08/24/21 MNPS Board of Education

001you talking to us they're okay all right good afternoon everyone thank you all for being here at the second meeting of august 2021 uh we've already established a quorum we have some ambassadors from the historic white creek high school if you all would not mind coming to the podium just to lead us in the pledge of allegiance [Applause] 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 so much for being here young people please know that we you are in front of supporters everything that we do is is for you so with that dr gentry this is in your district if you would not mind introducing our ambassadors yes i have names all right

002so tonight our ambassadors are from the white's creek high school located in district one we have yvonne please stand busane did i get it right no nope okay i'll talk after this meeting not so quick next time my name is yvonne hussani okay this is 12th grader in the community health pathway did i get that much right thank you yvonne for being here we also have garnett hyde also a 12th grader he's in the law pathway oh and indinga 12th grader also in the law pathway who actually moderated one of our panels during this past election and so we thank you for your service in that way as well so welcome all of you thank you for being here and thank you for representing white's creek so well they are escorted by their principal dr

003melz brian melz if you will stand he is uh i keep saying he's new but he's not but he is raising the bar he is going to ensure that the creek does rise and remain at high tide for the duration so we thank you for your service and i see another white creek mass back there hi good afternoon everyone my name is tiffany littlejohn i'm the academy coach here at white's creek high school i have the absolute pleasure of working with these young people who are doing amazing things for white's creek and so we are excited to present in front of you and talk a little bit about the wonderful things that are happening thank you thank you are we doing this now yes okay so you guys will come in the order that you

004planned and we're excited to hear what you have to share hello my name is yvonne busani and i'm a senior at white's creek high school i am currently part of the alternative energy community health and law academy specializing in the community health pathway here at white's creek we have many many great programs the one i'd like to talk about today is the dual enrollment program we have partnered with at nashville state this year all freshmen that have accepted will now be taking college courses and for all four years and by the end of their high school career they will have graduated with a high school diploma and an associate's degree from nashville state additionally another program that we're using to support these freshmen is the peer mentor program where chosen few of our seniors who've

005already taken a couple of college courses will help guide and mentor these freshmen through their first year of the dual enrollment program these two programs are really special and we find them to be really amazing stepping stones to our path to providing an excellent education here at white's creek as a white creek ambassador i've had the pleasure to interact with many community partners that we have and i think that they've left a lasting impact on not only me but the high school white's creek student body as well one of our community partners is meharry medical college and this summer i had the lucky opportunity to be a participant in a meharry medical college internship as a clinical intern through this internship we got to hear from and interview many healthcare professionals in the medical field

006hear about their life story their careers and their path to education we also got to learn a lot about community health and what goes into planning community public health events thank you so much for this amazing opportunity and i'd now like to pass it to my fellow ambassador garnett hyde [Applause] good afternoon my name is garnett hyde i am a senior ambassador at white's creek high school i'm in the academy of alternative energy community health and law where i'm in the law pathway and as a west creek student i have had many opportunities to take on leadership roles specifically i have had the great experience great experiences as a part of the weiss creek high school band of distinction where i am currently the drum major through this experience i have gained understanding and patience

007as i have learned to teach and guide others these skills that i had that these are skills that i will take with me throughout my lifetime as a law pathway at weiss creek we have implemented leadership structure in the classroom where i am a team leader in the classroom and am able to assist and positive positively impact the law pathway learning environment through this through these examples i have grown mentally as a student and a person in general i am grateful to be able to obtain and utilize these skills while i'm in high school so i can take them with me beyond the wise creek life thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon and now i present to you in zengajin hello my name is nzinga jean and i am a

008senior at white's creek high school i am in the academy of alternative energy community health and law while at white's creek i have been an ambassador for three years i had the opportunity to be shown in depth what it means to be a leader and rise up to the occasion some of the things i've done as ambassador was recruitment meetings with feeder schools i also had to do hub tours where i introduced our school structure to people coming from different parts of the world as an ambassador we also try to help out with any community function or event that's happening at our school so recently we helped last year during covent we helped select few of us help with passing out of schedules ids and then giving these school supplies another example of this was

