between mnps and mnea our members were concerned about returning to work in person for second semester we met with mnps leadership and the district was receptive and pivoted to remote option for last week's pd
050and planning days this is just one example of how our partnership with district leadership supports mnps educators as m ea amplifies educator voice i'm also here to express concern about the lack of substitute teachers to improve student outcomes we must have personnel in buildings to support student learning currently most vacancies are filled by stu um filled by students being added to other classes or teachers covering vacancies during their planning time asking teachers to cover unfilled vacancies every day increases their workload and stress levels when students are added or split into other classes that classroom teacher's attention is divided between their assigned students and additional students and instruction suffers for both sets of students when teachers are asked to cover vacancies during planning time they do not have the time to plan and prepare lessons contact
051families grade assignments or do any of the other million things that need to occur to support students every day we know we must find creative solutions to fill vacancies some suggestions we have are bonus pay for substitute teachers who work consecutive days in lieu of subpay for substitute teachers who cover more than one vacancy each day increase substitute pay to be competitive with the national job market as more educators leave the profession we must do what we can to improve working conditions for mmps educators this school year educators have repeatedly asked to have less demands and decrease workloads as they support students who for the first time since the 2018-19 school year are experiencing in-person classes while continuing to live through a global pandemic i've presented a few examples of ongoing situations that are not
052sustainable it causes an undue burden to educators and students suffer let me be clear the lack of available substitutes is a crisis these examples are happening every day in nearly every school m e a stands ready to continue partnering with the district to find solutions to these ongoing and pressing issues we appreciate your efforts to continue to support mnps employees and appreciate the opportunities to be part of the solutions to these issues thank you dave rosenberg [Applause] shane rogers good evening my name is jane rogers and i work for knowledge academies i'm here tonight to tell you that or ask you to renew our charter i am a special education teacher it's a hard job but i love it we have a dedicated team of teachers who come in every single day and do nothing
053but dedicate their time to make other children whose life is difficult better we don't just teach them academics we teach them how to live we teach them how to count money we teach them how to tie their shoes we teach them how to stop and wait in line for their turn to talk we're there to help them through everything we also have a special group of middle school schoolers who work hard every single day and they want to do well they come to school loving school because they have a a group of teachers who don't just come in there and have to do their job we come in there ready to teach for a lot of our kids we are mom and dad we spend the most of our day most of their day with
054us they go home they get ready and they go to sleep they come back so we don't just get to teach them education we also get to teach them how to be responsible citizens after leaving school i also come before you as a t as a mother my daughter used to go to another school a christian school a great school and i made a difficult decision to bring her over to knowledge academies where she was doing okay now she's thriving i don't have to do the weekly weekly or nightly argument could you do your homework that's out the window she's got it she loves coming to school it's not an argument to get her to go to school she wants to have friends she's involved and she's here tonight to explain to you how why
055she loves the school as well so i just come for you respectfully asking you to renew our charter our kids it's not our students they're our kids and we would love to keep it that way thank you richard page he's in quarantine he will not be here this evening okay gotcha good evening dr battle chairman bugs and members of the mmps school board my name is sherry hage and i am the founder and ceo of nei thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight regarding our work with knowledge academies ka is a very special place as you saw from the many students and parents and staff members who spoke to you both last month and tonight it was founded on the principles of providing parents a quality school choice option that is innovative drives academic
056excellence for students provides a unique and smaller learning environment for families and is in partnership with the local school district this board and this superintendent should be commended for listening to this community and working hard to give parents various educational opportunities that meet their needs all in partnership with you we appreciate the fact that you recognize that a one-size-fits-all model does not work for a diverse and unique community such as nashville we stand with you in serving the antioch community well since april of 2019 knowledge academies has seen a lot of positive changes that have expanded on their original successes we have worked hard to rebuild a positive relationship with the charter office and we're extremely proud when the schools were removed from your probation list because we successfully met all of the outline metrics
057we have not missed one monthly financial report submission and we are in compliance we have seen improvements in our academic outcomes as shown with the state data in 2021 which led ka to exiting the state csi list our tcap results further showed that our work during the pandemic yielded solid academic results that are higher in ela math and social studies than all other traditional public schools in our zone we have seen increased parent and community engagement improved operational efficiencies provided more professional development for our teachers and staff and brought equity to our boys and girls athletic programming most of which occurred during the last 18 months of a global pandemic we as a school community stand here tonight to request your continued support by approving our charter renewal that approval will send a strong message
058to our staff parents and students that one their hard work is being rewarded and two their commitment is doing what is and doing what is best for students is truly appreciated in closing i want to say this our successes are your successes we are all in education to do what is good and noble and right for the children i know that together we are meeting the needs of the antioch community by providing them a quality public charter school that is supported by a quality school authorizer thank you your continued support thank you james bristol good evening members of the board um i'm james bristol i'm pleased to appear before you i'm the chairman of the board of knowledge academy so you just heard ms hayes speak about knowledge academies we we have three campuses at
059our location we have knowledge academies and kf crossings and knowledge high school that have been approved by this board you will be considering tonight the renewal of our knowledge academy five through eight charter i want to give a bit of background if i could we have in 2011 when we started we ended up with three charters we had an arrangement where we thrived our campus our students did very well and uh until about 2018 2019 however we run into a speed bump we'll call it and those events are well known here at this board level some of you were there when we discussed these a couple years ago and so we took dramatic steps one was to hire knowledge noble education initiative got to know sherry hage and her team and we have engaged them
060to manage the school and they report to the board the board is very engaged in what the school is doing and uh that that collaboration has worked very well so from where we were in just a couple of years we made some very material progress we had been placed upon target of support and improvement list and in just two years all the knowledge academy schools uh were able to re um co exit that list and the fact i think we're the only mnps charters who did exit that list uh financially where we have found our footing we're doing well now we have a cumulative one million dollar fund balance and our audits have been cleaned with no audit findings and so financially we're back on track our enrollment now was rising again we suffered pretty
061badly a couple of years ago this year we got up to 430 students and our fifth grade enrollment is up 65 so we're very proud of that um on spin now i think we have have done very well and are moving in the very right direction at this point i want to talk a bit about the future we would like to talk to you as a mnps and have an open collaborative discussion because in the decades since our charter was approved and our three schools did work very well our community has changed dramatically and so our proposal specifically would be to combine our three charters into one charter we think this would help relieve some of the administrative burdens are with three charters and have just one charter and we think that'd be a positive
062for all of us that were involved we are we do value the relationship with heaven ps mnps over these years and we look to this be a positive collaborative effort and i ask you all to please renew our charter tonight and we look forward to working with you on these on these changes we think make some sense thank you thank you carol swann [Applause] good evening i feel like i've come home thank you so much for letting me speak tonight on behalf of knowledge academies it has been a while since i've been in this room and some of you know me from my work with the charter office before my retirement in 2018. since then through my own consulting company i work with charter operators and authorizers all over the country one of the many
063services i provide for my clients is evaluation of existing schools for renewal or replication purposes when while charter laws and performance expectations vary from state to state there are three constants that every authorizer wants to see one is academic progress and growth for students the second is operations of a school that support that academic programming and the third is fiscal responsibility and financial accountability this school has all of those founded in 2012 knowledge academies quickly became designated as a reward school for the state when the school began facing challenges the governing board did exactly what we would want a good governing board to do and that is to assess the situation to make the necessary changes and in this case they brought in engaged the services of noble education initiative a noted turnaround specialist as
064their charter management organization in less than three years nei has brought stability and innovation to every aspect of knowledge academy academics operations and finances two of the knowledge schools as you've heard uh have come off of the states designated a tsi and atsi list in 2020 a pandemic year this year's interim benchmark scores show dramatic are promising and their dramatic growth and not only that but nei and knowledge academy has been a great partner with mmps fulfilling all compliance requirements to be released from probationary status and working with the charter office every step of the way they want to continue to be a good partner a full-time community liaison at knowledge continues to build community trust and partnerships and the finances have been stabilized and are transparent in closing please let me say this to
065you every school every school has its challenges they are not defined by those challenges they are defined by how they react and respond to them this school has proven with the right leadership given the right resources and the right plan it is on the right track and i hope you will join with me in recommending this school for renewal thank you michelle harvell jones denise thompson good evening board and board chair our instructional team first of all my name is denise thompson and i represent nei's instructional team and i work with knowledge academies our instructional team at nei has been doing extensive coaching and modeling for teachers we recognize that too often professional development practices focus on delivering educational expectations without the supports to monitor the implementation of the practices that occur simply put what
066is expected is not inspected at knowledge academies teachers are engaged to foster clear understanding of how to effectively utilize all resources and the why behind the importance of each one we added layers of support for consistent follow-up practices this allows us to track their understanding growth and implementation of valid classroom practices the team has revisited minute by minute planning structure for pacing provided professional development specific to instructional strategies and data interpretation we re rearranged the success block based on the nwea data results to support the standard space instruction in the classroom we also are coaching teachers to effectively work with critical subgroups such as ell and esc working with them on pop plans so they understand how to drive student data conversations and hold them accountable for data tracking as you know this alone is
067a high-yield strategy our goal is to not only equip teachers with research-based strategies but to immerse them in data this will ensure that effectively they are able to guide student achievement in the classroom and build those necessary relationships for success ka already has a culture of excellence and fabulous teachers we ask that you allow us to continue the observable data proven progress and the unprecedented growth of the teachers by renewing the charter for knowledge academies thank you so much for your time [Applause] oh sorry that was me so sorry next is uh carl kirk nope we just we just did yep thank you i apologize for be pausing oh okay all right sorry um my name is carl kirk i'm the director of student services ak knowledge academies and i wanted to advocate on behalf
068of our middle school i wanted to speak to the school culture that we are developing and continuing to improve over aka and we are committed towards uprooting the emotional issues that are plaguing all of our students nationwide by motivating students to uplift their peers as they would a brother or a sister we are building a family at k.a and take that tiger nation model to heart students are aware that they have access to staff and i do mean the entire staff that's our custodial our support staff our teachers our administrative staff they know that they have people in the building who are genuinely invested in their well-being not just in their academics we have provided professional development for our teachers and and we're currently equipping them to be powerful advocates for our students we're also
069focused on our social and emotional learning over aka we do not administer discipline actions at our school that are not rooted in restorative practice we are always trying to hold our kids accountable and showing them that the demographics given the demographics that we serve we're showing them that the world is going to be difficult and teaching them to hold themselves accountable counteracts that the goal of education is to create young people that are capable of thinking critically and using that critical thinking to improve their community and ka is design committed to that goal ka needs to stay open because our goals are not yet completed and we have plenty more students to empower before we get there thank you next is nancy holland good evening board i'm glad to be here i'm dr nancy holland
070i'm a resident of school board district 9. i have retired twice from mnps yes i'm old enough to remember when you reach the office by dialing xero on the phone i am here now as a substitute and my thanks to ms michelle sheriff for her advocacy on behalf of subs we're almost the unseen part of the district we're unseen until there's not enough in any one spot i subbed yesterday at bellevue middle school for the strings teacher i started out my teaching career in music and so when i get to sub for a music class i get excited and i had a wonderful time yesterday and today i subbed fifth grade at another school from social studies class but the topic was louis armstrong so i took the liberty of teaching a music class sort
071of uh while talking about louis armstrong and i just i have had two wonderful days i'm kind of afraid to say that because there's this sense that if you're having fun teaching you don't need to be paid well you know the problem with that is my mortgage company does not care how much fun i'm having at work they want the money and i gotta have it um i know i could go to work in a retail establishment and get more per hour and get paid christmas and paid new year's i've worked in retail i worked for the big corporation i want to teach that's my calling that's what i'm good at that's what i do i don't want to go to retail i want to teach so i'm asking that you consider raising substitute pay
072i'm not the only metro retiree who is subbing and i have some colleagues who have the extended contracts which is a great thing you know i get calls from music teachers who say that i'm their first choice well you know that just makes me feel wonderful but there's one of me and usually four or five of them needing sub on the same day also we should be getting paid when the schools have to be closed like holidays and inclement weather although we would all settle for getting holiday pay so just a thing glad i have the chance to be a sub and thank you for listening thank you next is sandy castro good evening dr battle chair and members of the board my name is sandy castro and i'm the customer relations and growth specialist
073for nei in this role i directly support the leadership and the staff at knowledge academy with their marketing and enrollment efforts enrollment okay for the current year is up from last year we had 430 students in grades 5 through 12 compared to 396 last year we had one of the largest graduating eighth grade classes in several years and most all of these students chose to remain with us at a 10k high school as a matter of fact at the last board meeting several of the seniors who made public comment started at k in the fifth grade currently our fifth grade enrollment has nearly doubled so we're very proud of the progress that we've made in the marketing enrollment additionally the population housing growth is exploding in the area around the campus and the traditional public
074middle schools are already at or over capacity so as a result we expect to see an increased demand in the coming years each year we survey our parents students and staff and the most recent parent survey showed us that parents are pleased with the targeted support and intimate environment at k.a that ka was the first that ka was the right fit for their child and the k was the best school in the antac area each year school team members along with nit members work together to prepare the marketing plan for the upcoming year this plan is thoughtfully designed to ensure there's a broad outreach and that resources are in place for us to roll out an effective plan across davidson county the marketing plan consists of five components a digital marketing campaign the utilization of
075all social media platforms advertising on tv radio local papers etc and we also send a direct mail postcard prior to open enrollment period inviting prospective parents to attend information sessions and tour the campus the fourth component is grassroots marketing we visit local businesses we hold off-site info sessions we canvas neighborhoods we invite community partners to be involved with the school and ka has attracted many new families and as a bonus increased our community partnerships the last component component is promotional items and we want to be sure we have a sufficient inventory of brochures flyers and various promotional materials for our grassroots efforts our goal is community awareness and highlighting what k has to offer students and families the success of the marketing plan is the team effort and not the sole responsibility of the school
076registrar school leadership family engagement representative teachers and even our students participate i hope this has provided you with an understanding of the ongoing marketing efforts which we have in place to ensure ka is continuing to reach out to new families and increase enrollment and i thank you for your time this evening and look forward to your yes vote thank you amity marsh [Applause] good evening chairwoman bugs and members of the board my name is amity marsh and i live in ottawa subdivision in district 2. i would like to review some of the concerns that were brought up in a previous board meeting regarding the book woods runner that will be taught this quarter to fourth graders fourth graders are usually nine to ten years old however the book is recommended for ages 12 and up
077the main concern is the graphic nature of the book and it being presented to elementary age children here is a brief summary of the book including some graphic quotes from the first few chapters thirteen-year-old samuel lives with his parents on the edge of the wilderness in the british colony of pennsylvania samuel knows how to hunt and how to survive in the untamed forest where it can take days for news to arrive there are rumors that american patriots have begun a bloody war against the english then the war comes to him in a savage attack by british soldiers and iroquois samuel's parents are taken prisoner samuel follows their trail determined to find a way to rescue them each day confronts the enemy and the unbelievable cruelty tragedy and horror of the war but he also discovers
078unexpected allies men and women working secretly on behalf of the patriots and he learns that he must plunge deep into enemy territory to find his parents chapter one one man mauled to death by a bear that had attacked his horse while the man was plowing the man's head was eaten another killed by an arrow through the throat chapter three whole ranks of attacking men could be torn to pieces in a single shot the musket ball passing through the man after man ripping them apart chapter 4 not just the smoke from the fires but the thick heavy smell blood death the chapter continues to dwell on death and mutilation chapter 5 he saw where overton and others had fallen saw the blood now covered with flies where they had been hacked to the ground with tomahawks
079the chapter continues to dwell on blood and death chapter 6 ignored and allowed to die alone settle your affairs and make out a proper will because the rifleman will almost certainly kill you their prince were scuffed right and he felt his mother's anguish terribly she was small and thin and very strong in her own way but this brutal treatment probably with a rope around the neck might be too much for her he found the first body he had been scalped mutilated one more body we'd like to reiterate that woods runner was removed in williamson county and replaced with two primary sources king george's proclamation and rebellious colonies and the declaration of independence excerpts from both will be used we applaud the removal of this book in williamson county and ask you to do the same
080for the students in davidson county we appreciate your time we hope you will see a need to replace the book as well since we all want what's best for our children thank you thank you emma um jackson self um good evening dr battle board chairwoman miss bugs and esteem members of the board let me first say thank you for your selfless service of educating the community of metro nashville my name is jackson self for the past 17 years i have been a school administrator and have worked in the good part of my career in school choice but not solely as an educator but also as a parent i have two children that attend charters and won a graduating senior this year who's been accepted at one of the largest tier one universities in america at
081the university of central florida finishing third in her class this year so pretty proud of that pretty proud of her as a parent i know firsthand what charters can do for our students as a seasoned administrator of 17 years i know the behind the scenes operations and passion that teachers and staff have for students at charter when i look at ka as a whole the school continues to move the academic needle heck we enrolled 12 students just this week if we look at the community in antioch it desperately needs school options for families for two specific reasons the data as you've heard currently ka outperforming all the other neighboring schools in the antioch community in reading math and social studies but two the exploding growth of nashville specifically the i-24 corridor there are new residential
082communities being planned developed built right now many of them and in the future antioch as a community must be ready to provide new families school choice options and educational options and especially those that prefer non-traditional settings like the ka community and the ka school can provide when you look at solely our middle school the data speaks for itself but more importantly you heard last meeting and again tonight from our students and many members of our staff examples of the heart the culture the higher performing culture that they're developing and we're developing at ka many who are graduating seniors who've been and started in our middle school as fifth graders sixth graders and seventh graders in closing please renew our charter our students and families love our school our community needs our school and our success
083is your success at metro nashville public schools thank you thank you olivia rogers hello my name is olivia i'm in the eighth grade and this is my second year at knowledge academy the reasons why i love knowledge academy is that i feel like i can express myself more and be myself i feel like this because of my old christian school i felt like i couldn't be myself since everyone was so judgmental and if i didn't act like everyone else no one would like me but here i can act myself and people still like me for who i am and i can actually be myself and people don't judge me another reason is why i like aaa is that the teachers are nice and they're very con considerate to their students i feel like if i
084had any issues with home or school i could tell my teachers and i can trust them i didn't have that type of trust with my old teachers at my old school because everyone was just so strict and i felt like i couldn't be myself there please renew knowledge academy's charters this is like a second home to me thank you thank you samuel fits you good evening members of the board board chair my name is samuel fitzhugh i'm in the 10th grade and i'm part of the student government and knowledge academies i've been there since fifth grade and ever since then one thing ka has always had is a sense of community and diversity and that no matter who you are you will be accepted and loved by everybody and you can be yourself no matter
085where you are in the school like doesn't matter you can always just be you and i feel like it's a nice school that treats everybody well so for that reason i hope the boy considers renewing the charter thank you azeri espinoza perez good evening members of the border i am at syria spinoza i am in the eighth grade and i live here from antioch i think ka should stay because my last school i had a bad experience when i came to ka i was able to socialize and join sports i am part of the volleyball team because of ka they include every little thing that students suggest to make the school better thanks to ka i was able to experience what middle school is ka is a very welcoming school and i'm glad to come
086to this school thank you for your time thank you tara wilson cara wilson valerie sanchez good evening members of the board and board chair my name is valerie sanchez and i'm an 8th grade student at ka ka has been a great experience i made some great friends and met great teachers kay has been through tough times but they always pick themselves up one thing i like about ka is that they like to make their students happy for example pop-out days when you get to dress how you'd like reasonably and and when they started to let us wear hoodies i also like how kay tries to make their students comfortable like um i'm excited to start next year and what's new to come i have a sister who's in fourth grade and she's going to fifth
087grade next year and even when i just talk about ka she's like oh mom i want to go to ka and hopefully kaye gets renewed so she can go there when i'm in high school and she's in middle school thank you for your time thank you brandon faria faria good evening members of the board and board chair my name is brandon and i'm in the eighth grade and knowledge has been one of the best schools i've attended i've met some of my best friends here and when i was on crutches the staff were so eager to help me get into class and i'm very glad i chose to go to knowledge and i hope the board chooses to renew the charter thank you for your time thank you jordan lopez holloway jefferson aguilar hello members
088of the um well board and the chair board and i am jefferson aguilar romero and i am from the district 4 and i am in knowledge academy and i just want to say that this school has not only changed me but it's changed every student in it when i used to go to my previous schools people judged me by my height and well no one likes to be judged but here people accept who i am i finally met two of the greatest people and this is one of the best schools i had so far and i think if you renew the chart it would be awesome thank you thank you lasalle court curry good evening board chair and members of the board i'm lasalle chapman curry middle school special education at knowledge academy um i
089guess before i start i couldn't help but notice uh mr little i share your sentiments so tighten up yeah come on tighten up um but i'm gonna wear the parent hat and as parents we want our children to attend a school that's safe we want them to attend a school that has a positive learning environment and we want our children to attend the school that has a staff and a team of teachers and administrators that care and that's what knowledge academy is i don't really need to say too much you just heard it from the children they love coming to school they love coming to knowledge academy i love seeing them every morning i i mentioned this the last time when i was here not having knowledge academy as an option in antioch would be
090a huge travesty to the community the nei team and and our staff we're dedicated um based on the foundation of of academic excellence so i hope you guys really reconsider and renew our charter we need it all right tighten up i know all right thank you latonya white [Applause] dr battle boy chair bugs and school board members my name is dr latonya white in my former capacity as principal of ka and now the director of curriculum instruction i can attest to the positive changes and trends that have taken place since nei has given the has been given the authority to run the school we have increased the enrollment stabilized the staff and developed strong and consistent parental engagement not to mention robust community partnerships ka has demonstrated that it is positioned to continue increasing academic
091achievement our latest benchmark results support this as well as the state test results in which we outperformed all middle schools in the antioch area so you're probably wondering what are you doing to continue the academic growth well i only have three minutes so here's a snippet all instructional decision decisions are data driven and follow our educational model we do benchmark assessments three times per year every four weeks we assess students based on our instructional focus calendar and then review the data in short we determine if students need remediation or enrichment of the standards talk during a certain time span as educators you are aware that having the data for the sake of having data serves no purpose with that said we have data chats with teachers to analyze the classroom data teachers then use this
092data to drive their attendant instruction which consists of small group rotations teachers have data chats with their students and develop smart goals using personalized learning plans that we review several times over the course of the school year we are invested in developing effective teachers one way in which we demonstrated this is by having our teachers return in july for our teacher academy during teacher academy we provide professional development on our education model our instructional focus calendars curriculum updates and instructional practices our professional growth opportunities don't stop with teacher academy we also provide teacher supports during our weekly plc's in coaching and modeling setup ka has worked tremendously hard across the years of the charter to excel you've had an opportunity to hear from numerous staff members such as mr germany ms black and mr curry
093that spoke about the instrumental changes that have taken place in the athletic department school clubs as well as students exposure to college and career readiness opportunities you don't need me to tell you this because you've already heard from our students and have spoken for themselves our students love knowledge academies students like henoch tillahunt cedric clark who are known as k.a legacies because they've been with us since fifth grade you've heard from students like jairo matos from cuba that found his calling to serve his country by enlisting after he graduates this year the antioch community needs a choice you've heard from my colleagues you've heard from my students we are a strong choice as you gather your thoughts and prepare to make your final decision as it relates to our charter please vote yes to renew
094the charter tiger nation is just getting started and that we will end public participation thank you to all community members who made remarks to us we will now move on from public participation to are you going to let paula copy i am so sorry we had someone walk in i'm sorry dr paula pendergrass and berthin is also here too and dr berthen and bob mckenny both signed up and barely missed sorry about that thank you for reminding me thank you for circling back madam chair greetings madam chair school board members and dr battle i am dr paula pinagras the current vice president of mnea and a gifted k-4 educator for mnps on behalf of my teacher colleagues we appreciate the decision made last monday for school-based educators to have the option to work remotely during