009our freshman orientation this year we helped toward the school to the incoming freshmen who never been in the building well at white's creek i had to i had gotten the chance to complete 10 hour college credits so far as as a junior i completed four classes during the summer and one class over the summer while i was taking my classes during the school year i had a very good support system because not only did i have my professor from nashville state i also had my teacher in the classroom and on the days i didn't go to the classes with the professor our teacher stepped in and aided us in just teaching us new things that will help guide us along for the college college courses i'm grateful for the support that they gave me and

010the support that i get every day while being at white's creek and we truly believe that the creek can rise up and will strive to rise up thank you anything else y'all want to add no more icing no more gravy that was wonderful thank you all so much picture time [Applause] don't go through there we'll get you did a great job don't stand kind of in the yeah perfect is that's okay please give these young people another round of applause awesome please remember what it was like to be a young person and imagine coming and presenting to a board full of educators full of uh supporters and parents so very good job young people we appreciate you with that we'll move on to governance issues with our consent consent agenda are there any amendments to

011the agenda as listed this is people walker i would like to pull wait a second where's page one um a e uh policy 4.301 and policy 6.402 can you repeat those one more time policy 4.301 and policy 6.402 all right do we have a motion to accept the agenda as amended i move approval with the agenda the consent agenda with the approved exceptions do we have a second second all right any discussion all in favor please raise your hands artists unanimous so we'll move on to this four point three zero one and four point six zero two uh mrs walker would you mind giving an explanation oh uh we are going we had a motions to defer point to policy 4.301 and policy 6.402 for discussion executive committee um do you we have to have

012an executive committee i mean executive session on both right yeah so the that was the request is that can we do them both in the same exactly all right so i'll i'll talk with you miss roberts and we'll set a date thank you all right we'll move on to number two a resolution regarding multicultural education mrs masters throwing to it sorry and for the viewing public or anyone kind of watching and moving along with us if you go to our agenda packet that's listed on the website you can scroll down to the very bottom and you'll see contracts you'll see mlu's and you will see in this case a resolution found it okay all right so should i just read it yes please okay so this is a resolution regarding multicultural education whereas the metro

013national board of education believes the multicultural education should promote the recognition of individual and group differences and similarities in order to reduce racism homophobia ethnocentrism and all other forms of prejudice and discrimination and to facilitate the development of self-esteem as well as respect for others among all students and whereas more than 70 percent of metro nashville public school students are students of color and the overall student population represents 139 countries of origin and whereas the metro national board of education believes that educational materials and activities should accurately portray the influences and contributions of ethnic and other minorities women and world religions and whereas the metro national board of education believes that academic freedom which includes the rights of teachers and learners to explore and discuss divergent points of view is essential to the teaching profession

014and whereas the metro nashville board of education recognizes that the tennessee state social studies standards require providing students with opportunities to explore current events by drawing connections between the past and modern day develop and defend their opinions and analyze multiple points of view and whereas the metro nashville board of education believes that in order to achieve racial and social justice educators must acknowledge the root causes of institutional racism structural racism and white privilege and whereas the metro nashville board of education lost my place the metro national public schools office of diversity equity and inclusion exists to address issues of racism homophobia ethnocentrism and all other forms of prejudice and discrimination within metro nashville public schools and whereas my computer's mushroom all students deserve to see accurate representations of themselves in their education and learning about

015the contributions successes and challenges of non-white people is critical to long-term educational development and understanding now therefore be it resolved that the metropolitan national board of education will advocate for research and implementation of social and educational strategies that foster the eradication of institutional racism and white privilege perpetuated by white supremacy culture it's hard to read this much with them furthermore stand behind its adoption of curricular materials that adhere to the tennessee academic standards furthermore stand behind teachers who teach the tennessee academic standards in a factual manner that represents the truth of this country's history support and defend teachers use of materials that incorporate diverse accurate viewpoints that are representative of the student body in their classrooms furthermore ensure that individual teachers who teach the tennessee academic standards are not punished for teaching accurate information adopted

016by the electorate elected metropolitan national board of education on the 24th of august 2021 with this resolution to take immediate effect the public welfare requiring it thank you mrs masters do i have a motion uh motion to approve and do i have a second a second all right discussion around this resolution makes sense to me all right uh i will say i appreciate you bringing this to us this semester sorry go ahead this is walker i just want to um thank um miss masters for bringing this forward and i think you know this speaks to some concerns that staff have had about what can and cannot be taught to students um they're still outstanding rules that have to come from the tennessee department of education on that but i will say while we're talking about