095the professional development planning days thank you so much this evening i am here with noaa education task force in support of earmarking dollars to expand advanced academics in all mnps schools i want to share a quick story with you during one of our gifted testament windows a a young eight-year-old student came up to me and asked are you the encore lady i replied yes i teach encore he stated i need to be tested so i can go to your class i responded by asking the student's name his grade and his teacher's name i also told him that i would talk to his teacher and about and ask about his ask he stated no no no no no you can't do that she would just say no i need you to just test me i didn't
096know how to explain to this young student about the system and structures created that prevented me from just taking him at his word after confirming with his teacher we decided to go ahead and test him the test reveal indeed that he was gifted this is an example of how collaboration and increased opportunities allowed a student to access services he needed but we must realize that this is not always the case we must all we must take it upon ourselves to take the time to make sure that the resolution that is presented is not just a piece of paper that it becomes reality i want to thank school board member member abigail tyler for bringing the resolution forward i also want to take thank mnps gifted teachers dr hairline dr smallwood and dr nelson over there
097and and dr williams and dr bellamy for their continuous effort to bring a wellness and pr awareness and progress in advanced academics and their future collaboration with noah and mea thank you so much thank you dr nebar mckinney good evening dr battle chair bugs and board members my name is dr berthina naba mckinney i'm a long time resident of district four i have five children who graduated from mnps and currently have a third grader in a district four elementary school i also serve as the secretary and recruitment coordinator for the parent advisory council and i'm also currently serving on the tennessee department of education school funding subcommittee the the the tennessee department of education is looking at a new funding formula to determine how we support and fund students within our schools the in partnership
098with with mnps the tennessee department of education is hosting a town hall this wednesday which is tomorrow to gather thoughts and feedback from all stakeholders that's family students teachers and community members on the new state funding formula i would like to personally invite all stakeholders especially our parents to attend this town hall to learn more about how our state funds education and how those funds are allocated to support our students our children the town hall will be located right here in the board room at 6 30 and as we speak the tennessee department of education just released the draft of the new funding framework so i encourage all families community members teachers educators this impacts everyone across our state on how we fund education and how we support children to look at that draft funding
099formula i believe and i want to call out megan mangram i believe she just posted it as well with the tennessean so if you could click on that link with the tennessean to access that information if not you're welcome to contact me and and i can get that information to you as well this will be a public forum so feedback and comments are are requested and you are able to sign up to speak at this event but we need feedback on this funding formula we need we need to hear the voices of parents within our community on what they are looking at to support education we need the voices of teachers community members all stakeholders on this this is a decision that not only impacts here us here in davidson county but across our state
100so it's critically important that we get involved in this decision-making thank you have a great night thank you now that concludes public participation thank you all as i gather my thoughts we will move on now to the consent agenda under governance issues do i have an amendment go ahead miss tyler um yes i'd like to request that we remove number eight christopher and davo travel number 11 gartner inc and number 19 school kit for discussion number 19 yes okay so we have 8 11 and 19 being pulled from consent do i have a motion to accept the consent agenda as amended [Music] thank you dr gendry dr gentry and then thank you miss player peters for the second all in favor please raise your hand all right unanimously unanimously approved we'll now move on to
101eight christopherson and davo travel lp as mrs masters has pointed out before we do not have to have a motion though we would prefer one after whatever discussion so go right ahead miss miss tyler great um my question is just about i know it doesn't seem to be a lot of money being allocated here especially since it's over the next four years but i just wanted to know what value above and beyond our bookkeepers that this travel group brings to us um i feel like our we already have a system of reimbursement that we use are we using this group separately and then running it through our bookkeepers i just what is their value above and beyond what we already do yeah dr battle as she pulls that up would you like to move to
102number 11 just so staff has time together no and that's actually this is very a simple question i just wanted to know what the timeline was the gartner one doesn't have a timeline just says immediate for immediate purchase um and it but i don't know if consulting services don't seem like a one-time thing so i just didn't know if there was an end to that if it was like a human being that we're hiring or if it's some contract to um have them available kind of like a resource i just didn't know and if that is the case does it end so all right so number 11 the questions are around uh parameters dr battle gordon yes we'll take um 11 first um and then we'll address number eight you're doing eight right eleven okay
103thank you um chief sullivan thank you absolutely thank you dr battle um yes the uh gartner engagement we have it'll be a short-term engagement and but we'll have longer um a little bit longer roll out of what we're working on with them so we've gotten some great feedback already from them and we have gotten some great ideas that we're going to be able to implement very soon with some some different work around adding servers in and adding additional networking abilities so that will be a shorter contract just with them but a little bit longer on rollout and that's just one strategy we also have strategies with ena and several other providers who will be helping us with our networking infrastructure becoming a one-to-one district was very very exciting but there's lots of continual build out
104to make sure that we're that we're ready and that we continue to grow our network as our uses continue to grow just adding in one to one added one layer of networking ability that we needed which we were ready for and then as our fantastic educators figured out new and improved ways to use that then we realized that we needed to add more to that network infrastructure and that's what we're in the in the process of doing okay can i ask a follow-up we're right ahead yeah um do we have a previous contract with them because if we haven't approved it i'm not sure how we're already working with them we do we have had a previous i'm sorry yes we have that sure yes thank you we have had a previous uh previous contract
105and some previous work with them and we're looking forward to continuing that to add on to the recommendations from that they had already given us okay so it's it's a short-term match basically to kind of get us through to that yeah it's actually a short-term follow-up really i think is a better way to think of it a short-term follow-up to some of the work that they had that we had done with them in the past that's that's helpful thank you do you want to close number 11 i'm good with number 11. all right then i'll move that we uh accept number 11 after discussion so i have i have a second from his player peters all in favor please raise your hand all right passes unanimously now we'll move back to number eight and then
106lastly to number 19 for school kid thank you so much madam chair we'll address item number eight hi i'm kevin edwards i'm representing the procurement department and i'll speak to the christopherson and andavo travel this isn't coordination with another one that's on the agenda from cairosoft for the sap concur system that is the expense travel and reimbursement system so this is kind of a new shift in direction as we address travel through our office and as part of that platform this integration electronic process there is a travel management piece and so this is one of the preferred vendors that went through the rfp process to be selected for the 24 7 365. as of right now through the procurement office we have one individual who is the travel specialist i will say she does not
107like to be necessarily called or reached on a sunday evening so this platform is really helping address that gap to provide the continuing support so as the mention or the question i think related to bookkeepers this is something that will be rolled out as we begin the implementation and coordination with these two vendors the carosoft once again providing the sap concur platform and then the travel management piece integrated in that that should really help schools and district across the board through the travel process the goal is to really see a quick turnaround as far as being able to reserve their travel and then of course being able to be reimbursed for any funding that comes out of that right hand thank you do we have a lot of i mean does this travel outside of
108davidson county travel outside of tennessee i mean do we have a lot of that um of course the pandemic the past year or two that has certainly limited that as we begin to kind of see beyond that we are expecting to see travel pick up both in and out of state and of course really just trying to get kind of up to speed as far as how we process travel i know it has been a lot of a manual process of paperwork we're looking to kind of get certainly advanced not necessarily on bleeding edge but at least getting kind of up to speed through a platform that is very widely used across the u.s so would this include itinerant teachers who keep up with mileage or is this separate um i believe this this would
109be separate this was is really kind of specific to airlines hotel fees things of that nature i'm okay all right any other questions for number eight uh chris staffordson and davo all right do we have a motion to approve all right we have a motion and a second all in favor please raise your hand all right passes unanimously lastly number 19 school kid thank you madam chair again thank you maura thank you kevin for addressing their previous questions i'll invite dr david williams up to the podium to address item 19. go right here tyler all right um so i have uh a lot of questions around this one um based on what information was given to us it says that it is school kit will be providing pre-k through second grade literacy support it will
110assist with implementing high quality materials it will develop application practices and teachers and it will assist school and district leaders with change in teacher practice so i'm just wondering which schools are they going to be working with is this going to be across the district are our teachers going to be beholden to school kit and not our own principles are our teachers going to be being assessed by an outside group in addition to the assessments that they're already getting from us that's part of their evaluation um and a couple more but i'll stop there and let you answer yes ma'am i try to take notes of your questions um so as with any vendor that we work with in contract they work at our direction and so schoolkit will be an extension of our literacy
111team and work based on mutually agreed upon strategies and plans school kit this particular contract will be as a hundred thousand dollars that the state is gifting us uh to receive and again they'll just be an extension of our team to support our foundational literacy skills work we're in our second year of implementation of the tennessee skills foundational skills curriculum supplement and so we've already of course had training on that that's been rolled out we're in our second year of that and so this will just be nothing more to accelerate that work moving forward and is there a reason that we didn't just use this money to hire somebody to be our actual staff instead of outsourcing it so again this is um through a state department grant and so there are certain constraints that
112we have to abide by to make sure that we are using uh the services the way that the state department has intended so the state department ran an rfp and identified four vendors we ran our own selection process to identify which of those four we thought would be a best fit for our district and which schools is this going to be used for the found tennessee skills foundational foundational skills curriculum supplement is used in all of our schools and so do you expect this group to be coming in and going in and out of every single elementary school that we have no man that's not that's not the plan that's not the proposal because it says it's developing application practices and teachers and it says that it's assisting school and district leaders with change in
113teacher practice that's that is very concerning to me that an outside group is going to come in and tell our district leaders how to change teacher practice um we had a statutory requirement that we had to submit a foundational literacy skills plan back the summer so that's publicly available on our state website so that cannot be changed that plan that was approved by the state department is our district's foundational skills literacy plan and so again they're just coming on board to extend the capacity of our team to accelerate that work but not to change it um not to do anything different again the curriculum is the curriculum that we have um and so again they're just an extension of our team but the curriculum is the tennessee state curriculum that comes from the state tennessee
114foundation to schools curriculum supplement right and um do you have a question i'm sorry i do i'm wondering is this a um is this a grant that you know we we sought out and applied for or is this one of those cases where the state is giving us money to do exactly what the state is telling us to do and calling in a grant so we we initiated i mean the application was more more or less expressing interest that we wanted to be part of this program um it wasn't like we applied and there was a very highly competitive selective process um but we indicated that we were interested in receiving the support yes what's the definition of high quality materials the best the best thing i could point you to would be ed reports
115is a nationally recognized reputable source for identifying what constitutes high quality materials they're screened against a variety of criteria that meets the standards the rigor do they align to the shifts that are inherent in the standards etc so that's that's an important component that we are really proud of that our curriculum are high quality and i know that our white and wisdom curriculum is not comprehensive is this supposed to fill in gaps the school kit yeah well i mean the the high quality materials that are coming from the state is that what's supposed to fill in the gap for the areas that whiten wisdom does not address because it is not a comprehensive literacy program right because it does not have a foundation to skills component and that's why this is that's so that's why
116we have selected the tennessee foundational skills curriculum supplement and again we're in our second year of that but correct that those two taken together do constitute a comprehensive literacy program okay and since our entire ela block is being taken up by witt and wisdom when are our teachers expected to implement this extra stuff so there our scheduling requirements call for 90 minutes of the wooden wisdom and then 45 minutes for k2 foundational skills instruction and is that schools is the is the idea to put that block all together or to split it up or is that at principal described that's in principle's discretion as long as the totality of the 135 minutes is met okay any other questions um and okay i guess the last part the last question is the developing application practices and
117teachers does this um include professional development is that what that means basically yes and more comprehensively to ensure that there's capacity building all the way through the vertical line front through dr bellamy the academics department our school leaders our support up staff our literacy lead coaches our building-based coaches that they're all included in this capacity building okay and then are our teachers going to have this be part of their evaluation because it's considered part of ela and it's required so this this extra foundational skill stuff that's coming in to supplement wet and wisdom where it's not that will be considered something that they would be evaluated on for part of their team observation yes it could be potentially just like any other content that they teach yes ma'am that's it just wanted to make sure
118i think i can appreciate wanting to have help to make sure that you are able to reach all the different schools and and i can understand the need to make sure that we're able to purchase the materials that we need i was under the impression that the materials were provided to districts for free from the state that's correct so this is not going to pay for materials itself it's just going to pay for an outside group to come in and help give development and make sure that it's happening and and that yes ma'am so the tennessee skills foundational uh i get it confused i think of the acronym and then i have to say the say the letters tennessee foundational skills curriculum supplement is freely available to all districts in the state of tennessee all
119we need to do is access the pdf files print them and distribute into our schools which again is what we've done the last two years and so this is again to provide additional capacities building support for our leaders our school leaders our coaches our teachers and do we have any way for because i see the evaluation of it seems to be based on compliance with state required monitoring and evaluation is there any way for the teachers to provide feedback on whether or not it's been helpful for them absolutely any session that we provide teachers we will always seek um anonymous feedback and respond to that and we're also interested in looking at our assessment measures to see to what extent not only the curriculum but also this enhanced professional development and support of implementation of
120that will will yield benefits to student learning i get concerned when i see that we bring when we when it looks like we're outsourcing something that we should have 100 control over um what i hear you saying is that this group is coming in to fit into our structure not to impose a separate structure is that 100 correct that's that's absolutely correct i was even uh reviewing the proposal that they submitted and while they want to help build this they have intentionally said we do not want to be the facilitator we want metro to be the facilitator and all of the development and design will be in conjunction and collaboration with our teams masters just one more clip so but but this vendor was chosen from among four vendors that were pre-approved by the state
121that's correct so and so did we interview all four of those vendors as we were trying to decide which one we wanted to work with we employed a three-step process and so the first one was to reach out to all four vendors and seek a solicitation of their scope and scope of services we heard back from three so at that point we actually set up an interview with each of those three after that they submitted an official proposal so now we're in step two they submitted a proposal based on what we said our needs were our foundational skills plan those were reviewed by our literacy department the top two of those three were then put into a final round where we did a formal interview with a panel we had specific questions that we asked
122each of the vendors and then we reviewed and scored them against an objective criteria to come up with our our winner of those two and schoolkid was the unanimous winner all right any other questions just for my sometimes i get dates mixed up does the term of this contract end at the same time that the whitten wisdom contract ends so this this particular grant is for two years yes that we'll work for since we're in our second year of wooden wisdom implementation uh um or sorry first year and that and the board had approved that for three so they may coincide there at the end of those two um i'm just i'm wary of the outside groups coming in it it makes me feel a little better to know that it's our structure that they're
123trying to fit into i would prefer an ela curriculum that doesn't need to have so much supplementation because it doesn't do the job by itself but that's a separate issue with white and wisdom right and and one that i was not on the board to be able to address when that was chosen so i just want to make sure that our teachers are being completely supported and not being put into a box and and told what they have to say to the kids and told you that's happening with wisdom already and i have serious concerns about that and i want to make sure this is not going to do the same thing that it's not um directing teachers exactly how to do their job but that it's providing them with materials and support to let
124the teacher implement it as he or she knows what's best for their students in their class and lets them be the professional that they are so um as long as i can hear assurance that this is not super scripted and that this is not going to impose even more structure on our teachers when they need to have the ability to do their job and be treated as professionals who have received years of support and education on their own and are really good at what they do and should not need to be treated like kids themselves and told what to say i want to make sure that this is not scripted putting a box on our teachers making it harder for them and this particular contract is not curriculum all right well i appreciate you answering
125all my questions thank you very much of course all right i move to accept school kid do i have a second all right it's been moving seconded all in favor please raise your hand all right passes unanimously thank you we will move on from consent agenda and under governance issues move to number two a resolution for racial equity and advanced academics with tyler back up again i'm pulling it up okay so i'm going to just read it a resolution for racial equity and advanced academics whereas the board of the metropolitan nashville public schools supports equitable access for advanced academics for all mnps students regardless of their race ethnicity or zip code across all grade levels and whereas it is the right of every child regardless of their race ethnicity or place of residence within davidson
126county to access a challenging curriculum to help them grow academically and whereas title vi of the civil rights act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race color or national origin in any program or activity that receives federal funds and whereas an mnps core tenant is to identify and eliminate inequities this core tenant is central to guide mnps towards its north star which is to establish mnps as the premier large school district in tennessee and beyond and whereas an mnps core value is excellence which embodies the belief that all students benefit from high quality instruction and high expectations each year in each subject and in each classroom and whereas mnps offers a range of academic advanced academic opportunities from gifted and talented education in pre-k elementary and middle school to early post-secondary opportunities in
127high school including advanced placement courses international baccalaureate programming and industry credentials and whereas nationwide black and latino students are successful in advanced academic opportunities when given the opportunity and whereas nationwide teacher race is the factor most associated with gifted assignment for black students so much so that black students are three times more likely to be assigned to gifted reading programs when previously taught by black teachers than when taught by non-black teachers and whereas mnps teachers are predominantly white women which does not align with the diverse mnps student body and whereas there are undeniable disparities in educational opportunities in advanced academics for black and latino students in mnps and nationwide for example white students in mnps were four times as likely to be identified for encore in the 2021-22 school year compared to black students and
128white students were two times as likely to be enrolled in an advanced placement course compared to black students and whereas nationwide white students are two times as likely to be identified for gifted and talented education compared to black students black students are also much less likely to be in an accelerated math course in eighth grade or to be enrolled in an ap course in high school and whereas in mmps high schools that serve mostly black students offer many fewer ap courses than racially diverse schools in the district further racially diverse schools in the district for example schools where no single racial ethnic group represents more than 50 percent of the school's total enrollment they tend to have the largest racial inequities in enrollment in ap courses nationwide data supports similar finding and whereas facilitating deeper
129understanding of explicit and implicit bias bias against the brilliance of black and latino students requires appropriate communication professional development and a commitment from the board the district and all school teachers administrators and support staff and whereas many students benefit when they receive gifted and talented services at school it helps students develop motivation and problem-solving skills while also developing positive social and emotional skills further students from historically underserved groups who receive gifted and talented students at school benefit even more than their affluent classmates and whereas completing advanced placement courses helps prepare students for college and career success improves access to college scholarships and to college admissions and passing scores on ap exams reduces college costs and helps students graduate early therefore be it resolved that the metropolitan nashville board of education resolves to set clear measurable
130goals for advancing access to and success in advanced academic opportunities and commits to publicly measuring district progress toward those goals including sharing a comprehensive plan for increasing advanced academic opportunities across the grade levels by the end of the 2021-22 school year furthermore the district shall provide clear transparent and easily understood advanced academics data to the public on the open data portal the data will be updated for the public each semester and will be disaggregated by school race ethnicity gender economically disadvantaged status english proficient proficiency and disability status furthermore the district shall use data to identify the barriers that prevent students of color and students from low income backgrounds from enrolling in advanced academic opportunities furthermore the district shall allocate sufficient financial resources to expand advanced academic opportunities in schools serving the most black and latino
131students furthermore the district shall expand eligibility and increase access so that black and latino students have equitable opportunities to enroll in advanced academic options furthermore the district shall require universal training for all teachers administrators and support staff on identifying giftedness in students furthermore the district shall require a series of recurring in-person anti-bias trainings for all teachers administrators and support staff furthermore the district shall accelerate efforts to diversify the mnps teaching force by employing more black and latino teachers furthermore the district shall provide sufficient support for students to prepare for advanced academic opportunities and for their success once they are enrolled such as expanded tutoring summer classes and teaching standardized test-taking strategies for students and more professional development for teachers furthermore the districts shall communicate regularly with families regarding all advanced academic offerings their benefits qualifications
132for the programs who to contact about enrollment into advanced academic programs and actions parents or guardians can take to help their students meet criteria for enrollment well that's a resolution for you okay uh so thank you um miss tyler do you have a motion so we can open for discussion um yes i make a motion to approve this resolution we have a second we have a second by mr little all right any questions or feedback all right miss alright yes i do um so we have we've all talked about how we believe that there is a definite need for us to recognize more students and have additional trainings and i know that you've worked really hard for teaching and learning for us to have at least two meetings about that so i have a couple
133questions about in reference to the additional trainings so in here it talks about wanting trainings to be done it refers to just trainings in general i believe and then how to identify gate students and then implicit bias is this additional training on top of what we currently already do or is this to try to have accountability for what is currently provided the training for giftedness should be happening um it's not in every single school on the same level so that particular furthermore area is a director to make sure that what should be happening is happening and that all of our teachers are having that training on how to identify giftedness in their students they should already be doing that so just making sure that that already that that happens and then um as far as
134for the series of recurring in-person anti-bias trainings we have been discussing that for a long time and so that's whether or not that is something we offer is something that i want to make sure that it's happening it's available it may be that teachers are already receiving it and this is just making sure that it's actually happening you would have to tell me what our professional development offerings are because we've discussed these but there's not been any confirmation that it's happening i think my follow-up to that is in general the resolution i think i mean i hope everyone on the board agrees that it needs to happen we need to have a more uh focus uh on recognizing students my concern is there's a lot of big language in here that is not measurable and
135it feels like a lot of it we could get a lot more bite if we did policy change instead and thanks to the director's evaluation so like for example like i just feel like that's where it would be better handled for accountability purposes so like for example on the information about um hiring a more diverse teacher population which has definitely been a conversation we've had for years as you know like i would like for us to be able to measure what we want that to be or um the district shall require a series of recurring in-person anti-bias trainings i'd like us to know how much that would cost and how often that would be what's our do we want that to be annual or do we want that to be twice a year you know
136all those there's a lot of things here that are great ideas but they're not plans and if we want to be accountable to it and we should be accountable to it i feel like the better place for us to get our bite is through policy change more so than a resolution it is more work but i think that's maybe the best place for us to like really nail it down can we not do both we could i don't believe we could with this current resolution because it's not already listed there i think i i mean what do you mean ideally i think this resolution would have that already written out because the resolution is us directing here's what we want to happen so i would say in here that we should ideally list what we
137want to happen in those specifics and then be able to overlap that with policy procedure change and director's evaluation currently as it is i could not measure what we want to change here and these things do need to change we do need to be able to better measure it so i would like to have it just frankly be more explicit i additionally would like there to be less focus on advanced placement courses in ap courses which i know we've talked about because i think it takes away some of the need for all the other classes that we have we have so many other advanced academic options even though i appreciate that it's mentioned in here um the ap language is still pretty heavy throughout the rest of it besides that one whereas though i know
138there's like 20 warehouses but they went towards the top and i would like it to be instead of just referred to ap courses whether it's enrolled in ap or it actually has spelled out advanced placement in some places i would like it to be more generalized term so it doesn't seem like the resolution is in support of ap classes but just advanced academics in general i'm afraid it feels too ap stringent anything okay i had a we had a question from dr gentry well i guess i do have a question at some point in time so uh uh miss elrod i have to respectfully disagree that i don't agree with this because we don't use resolutions to manage our director and that's what this resolution is filled with expectations of the district and the director
139resolutions are typically used to state the position of the board and there's nothing that you've asked the board to do so what's the board's responsibility because our job is to support the director in the to reaching the goals that we set out for her and so we talked about these goals these goals are not new and so we've already articulated the board's desire to see a change in the numbers an increase in the number of students of color that have access to ap courses an increase in the support that they're receiving we've been talking about hillsboro which we had a public participation a participation participant already come forth with that we've been talking about the lack of support for students of color in advanced academics at that school for a while and so i don't