017anti-critical race theory or critical race theory we're not talking about school funding when we're talking about critical race theory we're not talking about student achievement we're not talking about uh the well-being of our students i'm not saying us i'm saying the universe and so i want to make sure people understand that it is essential that we create what i call high trust low stress school environments for our children and that requires seeing them teaching them using materials that reflect them honoring teachers who are trying to do that really well and so i just stand with this resolution and thank you so much so in short teachers we have your back we appreciate you all continuing to reflect diversity in our schools and as you engage with this curriculum authentically with students and ms masters i

018appreciate you bringing this because it shows true allyship and that's something that i want our entire community to really wrap their heads around that we can't continue to just say things we can't just talk talks if we're not going to walk them also so with that being said all in favor please raise your hand all right it's passed unanimously with one missing thank you we'll move on now to director's reports and it's not listed here but we did have two committee meetings this afternoon so mrs poopo walker and mrs tyler if you would not mind being prepared to just say a few words at the end of this presentation thank you dr battle okay all right thank you madam chair and board members tonight we're looking forward to walking through some of our various plans

019but i wanted to start with a brief overview of our tn ready data and academic acceleration plans that we presented a few weeks ago on march 13 2020 of course we can all recall metro schools closed due to the third of the pandemic and very soon after that all of the school districts in tennessee had closed for what turned out to be the remainder of the year it was an uncertain and unprecedented time for us all but our educators and staff were quickly to find alternative ways to connect with their students and their families to ensure they had the resources and support they needed during this emergency situation we also know that our education system is based primarily around in-person instruction and that the disruptions caused by the pandemic was slow academic growth which is

020why which has been seen throughout the last year in math scores and now in teen ready data families hit the hardest by the pandemic where often those experience in poverty because they didn't have immediate access to outside resources were often the ones furloughed or laid off due to the pandemic recession or are unable to stay home and support their children while working remotely this all correlated to larger declines in growth for economically disadvantaged populations now to be clear school districts were told now to be clear school districts were told that the 2020-21 tcap data would not be used for accountability purposes if we achieved testing rates at 80 or more and we achieved 85 percent participation rate additionally we did not hold students accountable for their results and end of course exams this is meant

021to be a baseline for districts and schools to grow from in the future please note that only 88 of eligible mmps students tested and only 86.5 percent of scheduled tn ready and end-of-course exams were completed that actually translates to 6339 students who do not test and 21 799 scheduled tests that were not completed a couple of highlights from our tcap data includes english 2 proficiency increase by 1.5 percent excuse me 1.6 percent and u.s history proficiency increased by 2.5 since 2019. i mentioned earlier that a primary focus of mnps is improving current practices these enhancements for the upcoming school year will accelerate our recovery in meaningful ways we have identified key enhancements aligned to literacy numeracy science social studies and personalized learning we welcome everyone to reference our full tn ready presentation on our district

022website which does a good job of unpacking where we performed with regards to our tn ready in comparison to the state a couple of highlights that regarding those enhancements that i want to highlight here includes for example that due to our enhancements coming into this school year a second grader who is learning to read could have an additional 194 hours or equivalent to 30 days of additional literacy support than they would have typically received again this is just additional time and opportunity which is one half of the two-pronged approach as we're talking about accelerating and then moving and also addressing recovery so this is another graphic that highlights how we're able to embed those enhancements throughout the school year i want to call your attention to what all these investments and strategies culminate in you

023can see that as we progress from june 2021 through july 2022 that our students school year is book-ended by promising scholars and the year itself is infused with enhancements meant to improve their experiences and their outcomes again for more information please feel free to review that tn ready presentation that was shared several days ago and is posted on our website we walk through i personally walk through all those enhancements and what we have to look forward to again in summary we've talked about this this is about us going back to basics to ensure forward progress and success we are moving into a period of recovery and then quickly into acceleration and we've got to get the fundamental inflection points right we have spent lots of time planning and training around those basic needs and what

024it's going to what it's going to take to address recovery and then moving quickly into acceleration as a reminder recovery won't happen in a single semester or a single school year it will take hard work it will take focus and continued innovations and investments to ensure we're adapting to the needs of our students who are harmed most by the pandemic while also enhancing our core instruction and foundational skills to increase academic rigor for all of our students beyond the pandemic in ways that will close historic learning gaps among our student groups all right so again those enhancements are in place we kicked off the school year with them we are with a sense of urgency addressing the needs for recovery and we will be shifting into acceleration for all of our students to ensure that