140agree with using a resolution to set forth metrics and directives for our employee it's not what we use resolutions for they are to set usually to set a position statement okay that the board believes that it's important that the board commits to working with the director to find the resources to get it done but not to give instructions and directions to our one employee so i i have no intentions in voting for this although i've had meetings with noah i am thoroughly invested and committed to doing what we need to do to see the population of students that are taking advantage of encore and advanced academics change but this isn't the way to do it and so because again you we're talking about making sure that the district who is the district the district the
141district does this the district does the other we either have to be very clear what our expectations of dr battle are be very clear what our budget request is going to be our reallocation is i'll be very clear about what policies we're going to change to make a difference my heart is racing right now y'all just i apologize this has just pushed me a little bit um so yeah whether we take this and move it to a retreat to get more specific to miss elrod's point about how we want to measure it what do we want to put in the director's evaluation what benchmarks and metrics and data points we want to see changed that's the way to do it this is this is i don't know what this is i don't know what this
142is but i would prefer to miss l rods i think the spirit of your comments is that we talk about how do we as a board support dr battle in getting the resources necessary now from a de ni perspective and mr hughes if i go off the rails you can throw something from the back of the room we continue to talk about the bias that we believe exists because of what the data is telling us right and so the data tells us that something is amiss in how students are being identified as long as we keep keeping bias training and equity as this bolt-on thing it's never going to be a difference it's never going to make a difference we've got to figure out how to keep the equity lens over everything that we do
143everything because if i'm talking about equity over here i have to decide i'm still leaving it to that individual to decide whether i'm going to reach over and think about that equity training when i'm assessing a student from encore am i going to think about that equity training when i'm planning support resources for students in ap courses am i going to think how do we support dr battle in creating the expectation that it's not a thing that you think about on the side it's how you do your job we've got to all get to the point that we do our job through the lens through with an equity lens and so i think that's where we're always going to struggle as long as we're asking for this bolt-on additional professional development that sits outside of
144the context of what we want to see the outcomes of having that exposure and having that training and having that truly culture change and so it's bigger than that and i know that everybody's impatient and so you know conversations have probably been had with every one of us to get to the point where some resolution would come to this table and i've been also very clear with every group i don't need another group to set expectations for me i don't need another group to set directives for dr battle that's what we're doing and that's what we have done and so if there are ways in which we can get support advocating for additional dollars for this advocating for against the the mindset that's saying that any conversation and training around addressing biases is something else
145other than what it is it's critical race theory and all these other things we have so many other things that are working against us to get us to the point where these types of conversations are not what's driving our our our agenda that it's so multifaceted it's it's not going to change by just saying i got to put a bigger lens on what's not happening here how do we put the lens on the things that we need to change to make the changes we say we want to see so policy to miss elrod's point budget with dr uh from dr peter players and um congratulations and setting the the using the data that we have and i'll say one other thing about this whole notion that we keep talking about that there are not a
146lot of ap course offerings in schools where there's a large population of students of color you are absolutely right my more pertinent question is what's the enrollment for the ap courses that are being offered and are we not offering the correct ap courses i don't think we're asking the right questions we're asking questions that are going to give us answers that are definitely going to make us look bad we already know the answers to these questions we already know that data isn't where we want it to be so i can sit here and agree to a resolution that just puts a spotlight on things that are not going well data that we already know data that we can get at any point in time that we want to ask for it the charge to this
147board is how do i support dr battle how do i charge her with create a plan for me don't worry about what it costs create a plan for me to change these numbers and then tell me what i need to do as a member of this board to support that is it a policy change is it budget advocacy what what is how can i help because again i i don't we already know what the problem is we already know what this data looks like they've shown it to us at least twice in a teaching and learning committee meeting so we've seen it and so if we want a resolution let the board come forth with a resolution that says what we're committed to do to support our director to make it look different can i
148respond what we have first mrs cooper walker and then miss tyler so i'm going to echo a lot of what dr gentry said you know i'm a huge advocate of increasing access to advanced coursework to removing disparities to increasing access the data the research is there on why it matters um i i believe in having the data i believe in transparency i believe that we should be reporting that out i believe we should actually be acting on that data i don't believe that i don't believe resolutions are the vehicle to get to what we're we all i think we all collectively agree is urgent um i just believe that the the in my mind the resolution would be a statement of our shared values that we value this that we there's urgency around it let's
149collectively move forward but to to to detail out step by step what we expect on a whole long list of things is not what i would consider the most effective way to get to our bigger goal i do think governance policy the budget the budget process in learning committees where we're learning we're asking questions we're probing we're evaluating outcomes uh of the performance of the director i think those are the appropriate vehicles i don't see a resolution as the place to to mandate i believe it is a place where we resolve to make this a priority so that i'll just leave it there all right mrs tyler then mrs elrod um i have a couple things um one i want to push back on saying that professional development is attack on because the whole point
150of professional development is to help the teachers and the people who are receiving it develop the lens that they then use to look through everything and so to say that it is attack on and then have the teachers go oh am i looking am i using the lens from my training to help figure that out that's exactly what it's supposed to do it is supposed to help create that lens it is supposed to have it so that as you learn about it and you start to integrate it into your everyday life and the way you work with your students and the way you teach that's how you get to that point of having the lens of equity over everything it is one tool and a giant toolbox of ways we try to apply equity everywhere
151so to state that it is attack on and and not necessarily helpful maybe that's not what you were saying but it's not helpful but but i don't view it as attack on i view it as a way to develop that lens that we should be using every day every minute for everything that we do as teachers as administrators as staff so i don't agree with that criticism i am very open to discussion about what resolutions are supposed to do how they are supposed to be used the way we want to use them to direct things this is never intended to be a resolution that evaluates the director we should be having a separate evaluation of our director that has not happened we have talked about it a little bit behind the daring board retreats and
152at other points um but it still has not come to fruition that is something that i would like to see happen and i do think it should be separate from this i don't this is never intended to be a director evaluation that needs to happen and it needs to happen separately i i guess i was under the impression that resolutions are helping to create a road map as a directive of this is what we believe and this is how we hope to get there i am open to a discussion of that's not really what they're supposed to be how do we what is it supposed to be i would love for us to change policy i would love for us to put our put these ideals into a policy that is a firm binding way
153of viewing the um equity process i'm very open to that would definitely be part of that and again including i was under the impression that we were going to have a fiscal note attached to this anyway so i thought that this was going to be part of a budget just a larger budget discussion as well if it needs to be a separate discussion that we tack on to a budget committee meeting with dr player peers then i'm fine with that um the point is to move it forward and to make sure that these things we talk about in teaching and learning committee don't end when teaching and learning committee ends that these things that we discuss and say that we care about and that matter to us don't end when the board meeting ends and
154we walk off the floor but that it is created as a directive for moving forward and that it is supposed to be used as a way to steer this ship of mnps into the direction that we think and we believe and our voters who voted us in to say is the right way to go so um i am open to saying let's discuss it at our board retreat which i know we're going to be having in february um to change how we look at that and to decide how that's discussed so i'm more than happy because frankly i thought that this was a great way to help direct the ship if we can put it in policy that's even better and i'm much more inclined to do whatever is going to move us forward in
155the right direction thank you that miss tyler will go miss elrod then mrs masters um so i my goal is that i think this should probably be like our arts and education that we've had i don't know if we've done that since anna to be honest okay um but those are typically more generalized and then maybe and again this is if it's in a board retreat that's fine if it's in a tnl meeting i think that would be maybe appropriate as well to figure out how we apply it in these specific ways that we're discussing um so i'm happy to say that i was also incorrect and that this is not the ex it's too much of a direction maybe as a resolution but i do agree with you that we continue to talk about
156it you've had some great meetings about it and that we need to be somewhat actionable we need to be not just talk about it but do about it so i'm okay with us moving it somewhere else and following up on it so we have a resolution if we choose to do that if you choose to do that in a more generalized way and then we have um more teeth added whether it's going to be in the individual evaluations or not i do want to make sure i think the conversation was about additional tack-ons i i think we all should agree that additional training in this sense is helpful um just like trainings for special ed students whatever's best for those students is typically best for all students same with gifted students as well so i
157think that that was um i think we probably should all agree that that's the right thing to do and but that will require us to have some type of fiscal responsibility to that and if that's the case i i do ask that we have some type of fiscal note attached to resolutions um where we think there's going to be a cost if we know that there's going to be a cost and sometimes we don't until we get here to a discussion but if we're going to have some type of fiscal impact and maybe we shouldn't because again we want our resolutions to be so generalized um but whenever we do have these talks whether it's in the board retreat or at a future tnl meeting if we can have somebody available to us to let
158us know we want to do what you're wanting us to do but here's what that will cost here's what that would look like how does that apply to us are we already doing it i think that would be the most beneficial way for us to have those conversations thanks mr masters thanks um so yeah i think we've talked a lot about what equals the collective voice of us as a board and one of the the big things is our our budgeting process and you know where we choose to allocate resources for different things so i think we could take a multi-step approach to this in that a we could sort of more generalize the resolution and make it into more of a this is how we all feel together as a board as we've done
159with some resolutions in the past you know because i i mean we all agree that this is what we want for all of our students i think and then i think another step is within the budgeting process of really placing an emphasis on this work within the budgeting and then i think the next step might be to discuss it in more depth and then bring policies to the governance committee um so that we could then propose those substance so i think that it is a very meaty resolution and i think what this discussion is getting us around to is why it's so meaty is because it's actually a proposal for like a four-step action plan around advanced academics um which i find very exciting but i also think we're gonna have to get our calendars
160out and do all of those steps along the way but i i would like to say that i'm still y'all know i love a resolution and i love them in that they are um that when we are able to pass them unanimously it is such a a statement from us as a collective voice around issues that really matter to us um so i think that is where the the power lies in the resolution even though we know that then there's even more power in the money and the policy change so that we can put all of that into action thank you miss player peters and then miss tyler um i agree the sentiment in the moral statement and value the resolution i think that's not the point of contention um here i don't even say
161point of contention but next tackle part of it too and ms people walker can correct me but we don't write legislation and so my issue with this is setting a bad precedence because we're talking about fiscal notes and fiscal notes are attached to usually pieces of legislation and when you do fiscal notes also you're very literally specific of actually what's the amount adding to it we have several different type of fiscal notes would be the cost of id students to be trained the cost of training the cost of the personnel to id data the cost of how you define sufficient financial resources those are all different costs and so there's at least four different categories of how that would whether it be personnel whether it be programming whether it be consulting to develop the programming
162but also back to the point we are a corporate governance board we don't write legislation and so this is written like a piece of legislation which is not in our purview or our duty as a governing body so um i'm going to make a motion to defer this um to another time and well i make a motion to we defer this topic to a committee um or to retreat i'm open to a friendly resolution to that and to generalize it and to be appointed because resolutions are usually just a point of statement and then because also if we're also going to do this as a fiscal note there's there's still a task us first the director schools usually direct us into budget priorities in those bunch of priorities like we did last year there was
163a la carte menu of what things cost we need to put a fiscal note to what those cost and then balance that against other fiscal priorities i.e moving fifth grade back to elementary i.e doing recovery from the pandemic and how do we fit that and how do we adjust that because we also have to pass a budget a balanced budget and with that we just can't pass a blind fiscal note not understanding what we are passing compared to other costs that we have to deal with and a also too we don't know what how much money we're getting from the mayor and the county government so there's different aspects to it so i see our legal person who's just going to say as a point of procedure i do believe there's already emotion on the
164floor got it okay i think that was what i was gonna do i was actually gonna withdraw my motion when i talked so okay i was going to withdraw that and i was going to withdraw the original motion and make a second motion to put this on the agenda to discuss at our board retreat in february um with the intent of action moving forward whether it is we create a i don't know i'm not going to put that in part of the i'm not going to put them i would draw my original motion i make a motion to move this discussion to the february board retreat second okay the only thing i will say is we had some things in mind already for the board retreat and we've had another addition be made so if