025strong path for success now i'm going to shift a bit to talk about our ongoing response to the pandemic as a reminder masks are required at all mnps facilities pursuant to the rules adopted by the board of education in consideration of the mayor's executive order for mass at all metro facilities and the recommendations from the cdc aap and state and local health officials universal masking remains the best available mitigation strategy outside of vaccinations which aren't yet available for the majority of our student population the review of governor lee's executive order 84 is ongoing and on friday we sent out an update to families with a form that was created which families could submit to schools for feedback as to their opt-out preferences we will continue to monitor that situation and provide updates to the board

026as they become available now as a reminder here here are our covet mitigation strategies number one universal masking in schools social distancing when feasible and we understand in many circumstances six feet is not feasible but to the greatest extent possible is our guidance along with seating charts cohorting and other strategies to limit potential exposures exposures in the school building washing of hands using hand sanitizer and coughing into your sleeve remain best practices to reduce the spread of the cov19 viruses and other illnesses our custodial teams will continue using cdc approved disinfectants to sanitize buildings contact tracing and quarantines are an important strategy as well and i'll get into greater detail about those in just a moment and last and quite frankly most important vaccinations are the best strategy to reduce the impact of coven 19

027if someone catches it as well as to reduce the spread the pfizer vaccine which is one of one that most mps employees received earlier this year has been fully approved by the fda as of this week this is important to note for those who may have been hesitant due to its emergency authorized status previously we are hopeful that the vaccine will be approved for students younger than 12 soon but we don't know and don't have a firm date from public health authorities on when that might happen though we anticipate the pfizer vaccine will be the first version approved for younger students as it was for our older students here's a reminder of our contact tracing protocols our contact tracing is run by the health department through our school nurse program quarantines are not optional but

028required if a student or staff member is identified as a closed contact those definitions have been updated since last school year so as a reminder a close contact is traditionally defined as someone who is within six feet of a person who tests positive for covert 19 for a period of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period exceptions to their rule are that in the k-12 environment students who are more than three feet apart if universal masking policies are in effect and if the students are both correctly wearing masks will not be defined as closed contacts additionally those who are fully vaccinated meaning both shots plus two weeks will not be required to quarantine if they don't exhibit symptoms or test positive those who have had a lab confirmed cova test indicating they had coveted

029within 90 days of exposure are also not required to quarantine we'll continue reporting out on a weekly basis the coven 19 quarantines and confirm cases on monday mornings through our coven 19 tracking website at mnps.org going over the numbers since the start of the school year from august 9th to august 15th we had 95 staff isolated a quarantine with 52 confirmed cases 980 students were isolated or quarantined with 207 confirmed cases from august 16th to august 22nd we had 143 staff isolated a quarantine with 67 confirmed cases 2879 students isolated a quarantine with 395 confirmed cases the number of quarantines and isolations represent active meaning they might roll roll over week to week the number of confirmed cases represents notifications of schools that a student or staff member tested positive during the time frames listed

030these are higher than we saw last year when students were in person though we have a lot a lot more students in our buildings we will continue to monitor and report the numbers and work with schools that are most heavily impacted to offer support wherever possible digging a little deeper into the quarantine procedures when staff are required to quarantine they are expected to work remotely unless they are too sick to work in which case they'll use sick leave we have and will continue developing a process to give staff the opportunity to access covis sick leave if the following conditions are met they have tested positive through a lab-confirmed diagnosis that they have coveted they have a medical note indicating they are or were not able to work they have received at least the first dose

031of the coven 19 vaccine prior to diagnosis or they have medical documentation indicating that they're not ill they are ineligible for the cova 19 vaccine the reasons for which are extremely limited limited this should ensure that staff are working when possible but also being mindful that there are breakthrough cases which can lead to serious illness and we want to be accommodating to that reality however if you have chosen not to get the vaccine to significantly reduce the chances of illness from covet then it's not the responsibility of the district to financially compensate you for that decision and so we will continue to update that process as we move forward as for students they can be counted present if they complete all of their assigned work and their parents verify that the student participated in all