165we could make that motion a bit more loose to either be at the next board meeting either in committee or i mean i guess committee we will have to have another retreat likely right before spring break what'd you say she doesn't have to make a motion at all you can just redraw your emotion and then work with miss bugs about where it falls because yes uh dr severe cameo and likely hank and i will be talking through what the order of the retreat will be so we can talk through what next steps will look like but we can't include this for discussion for any amendments to language all that okay all right that sounds good i just want to make sure it doesn't fall to the side while we're waiting for it to go through
166another committee that then has to discuss in another committee that then now it's the end of the school year and we're in the summer and this is important we all agree we all agree we don't want to keep pushing it to the side we need to have a discussion on it okay all right so the most is done withdrawn any other questions statements or feedback all right uh thank you all for this discussion we will move this to either a committee or retreat this semester within the next two months so now we will move on to knowledge academies dr battle sorry okay i'll invite our director of our charter schools sharika robert grant to the podium thank you good evening i'm sharika roley grant director of charter schools for metro schools madam chair members of
167the board and director battle thank you for the opportunity to share the charter office review team report on knowledge middle school this evening we will present the renewal application for knowledge middle school tca sets forth procedures by which a charter school may renew its charter agreement with its authorizer a charter school must submit a renewal application to its authorizer no later than april 1 of the year prior to the year in which its charter agreement expires the board will review the charter renewal request for knowledge middle school upon your review and discussion the board options are as follows approve or deny the renewal request if denied a charter school has the option to appeal the decision each of the sections within the renewal application were rated by a review team member as follows meets the
168standard where the record indicates specific and accurate evidence that the school generally demonstrated success in meeting and upholding the terms of the charter agreement partially meets the standard where the record meets the criteria in some aspects but lacks sufficient evidence that the charter school is meeting the terms of the charter agreement in one or more areas and lastly does not meet the standard where the record provides evidence that the charter school committed a violation of its charter agreement failed to meet generally accepted standards of fiscal management knowledge middle school was provided a support plan by the mnps office of charter schools on april 26 2019 knowledge middle school was issued a notice of concern the notice of concern addressed the following areas academics operations and financials mnps district staff from the offices of curriculum and
169instruction exceptional education english learners federal programs and counseling collaborated with the office of charters to provide additional support from january 6 2020 to december 18 2020. the enrollment for knowledge middle school is currently 124 students this chart provides the breakdown of students attending knowledge middle school currently that could attend a neighboring mnps school this slide highlights an overall summary of findings for the renewal application for knowledge middle school knowledge middle school was designated a targeted assistant and improvement school in 2018 and 2019. and exited this status in 2020 2021 knowledge middle school currently enrolls 125 students for grades five through eight and the charter office performance framework shows knowledge middle middle school is falling far below the standard in financial management and governance reporting for the school years 2018 and 2019. after a thorough review
170of the renewal application the review team rated the overall ratings as follows for the application of knowledge middle school partially me standard for the section of academics does not meet standard for operational stability does not meet standard for financial health and does not meet standard for future planning for the following reasons there has been no improvement in ela scores from school years 2017 to 2019. in addition three-year data shows a decline of academic growth in ela and science the enrollment at knowledge middle school has consistently consistently dropped since 2018. the review team did not find evidence of a robust student recruitment plan there is no plan addressed in the application regarding student mobility and attrition issues and lastly knowledge academy consistently did not meet debt obligations as stated in their 2020 audit report the knowledge
171network is proposing to consolidate currently the network operates knowledge middle school ka at the crossings and knowledge high school knowledge is proposing to consolidate under the middle school k.a at the crossings with a great span of 5-12 and surrender their charter agreements for knowledge middle school and high school the immediate next steps would be for the network if planning to consolidate is to submit a letter of intent to amend the application for ka at the crossings by january the 17th knowledge would then submit an amendment application to mnps by february 14th reflecting the proposed changes discussed in the previous slide the board would then rule on an amendment regarding this amendment request within 60 days tonight the board has the option to approve or deny the renewal application for knowledge middle school i will turn
172it over to the board for discussion and vote for the renewal request for knowledge middle school thank you dr battle um just quick clarification um shirik onslaught 10 the second bullet was with the letter of intent for an amended application the date is actually january 15th correct correct i think we accidentally said the 17th thank you it falls on a uh weekend so the next day would be monday january 17th which is nlk days which is the memo day which would be the 18th got it a lot of factors right ahead mrs pooper walker i'd like to make a motion that we decline um to renew the knowledge academy application all right do we have a second second has been moved and seconded we'll open for discussion go right ahead miss says bush okay um
173so i want to go back to first and foremost i would ask the board to focus on the takeover when nei took over art fuller was the previous seal and he is currently no longer ceo he exited around at 218 2018 due to financial issues and the problems that were faced with ka at that time and of course i was a part of that whole process and it was really shaky um as you all may remember who was on the board at that time but since then i have seen growth with nei so i want us to kind of focus on uh the current and not the past because i don't think it would be fair to be able to judge knowledge based on the current when any i came in and took over and
174wanted to turn around a school that could potentially thrive and that's what it's been doing ever since they have taken over they have been able to sustain the account the financials they have been able to academically make huge gains they have been able to their operations are up to par so i just don't think it would be fair to judge this particular charter from the past ceo doings and not focus on what they've done currently so i think we need to really take a step back and really think about that timeline and so i have a question about the middle school enrollment because i kept hearing the 2018-2019 that was a transition year 27 to 2019 that's a transition year without ela the recruitment plan the the debt obligation which was in 2020 that she
175just mentioned has been resolved so i just want to make sure that we're um being very transparent and making sure that we're giving which i want you to answer the questions about what is currently happening with the charter not what happened in the past because i'm sure that is a part of the process of of the 10-year plan but we have to focus on the board if you would open that up to look at what the most current representation and the new ownership that has supported k.a dr battle thank you miss robert grant okay um so in regards to the academics as you know the application is submitted in april of the previous year so we received the application in april of this past school year but in regards to the current academics for the
1762021 school year uh in english the percentage rate of percent of proficient was 10.6 percent uh in math it was 7.1 in science it was 9.1 and in social studies it was 15.4 in regards to the um the final audits we don't have it for we don't have their final artist for 2021 because they lack a year so we're still waiting to receive that which i gave the um the audit information for 2020. and can you address the the enrollment question as well uh in regards to the enrollment that's current for this year the 124 students okay so they've had an increase they're so give me a breakdown of the 450 students they say they have now and i think that accommodation oh sorry i don't think they were reporting that data for the entire
177network and so our job is to review the individual knowledge middle school and what we have um indicated in our enrollment system is the 124 students for just knowledge middle school i think the numbers that they gave you earlier were for ka knowledge middle school and knowledge high school combined so we just to be clear we have two schools that focus on middle middle schools correct okay so that's where i want us to kind of understand that we have two schools that have middle schools which they are under un under one roof correct okay i just wanted to make sure and with those numbers combined what's those numbers look like i'm not sure all of them together we just kind of focused on the knowledge middle school because that was the one up for renewal
178for renewal and it gets kind of tricky because i know that that's something that they're trying to do is consolidate all of the schools because if we look at the two middle schools you're gonna get a much larger enrollment and so that's the reason why it kind of becomes a little sketchy or it becomes less of enrollment or appears to be that way because we have two different we have two middle schools on the same roof students are together no one's separated not in different hallways they're all together so i just wanted to make sure we talked about the numbers and not because of the two separate schools you do site visits we do tell us about your site visits so this year our site visit model has changed previously charter schools were identified based
179on their tier and their tier was based on recent old data so this year we decided to just kind of start over and every school receives a visit twice a semester one visit will focus on academic data for one month where we just go in and ask questions and the schools review their latest academic data the following month it will be all non-academic data so from august to now we've had two site visits on site at knowledge middle school in october they discussed their most recent academic data and in november they discussed their most recent non-academic data so what were the site visits like you do you do the site visits yes our our core team office goes out uh the coordinator and i um share a site visit so one month she will go
180the next month i will go so i did attend the non-academic site visit in november with the school how many have you done 22 this semester has it been one for academic and non-academic correct okay on the academic when you have gone on site can you explain to the board what that looks like so the first part they're hour long visits the first part is a meeting with the leadership team where they just go over their most recent academic data with our core team and discuss where the students are academically and some of the strategies that they're utilizing within the school based on their academics the last part of the meeting is just in-person classroom site visits where we just randomly go to classrooms to just view the students in action were there any concerns
181with your academic visit we did not note any during that site visit there was none noted at that time at the time okay and then the second visit it was just a non-academic visit can you tell the board about that visit the non-academic and miss robert if you can stick to the process and structure of the visit because i think you all develop summaries of the visits that are collective of the team and that's important for us to remain focused on so feel free to answer the question based upon the structure and in the process for the visits all right uh so it's a group of us that do go out with the core team and we just utilize a template that we ask specific questions uh in regards to your specific question about the
182non-academic we focused on attendance discipline the school just kind of speaks to that data and we have a discussion moving forward what that should continue to look like or talk about any changes that may need to happen based on the data that we have and based on the data and i'm gonna go back to the academic based on the information that dr battle just talked about as far as your template and things like that were there anything concerned and noted at that particular visit for the academic i think the feedback was for them to provide the data per school and not as a whole i did not attend that visit our coordinator actually attended that visit and took the specific notes but what we're trying to encourage networks to do when they have combined schools
183is to report out individually their particular school and not the entire network so when they did that was there any concerns about academics at that time even though that recommendation was made i didn't i don't believe it i was not at that site visit so yeah and that's that's why i think we i think we need to refer back to the actual summary of the visit because there's a core team that that does so with the summary do you have the summary to be able to answer the question was there any concerns at that you know any recommendations about academic and the reason why i want to make this um uh recorded and so we'll understand that i know these site visits are very important is a part of the process but i also want
184to make sure we're clear that if there's any at that time which was done in october that at that time it would have been addressed um if there were any academic concerns or any any type of you know um advice besides putting the two three schools together and do you have those do you have anything that can i i have mostly the notes from the application and not our site visit from that month and that would have been but i can't follow up well and i think too just not to confuse the two processes um because what she's what the chart office is charged with during this process is to look at the collective and not just necessarily only the formative kind of assessments and the feedback that comes along the way but all things
185considered in the particular domains that are part of the rubric gotcha and i know the rubric is it's the rubric and i questioned the timeline of the rubric because it goes back to at the time the nei was just taken over ka and so i think it's very important and we make that acknowledgement because we're talking about a school that is in the district that is making gains is making progress it is a charter but we have families that are definitely impacted by this and i think academically they have shown gains and that's the reason why i was asking those questions those specific questions about the visits because that makes a difference also because we're talking about current and not past and so i just want to make sure that we're being fair and we
186hear this out so that we can all make an informed decision about this particular school that's in the district um also academically financially again i think they're moving in the right direction and i want the board to keep in mind what district six looks like right now so i'm going to take you there we have a situation in our district that our my schools in district six are going it's going on an uptick of being over capacity almost there or either over capacity ka does have the capacity to continue to do what they're doing continue to thrive to do what they do under nei's support and supervision but i think we have to be really careful because they have the space and i think they are doing a good job on trying to recruit in
187the community because the community is growing so fast so let's look at eagle's view eagles view has an apartment complex just right across the street literally it's wrapping around the school it's going to have over 3 000 units apartment homes that that's being developed right now it's not even occupied then we have around the corner which is on murfreesboro road we have two more apartment home complexes they're going to be over three thousand one over three thousand um occupancy and then we have one that's going to be 4 000. so everybody just imagine the amount of growth that we're having this community and all of them actually to me are going on the same speed as far as being developed so by the spring summer we're going to have an influx of families moving into
188the district and we're going to see our enrollment centers just bust out the seams because we're going to have to have a place a space and place for our kids to go i think that ka will be able to redeem themselves on those numbers and i think that what's been you know brought up about their numbers and i just feel like that this is a space and place that i know kids are happy i know that they're thriving i know the staff is doing a great job and also again we have to think about the timeline we have to think about um the timing of any eye taking over ka when it was going through a troubling spot so i'm gonna stop and i'll let somebody else talk but that's my um that's my uh
189my concern is that i need you all to really look at and listen because about a time eagles view for example which is a school across literally wrapping around the the construction is wrapped around the school and i remember david prophet we were talking about that particular land when i first got on the board and i said hey can we take that land for our middle school he said no because the developer has other plans well now guess what it's huge it's a massive complex just across the street so all of those families are going to take advantage of the opportunity of having of course the elementary students and that school now is going to fifth grade so then right around the corner which is a block over is ka a block over so we
190have to take all this in into consideration that this district is growing by leaps and bounds and we cannot keep up because we have development development going on everywhere that we have a piece of a tree so just take this take that into a consideration and i asked for this this board to vote in favor for this charter to have a renewal just based on the fact that yes i do feel like they're moving forward academically financially operationally i think they're moving in that direction after they have been um supported by nei so i'm going to stop there anybody else have any anything to say all right mrs tyler and then dr gendry um i just have a couple questions um could knowledge academy still make the exact same stated amendment that they want to
191make if we deny this renewal dr battle or uh metro legal uh yes they would still be able to make an amendment request and would any of the current middle school students at knowledge academy be left without a school if we deny the renewal here but approve the amendment to consolidate no i don't believe so okay so they're asking us to renew them for another 10 years and then before one before three months are up they're going to say we're going to close the school and consolidate it correct is that i believe that would be the case yes in effect if we did not is that not correct no that's what we said okay okay so in effect if we deny this based on the data that's put in front of us it would not
192stop us from still making sure that these students have a spot when they consolidate like we're not taking away the school if they consolidate the way they say they're going to if they consolidate how they say they're going to i believe that is correct okay i don't see an upside to renewing it if we're going to take care of these students anyway on a consolidation i don't know maybe that needs further discussion but that's my thoughts are this data does not support a renewal but we can still take care of these students with the consolidation and they will not miss a beat and will still have i i would say that the only thing is the uh if it were to be approved in this setting there would no longer be an appeal if there's
193a denial there still is an appeal process um that presumably would be avoided with uh approval okay but they could also choose not to appeal if they don't want to if they know that they're going to request this amendment they don't have to appeal they can just request the amendment they do have the right to appeal i understand that but it's not a requirement it's not automatically triggered they have to do that and decide that that's where they're going to put their energy instead of the amendment that is correct okay all right dr gentry so i think i'm going to ask one of ms tyler's questions again in a different way you put up a chart that showed what the district school the students who are currently enrolled in this particular charter school would move
194to if the charter was denied is that correct yes and so that's to the assumption is that those schools have capacity for those students so so to clarify that's the school they would be zoned to but that doesn't mean they have capacity for those students we would have to i'm just asking i'm pretty sure that's the case that there will be capacity but the intent of that slide was where their zone school would be located right yeah and if i'll just add with our metro schools reimagine work the capacity that exists then in our middle school so yes my second question then is i think it's been stated at this table that there are two middle schools managed by this entity in the same building does the middle school that we're not discussing have capacity
195for those students i believe so that actually there are three schools within the one building because the high school is right somebody but these are middle school students so the high school i'm not really addressing understanding some of them may be rolling over and creating capacity but as it stands if we take the high school out of the mix if this charter is denied the 124 students does the other middle school have capacity for those students we believe so based on the enrollment capacity in in the other charter they could take in those students so they have the approved seats yes they have approved correct yes okay so my my third question i think is more of a legal one because i'm i'm with miss tyler now i'm trying to understand why we're doing what
196we're doing or why we're being asked to do this exactly so if they move forward with the consolidation what happens to the charter for this school they are asking to amend the k at the crossing i believe under the consolidation agreement um they would be um essentially surrendering this charter agreement i believe closing you believe are you sure so they're so what i'm trying to ask is i'm not holding on to a charter then that this board has approved for 10 years that has no students in it because i'm going to consolidate but i still have a charter that's valid because this board has approved it so does consolidating truly invalidate the charter we're discussing today uh again i would say that the nothing has been filed in the consolidation and it's only been proposed
197so i would only be speaking so i'm not empty and so i'm sorry to push but it's important it's fine so what i'm asking is i'm not asking what their intention is i'm asking legally what does that mean i've got three schools today right so i have three separate charters is that correct that's correct i'm i have the i've expressed the intention to roll all these students under one of those charters that's correct so i i've indicated i'm consolidating under a specific charter that is correct okay but does that automatically nullify the other two charters i hold it's my question and if we don't know let's just say we don't know but that's a that's a big deal believe it does not automatically nullify the amendment would not automatically nullify those other charters but as
198part of the consolidation plan those other charters would be surrendered and at at the approval of the plan from the board so legally the legal something that gets to to use ms tyler's phrase what's going to get automatically triggered we believe that if we approve a consolidation that it automatically triggers the surrendering whether they violent whether they call and say here take it back or not the somewhere in the state they're going to draw a line through those other two charters they no longer exist that is part of the consolid consolidation plan as proposed at this time would they explicitly say we are surrendering yes somebody in the back is nodding yes sorry because they would just so i'm sorry if i could give us back if i can get us back in order all
199right so dr gentry was asking dr battle if you have a response feel free melissa go ahead and respond but it it boils down to what the proposal is and what this board approves so so so let me hold down let me know i love that that's all i'm all good and i and i'm not in suggesting you know nefarious intent but if i approve the is is the approval of the charter today contingent upon the consolidation thank you melissa you may respond it is not yes that's correct so in plain speak we could approve this today but then the knowledge academy could choose not to follow through with their proposal and then they would have still three schools okay and gardener may i add the flip side is if we deny this today and
200they do go through with what they say these students are not negatively affected they do not lose a seat they do not miss any um teaching from the from the time the students are not negatively affected by us denying this as long as they follow through on their request to consolidate and per miss bush's statements they would actually stay in that same building so they wouldn't even have them yeah so we're not hurting the students if we deny and then agree to consolidate okay mrs masters yeah and just one more thing to clarify so assuming they're moving forward with the consolidation i think this is a question for someone that's probably already been answered i just want to be 100 sure um assuming they are moving forward with the consolidation there would be no necessity
201for them to appeal a denial that would not be necessary for them to achieve their ultimate goal with the consolidation is that correct again they would be with their their proposed consolidation plan is amending the ka at the crossing charter which is not affected by this renewal today that answers the question it is yes thank you all right then i have a question so do we have to vote today or considering that their their consolidation proposal has not been filed yet but would have to be filed by january 15th rolling over to the 18th i just i have so many questions so they they haven't proposed they haven't formally they've asked they've talked to mnps staff but they have not expressed their their intent to their proposal they have not put it in writing legally
202do we have to vote today on this this is more i'm sorry to dr battle to direct how how you see fit i'm i'm going to let metro legal um respond to that question believe the deadline is february 1st i believe the board does have one meeting before then so it could be deferred one meeting i just also wanted to add a point of clarification i can't speak to uh what knowledge academy would do in terms of an appeal and not appeal to protect their own interests you understand that go ahead mrs tyler i mean i just feel like logically this won't exist anyway and it hasn't met our standards and for us to approve it when it doesn't meet our standards under my undermines us and our commitment to excellence in all of the
203schools in this county whether or not their mnps or charter but that's actually even beside the point because these students would not be negatively affected this group would still have the same students the same building the same location nothing would change except if we denied i do not even understand why they applied to do this if that's not their intent i'm sorry i'm just logically having a really hard time with this because what is the upside in us approving them well i'll be honest that's why i appreciate us being able to have this conversation in an open forum to be you know so we'll have mr little mrs l rod mrs football walker mrs bush my only question is as we look at the standards and uh in the cluster what are some of the
204academic scores because i know she read out there reading mathematics and a few other scores what are the general scores and related to knowledge as we think about quality standards and academics dr better and we might not have yeah and because it's not a part of the rubric so that's not what we're assessing this against at this point we have a um a standard by which we assess that internally but this rubric is very specific to the 10-year renewal of a charter school and the charter review team so it wasn't just mmps staff that was listed on the the team that was listed there was other charter operators internal staff external staff yeah but i think facts and i know we may not have the numbers but we may send kids from knowledge academies to
205a school that's actually doing less academically than what they're doing that's why i just wanted to know the numbers are you asking for the second knowledge academy's numbers no i'm asking for the district those zone schools that they put on the screen but not if they consolidate i mean again it just comes back to the all right all right well if you're done it's a little we're going to say sorry that's okay i apologize i didn't ask you okay mrs elrod mrs pooperwalker mrs bush and then i'm sorry mrs player peters thank you i know y'all know i don't like the rubric i've been pretty clear about that from for years that i'm not a fan of the rubric and but i have very much heard the messaging which is we are supposed to make
206our decisions based upon the rubric and the findings that are inside of them so just in case there is a world where uh knowledge academy does decide if we so choose to vote to not allow them to continue this contract and they so choose to go to the state and try to overdo that we do need to have some discussion about the actual pieces that are inside the rubric which is not what our current discussion is about and i think that that's key that we do so for us and for the public at general the rubric is very clear that they do not meet standards for operational stability financial health future planning and that they only partially meet the standards for academics we should follow this direction from our staff we are to trust our
207staff to do this work i know in the past we have had discussions about how we agree or don't agree with this my usual discussion is that this already leaned in the favor of a charter school as it was created by nei who now is in charge of knowledge academy so it uh it if they they should be able to pass this if any school was able to pass it it should be them as it was created by their now organizing group and they not only didn't pass it they they failed quite grandly so i think it's important that we make sure we have those comments in place in case we do have to go to the state and have that discussion though i think that would be a bad choice if there because i
208don't it doesn't make sense with the consolidation i just i don't understand the planning there but i think that we need to make sure that we have those stated and um of course there's additional information inside of the packet that's been provided not only at this meeting but of course we were supposed to discuss this two other meetings ago and so we have all of those as well to refer to in case that that happens thank you all right mrs pupa walker mrs bush mrs player peters i i agree with miscella rod we need to focus on the evaluation the criteria in the rubric at hand i don't think our the abstract or our decision should be influenced by what could potentially happen in the future and i'm a little i'm a little frustrated with
209the they're they're getting back on track language right i just think that that's hard that's a hard one to defend as they're getting back on track they're moving in the right direction they're coming out of the hole right like you're going to give another 10 years to i i personally have a problem with renewing a a school on a hope and a prayer that they stay on track thank you mrs bush the mrs player peters okay thank you this is not a hope or a prayer these are children this is a community school that has made tremendous amount of changes and have made some gains and it's not about a hope or a prayer it's about looking at these students and looking at what a new organization that has come in and yes was it
210rocky in the beginning absolutely any change and anything that comes along with a takeover you're going to go from bad management to good management we've seen it on the roads under new management what does it tell you because something happened the reason why that business wasn't thriving so therefore we want customers to know that we're back on track and we want your business so this is what's happening what i'm looking at is the rubric rubric and i'm looking at the fact that this rubric has an age in here that does not reflect on any eye's performance and that's what i'm focused on i'm not focused on what happened in the past under art fuller's leadership i'm focused on what's in the future for their students i'm focused on what's in the future of this community
211school and i'm focused on my community because again if we dismantle or if they if if the vote the board votes it down then they have a right to go and appeal it of course and just like anything else we continue to do in in and that's why i want this on record because if they decide to do that you have to be able to go to the state and show them that you did due diligence the reason why you denied this charter and it's not going it's going to pass they're going to allow this because they will also see what i'm saying is the reason why we should consider a renewal now you decide what you want but i am going to defend what i feel that is right and that is moving forward