032instructional activities this is a minimum set of expectations to be counted for attendance please know there may be times when classroom teachers are able to provide additional instructional opportunities to students learning a remote environment either through synchronous lessons if for instance the teacher is also quarantined and is providing instruction remotely through teams to their in-person classroom or an entire class is having to quarantine now let's dive into our s3 plans which have been formulated through several weeks and months of stakeholder feedback including this board parents students staff and community members to get us to a place where we're using these historic investments to best meet the needs of all those we serve we've talked quite a bit about esr over the last few months and we are nearing the end of the first finish line

033which is a submission of our esther plans to the state by friday there have been many revisions or updated guidance that have come from the state in the last few weeks months and actually days to the requirements for this plan so we have been having to make adjustments up until the last minute and will likely continue to make adjustments through the end of the week to make sure we're in full compliance with their requirements as a reminder we have received an allocation of 276 million dollars in esser funding provided through the american recovery plan of which 43 million is automatically reserved for charter schools in davidson county we have chosen to spiral 48.8 million directly to schools over the next two fiscal years so that we can meet the unique needs of of their students

034in our learning communities so schools can meet the needs of their student population to date we are not aware of any other district who has chosen to allocate a significant portion directly to schools and we're proud of the principal leaders who have taken on this opportunity and responsibility to give their students and staff what they need to succeed on the right of the slide you can see some of the examples of school level investments that have been made this school year with esser 2.0 funding that was made available to them already we are also reserving 1.8 million dollars for district administration which is lower than allowed by the rules and law but we want as much money going to schools and students as possible finally we will walk through the specific investments but nearly half

035of our funding is going towards accelerating learning progress or as the law calls it learning loss programs as a note our esther plans 1 2 and 3 are all subject to future revision based on the changing needs or additional funding streams that become available to offset the esser investments as well as approval by the state our plans for using the essa fronds are broken into four big buckets which you can see here and i'll read them just in case it's too small on some of the screens around the room build infrastructure accelerate academics every student known and grow our people here's what we're looking at for building infrastructure a 10 million dollar investment in nurses providing for additional nurse coverage over the course of the essa 3.0 grant so that we're able to provide covet

03619 testing contact tracing and general health services to students with a nurse in every school 2.8 million towards hot spot data plans being able to continue to offer internet connectivity to families who do not have access to the internet 630 000 towards software to support one-to-one technology software that will ensure computers are secure and up to date seven million dollars towards expanding community achieves providing for the expansion of the community achieves program that provides wraparound supports to students and families with the help of community partners four thousand and twelve dollars to go towards academic feedback and specifically course and grading alignment support improving course and grading alignment to alleviate school level challenges and improve integration and implementation of exis existing systems like infinite campus academic planner to better serve students and communicate with families 2.9

037million towards technology support services for staffing and support to maintain the one-to-one student and teacher devices a 1.5 million dollar investment towards strategic redesign and sustainable transformation support this will provide expert support for developing and implementing a strategic multi-year plan to realize the goal of becoming the premier large school district in tennessee and beyond 600 thousand dollar investment towards community support hubs this is an extension of the virtual health centers to provide support through community support hubs and strategically located enrollment centers an 18.4 million dollar investment in student and teacher laptops funding an annual one-third replacement of student and teacher laptops to maintain our supply for a one-to-one technology ratio and account for wear tear and losses a 540 thousand dollar investment to expand our services from our student support department around title ix support

038including staffing a team for investigations in the district to maintain a safe and equitable environment within the mmps community a 20 million investment to accelerate metro schools reimagine this will be to support the district's efforts to align clusters around academic models and pathways improving student retention and outcomes a four million dollar investment in indoor air quality to increase facility improvements to provide for enhanced air quality and circulation in our buildings a six hundred thousand dollar investment in transportation to invest in a recruiter and to increase the number of bus drivers and monitors with innovative retention and recruitment strategies now here are some more details on how we plan to use our essa dollars to accelerate academics an 18 million dollar investment in promising scholars and summer experiences this is to extend our summer school programming