212we can't go backwards on what the performance was we just have to look at what's going what's going to be in the best interest of the students moving forward in those three areas i feel like they have done just that they are making improvements they're making gains under new leadership so that's that's my that's my spiel and you know that's what i just see that this is gonna really be a disaster and let me just talk about uh melissa did they put in writing that they if we renew their um their charter that they will be consolidating the schools and this this is the problem with the numbers because we have these three schools that are operating under two middle schools and so the numbers will be a lot higher if they did consolidate it
213is there anything in writing that they submitted to the law office and mrs roberts before you acknowledge i do want to make a an executive decision regarding our student board members it is 8 15 board student board members please go home i don't want to be belittling but this has been a long day for you all this is the second day of school you are free to go get you something to eat get you some rest now if you have something that you would want to add to this conversation before you go please feel free to but i i hope your parents understand that i am sending you home but i've been out here all night i can leave it with you and you can certainly say your announcements if you would like them i
214apologize for pausing here but these babies need to go yeah no no no leaving is not up to them i'm telling them you go home you've done your homework please i don't know my kids better be in bed right now he does not want to leave look at him and i we appreciate that i really do but please go home [Music] i'm more than happy to i am very serious though i appreciate your your being here but really [Laughter] what time do you think they go to bed she's got holding nine o'clock [Laughter] i'm sorry mrs bush had a question but really i just don't want the students to feel like they're going to be um there's going to be a consequence for them leaving i just want to make it very clear that you
215are more than free to go i'm actually asking you to but so great we captured your question ms bush uh mr roberto just um approaching the podium he wants to listen okay we appreciate it about the crazy i may volunteer as student ambassador um but to answer uh your question miss bush they have not yet submitted a letter of intent as sharika noted that deadline is january 18th after the holidays they did submit a letter to doctor battle that includes language that they would be consolidating after approval but they have not submitted the letter of intent that would make that binding what's challenging here is there isn't a mechanism to do both things at once they this piece has to happen and then there's a second piece so all right mrs player peters um i
216think to answer miss tyler's question and i'm totally um making assumptions here in an intent but i think the the strategy is right now we're considering knowledge middle school um and the intent is to consolidate if and the content is to consolidate with an increased enrollment cap so if let's say if you kind of game it out for lack of a better phrase you deny knowledge middle school then those 272 seats are gone you have naji academy crossings if you if you deny the middle school knowledge middle school you add that to knowledge crossings their current enrollment will be 228. that cat would be 400 you leave a hundred and 112 seats if you approve knowledge middle school and you have knowledge academies that's a total of 672 seats and so ideally you're hoping the
217seats going back to miss bush's aspect of the growth of the area that you will have the growth of the seats available there and so and when you consolidate you increase the enrollment cap now i don't know what the enrollment cat number would be my assumption would be you go to the going to 272 and get the 262 and then you have over you have a couple hundred seats available for the growth so i think that's what they're looking long-term with it and so that's but you go back to the legal aspect of we have to determine whether we deny or approve today then they submit their intent to consolidate with the increased enrollment cap to to adjust for the growth so i think logically that's where they're going with it with the increased cap
218but if you if you approve it you know both you still have both seats in that same building i didn't realize they were both in the same building i missed that point but then if you have two schools you still have 600 seats available so but that's just what i gained out i don't know if that's true that's their intent but i see a ned hobby mr president mr bristol's ned hot and ned head sorry late mr bristol's head nodding is that's the gaming out of the seats but this time um but i'm so sorry their amended request is not contingent upon anything we do with this they could ask for a thousand seats if they wanted to and we make that decision about whether or not we approve or deny so it's not contingent
219upon what we do right now no it's not so contention that's their thought process okay but and then an alternate or parallel thought process is that they don't need this they are not wanting it they're going to surrender it it does again looking at it clinically it doesn't meet the standards and if we deny it we do not hurt those students when they consolidate we do not disrupt that community when they consolidate it will continue to exist in the same building in the same area with the same people in charge i just that to me is the clear point if their intent is to consolidate as they have continued to say over and over and over again then this is a completely separate issue and we don't hurt those students we don't hurt that community
220we don't create problems for them by denying this and following our own rules to do what the the rubric gives us as the as the examples of what we can and you know how we should look at it the lens that we need to look at it through so to me this discussion discussion seems very very drawn out in a way that it doesn't need to be because it's not it just to me logically following our own rules following what we have set up as the process denying this moving forward having them ask for the amendment keeps those kids in the fold keeps those kids in the same school gives them the same supports and i know that we can't predicate our our denial on that but we're also supposed to only look at what's
221in front of us anyway yes i was going to say all that's sorry um board member gentry [Laughter] go right ahead uh mr legal and then yes dr james i was gonna say that all is uh all that is before the board today is the renewal for knowledge at uh middle school i believe it is uh that's all that is before the board today if there is any appeal that there hasn't been anything filed in a possible consolidation so that won't be considered at the state level all that there's been nothing official filed on the consolidation um and i just would address the original motion was simply if there is a motion today we would ask for just a short statement uh on the reasons for an approval or a denial thank you i called
222point of order and i thank you i was trying to get you to not have to get out your seat point of order i'd like to bring the board back to the presentation the data that has been presented to us is the only data that we are supposed to be considering for the vote if i would like to restate the motion that the charter renewal be denied based on the data presented by the charter office i think we already have a second i'd like to call the question please all right the question has been called motion has been restated all in favor of denial of knowledge academy the middle school please raise your hand all right seven four all those opposed the motion was denial of the charter application or the charter renewal for the
223motion not number four all right so two opposed all right all right motion fails motion passes for the denial of the renewal application we need to offer metro legal a statement around the denial we deny the application based on the data presented by the charter office thank you that we did not create all right now we will move on to announcements we'll begin with our two student board members we'll begin with anjali and then ebenezer okay um thank you chair bugs for caring about how ebenezer and i have just been in school for two days after one of the longest breaks that we've had all of high school i know rest is something that i struggle with personally so i really appreciate that firstly i want to say happy second semester and year to everyone
224i hope everyone had a safe and restful winter break um though as coveted 19 is on the rise i encourage anyone and everyone who is able and eligible to get vaccinated and booster i i just feel the need to say that i strongly believe that we need to trust science and we need to protect each other on day two of coming back i see so many people out so many of my peers who should be in school quarantined because they have covid and as sad as it sounds um my friends their seniors this is the last five months that they have of high school before maybe going to college going to whatever they are intending to do after high school and because we're not doing the right steps for that they're kind of suffering and
225not getting the full high school experience so please get vaccinated get boosted and i want to thank the board and dr battle for their continued consideration of the current climate and just the safety of all students teachers and staff with that i want to say congratulations to all seniors who have applied to tn promise as well as fafsa and college and with this i want to extend a huge thank you to school college prep teams college counselors and teachers for your constant support especially to our seniors during the college application process so um to ms meredith thank you so much for helping me apply to 30 of my colleges i know i got 3-0 um so um i know students like me wouldn't have felt fulfilled without mnps counselors like you um so to this
226board to all of my teachers thank you so much and happy new year thank you all right even easier um i wanted to start my announcements by mentioning to all students that because the new semester is starting we have infinite campus and i just want to give a bit of advice saying that we should be utilizing the app in the program we had a presentation a couple weeks ago at the meeting talking about how much it's improved and personally i use it a lot i know angeli does too and a lot of my friends do so you know it's good to keep up with our grades and it's good to have that constant reminder to you know do our assignments i also want to mention the act seminars that mnps is having so for juniors
227like me it's very important to be thinking about our acts right now for example i know there's a test day coming up in february so for people who are considering signing up they can go to the act.org website sign up to a location that's closest to them and they can also participate in the seminars and and that's pretty much it for me thank you thank you all right dr ginger mrs poopo walker i want to congratulate murray benson who was here tonight a person priest national board certified teacher i want to encourage everybody to come to the town hall tomorrow night to weigh in on the funding formula and i want to give an extra special shout out to our school board members who are sitting up here um receiving um having this experience but
228let's remember that they are student leaders um and they it's different than being an elected official and so folks watching i want you to recognize the tremendous sacrifice that they're making and the learning that they're doing um and their amazing contribution to the board thank you mrs bush uh yes we lost a huge part of our teaching community in antioch antioch high school mr charles charles gregory a dean of students for the hospitality and marketing academy at antioch high school passed away last week due to an illness this is a tragic loss for the gregory family and the antioch family as mr gregory served there for over 10 years and was well known please keep the school community and his family in your thoughts and prayers thank you thank you mr little oh god all
229right this is elrod thank you i one second i have to get back to my right page my first time typing my notes that i'm meeting y'all i'm all fancy now okay um i too would like to congratulate that's right i would first like to congratulate uh meredith mcginnis who is here along with our teacher for percy priest on she teaches history at john overton and um she's recognized for being nationally board certified which is as we've talked about such a huge commitment and such a benefit to not just her professionally but also all of our students and then we've talked a lot about act training and available tutoring to students and so i wanted to make sure for john overton there's act prep webinars for juniors that are taking the test on march 1st
230and that prep webinar starts tomorrow wednesday january the 12th students can get help and learn tips on each section of the test it's free and all online so you have access to it that's as easy as possible for you and dates and registration information can all be found at mnps.orgbackslash thank you thank you mrs elrod mrs player peters i want to give a shout out to miss malone at norman binkley elementary her she's an art teacher there and her piece beaded art got is being displayed an exhibition called nashville art teachers beyond the classroom at the frist museum so if you ever go to first museum um miss malone from norman binkling her art is displayed there thank you mrs masters i just want to welcome everyone back and i hope everyone has a great
231semester and i mean basically i think our student board members covered everything that i wanted to say tonight my daughter did her entire senior year last year virtually um so i i highly recommend that everybody get vaxxed and mask up and do everything we can to be safe so that the students can be together as much as possible and as safely as possible thank you mrs tyler i also want to applaud our new nationally board certified teachers maintenance and certificate and receipt certification recipients and i apologize that i wasn't here to applaud you in person but you are appreciated and we are very proud it takes a lot of hard work and effort to get to that point so we under we recognize that um and then also just again like several other people have
232already said i want to encourage anybody who's able to to come to the education funding town hall that will be taking place here at the board at 6 30 tomorrow you are able to sign up at the meeting to speak if you have something you want to say you'll be given two minutes so practice it to make sure you can get everything you want to say in and we really want you to engage in this process um i think that the rough draft is now out so it would not be it would probably behoove us to go over it and then give our thoughts on it tomorrow so please come please be part of the process and make sure that our state's going to do right by its education so thank you thank you and
233i will say right before the the holiday break dr battle mrs player peters mr henson mayor cooper and i were all able to attend a meeting with other counties district and state district and county leaders to offer feedback around the funding formula and i have to tip my head to mayor cooper for making a fairly firm request that the state department of education hosts one of those town halls in nashville we apologize for being so late in the process but we appreciate the opportunity to speak with the commissioner and her team about what the funding formula what feedback we would like to offer around it i would in addition to looking at the draft that was put out today that they will hopefully amend after we in nashville for our feedback i would also suggest
234that you maybe take a look at past convenings there was one in hendersonville they've been some indicted i mean they've been throughout the state please feel free to look at that to see kind of the the flow of the day so that you understand what to expect and that if you would like to that you are prepared to offer your two minutes worth of commentary and feedback uh if if this is anything like any of the other meetings it will only last for an hour so it will be sort of first come first serve those who get here scan the qr code and sign up to speak you will be given the opportunity to but then the commissioner and her team will be able to cut cut the meeting at 7 30. with that the
235legislative session actually began yesterday today at noon sorry my the monday is tuesday ever but i would certainly encourage those who want to learn about state level policy legislation and just get to know who the decision makers are feel free to go to the capitol it is free of charge you can sit in on any meeting to understand what's being said about education or any any any other bill or budget priority around the state lastly we will have a retreat friday february 4th here over at the wellness center from 9am to 3pm we do have a bit of a tight schedule but of course this meeting is open to the public um i'll send out further agenda items to the board so that you can prepare be there no for the business this meeting is
236adjourned 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