039through 2024 to accelerate learning progress of students a 6.6 million dollar investment in adaptive intervention platforms these will be district wide supports for interventions in literacy and numeracy that can be utilized during personalized learning time for all a students hundred thousand dollar investment in post-secondary transition supports providing supports to students in high school to ensure they are college and career ready a 1.7 million dollar investment in alternative learning center redesign investing in our alternative learning centers to improve student outcomes for those in need of more intensive behavioral or academic support a 17.6 million dollar investment in high quality instructional materials fully funding curriculum adoption so that every student has access to their own learning materials with a focus on new high quality math curriculum materials a 19. 19 million dollar investment in accelerating scholars our

040high impact tutoring program high doses tutoring partnership between mmps pencil and brightpath to bring community volunteers and pay tutors to the table to support the academic growth of students with an intense intense focus on first and second first second and third grade literacy and eighth and third eighth and ninth grade math skills a 834 thousand dollar investment in our schools of innovation support this will provide additional and continuing support for the schools of innovation particularly our priority schools a 175 thousand dollar investment in work-based learning support to launch and expand work-based learning opportunities where students earn credit toward graduation and learn valuable skills in a workplace setting a four million dollar investment to support our performing and visual arts education this will increase visual and performing arts learning opportunities through in-school and extended learning opportunities

041a 2.3 million dollar investment to support our athletic programs providing additional support to schools for athletic programs has shown to improve attendance and student outcomes with a special emphasis on with this investment on middle school athletics numeracy supports a 1.4 million dollar investment for additional materials and numeracy coordinated to close proficiency and achievement gaps in math a 1.5 million investment in exceptional education supports to give our students with exceptional needs additional support to compensate for challenges caused by the pandemic a 700 000 investment of common assessment supports ensuring we accurately assess learning progress of students to provide additional supports and interventions as necessary here we can see more on what we'll do to make sure every student is known a two million dollar investment in advocacy centers facility and staff support to provide every elementary

042school with an advocacy center to help students process emotions and remain on track and their learning progress you might recall that the majority of our advocacy centers are covered through our operational budget but we do have a 14 advocacy centers that are currently outside of the operational budget that we need to continue to fund until recurring funds are available a 360 thousand dollar investment in navigator support and data platform this is to extend the innovative navigator program to ensure each student has a caring adult checking in on them to meet their social emotional needs a 68 thousand dollar investment to provide parents and staff with the opportunity to provide feedback that can be used to improve educational services and outcomes again that's a six eight thousand dollar investment in possible pulse checks a 6.1 million

043dollar investment in restorative practice assistance establishing support for students experiencing behavioral challenges to increase time spent in classrooms and improve student outcomes in middle and high schools a 9 million dollar investment in mental health supports and counselors addressing the mental health needs of students caused by the pandemic adverse childhood experiences and daily life a 4.6 million dollar investment in social workers ensuring that we have a caring adult and trained adults in seo practices who can ensure children and families have the support they need to be successful a three hundred and fifty thousand dollar investment and a transition coordinator a position to supervise and support school to work coaches and manage grants focus on the transition of exceptional education students from high school to the workplace a 2.4 million dollar investment in translation and interpretation services

044these will be contracted services for translation and interpretation to meet the growing needs of our esl student and parent populations and a 300 000 investment in student council and a student counseling coordinator to manage and direct student counselors to ensure alignment with district processes and following best practices and this is what we're looking at doing with our essar funding and the grow our people category a 10 million dollar investment in pd and planning days giving our educators and our instructional staff and support staff instructional support staff the time and resources needed to learn the latest best practices and prepare lessons that meet students needs a 750 000 investment in our pd redesign aligning professional development to the needs of students in a way that provides for better academic and seo outcomes a 2.8 million dollar

045investment in higher ford hiring a pool of key positions teachers and administrators to staff high impact vacancies quickly to ensure continuity of quality teaching and learning for all students a 1.5 million investment in parent university reestablishing a parent university program to empower families to take more active roles in their students education and a 750 thousand dollar investment and substitute in innovative short-term staffing identifying and implementing innovative staffing strategies for support and instructional staff to ensure students needs are being met we're getting close to submitting our essar plans which are due at the end of this week and your approval of the health and safety plan earlier tonight is an important piece of that this plan will guide how we use our esser funds but i want to make sure you know that we can amend

046the plan along the way if our needs change particularly as we're getting our students back in the building and the in-person learning setting so more information to come on that i do want to make sure we end on a celebratory note i do want to remind the board and those watching of our mnps celebration of schools campaign where each school day we are featuring a different school throughout the district to highlight those qualities that make them unique we encourage everyone to participate in this campaign by wearing that school's colors or a school's clothing item if you have it and sharing a memory or great story about them on social media today we're celebrating cane ridge elementary school some fun facts about cane ridge the school's mascot is the owls which stands for outstanding wonderful leaders

047and staff cane ridge was named a 2016 rewards school for student growth and achievement and cambridge is leed civil certified which makes it one of the greenest and most sustainable construction projects in the district you can learn more about cane ridge and all of our other wonderful learning communities on our website so thank you madam chair for giving me a few minutes to provide an update to the board tonight and i will turn it back over to you thank you so much for all of that information dr battle uh do we have any questions from board members go ahead miss tyler yeah i just wanted one quick clarification because there's a lot of really great information really fast um so it seemed like you were saying that you were adding covered leave pay for teachers

048who have gotten vaccinated and have been told by a doctor that they can't work virtually that's correct that's correct we're working on that process but we have to keep in mind that we're trying to create the safety the right working conditions for our staff but also how we can keep that continuity of learning for our students but that will be a part of our process moving forward again vaccinated doctors note that will confirm their inability to work okay perfect just want to make sure that that's out there and people recognize that that is something we are working on we are hearing you dr gentry so we've heard about other districts around us that have had to just shut down right for the rest of the week or shut down for days because they've reached that

049point where they couldn't staff so do we know what our breaking point is um when it comes to teacher absenteeism because what's going on with the pandemic well we're tracking that by school and so every school's capacity looks a little bit different but we're monitoring that based upon the number of positive cases and quarantines needed so we will continue to monitor similar to the way we did last year we did have two instances where we had to shut down two schools we're hoping to avoid that this year if at all possible but those are based upon the staffing structure at those schools and the number of staff members who were to be isolated i have a follow-up question and i always have this this this uh you know in comment when it comes to jolton

050right so gelatin being a geographical outlier for us during the winter months when there's ice we have had to you know this is pre-covet right had to not reopen schools keep the entire district closed because of the one school that was located someplace where there was still ice on the mountain and it wasn't safe for the bus drivers so if we get to the point where a school's capacity has been reached right we can't staff it we've got to close the school is that a district-wide decision or is that a school decision or do we handle it like we handle inclement weather we it will likely work a little bit different from inclement weather days um the first goal will be to get enough staff there so the continuity services are there we do in

051this particular case have an opportunity for individual school closures as opposed to a district class so we're not subject to the same okay thank you yes but there are many considerations we're still asking some questions i'm getting some feedback from the state around how they're counting those as your inclement weather days per state law if we did use a day to revert back to the school being closed students at home we would have to use the inclement weather day and so we're getting clarification on if that will count towards the district or for the individual school mrs player peters the mrs masters and this is elrod the follow up on the quarantine questions is that does that apply to teachers only but or support staff also it applies to all employees and so if you're

052quarantined but um are not showing severe systems so there's a process for people to work virtually or yes there's a process for all employees to work uh remotely if needed okay and then if they're okay so so if they're working remotely then they would not need to their sick time because they are working yes but just working remotely at their own direct long term mrs masters thanks um so are we still providing medical accommodations for teachers who request them and given that now we know even if you're vaccinated you still can contract the virus and uh so i was just wondering are we still accepting those accommodation requests most of the robots could come up to the podium but there have been no changes in our medical accommodations process the federal statute that provided for

053leave expired at the end of last year so the typical ada process would kick in to make general reasonable accommodations okay so teachers that are interested in pursuing a medical accommodation because of whatever underlying condition or pregnancy or whatever they can still ask for that in light of covet conditions so they would need to begin the interactive process by reaching out to the workplace safety office and then that office works with individuals to determine what accommodations may be reasonable it's hard to speculate on what would qualify what wouldn't qualify but generally speaking that's the process under the ada okay okay and then another question about students and quarantining so if a student at this point if a student is symptomatic and they choose to go get a covid test there's a backlog and it can

054sometimes take three or four days now to get the results of what was previously a 24-hour test so during that period of time the student may not feel sick anymore be feel well enough to go to school but they're not technically in quarantine they don't want to go back to school until they get the test result can they be counted as present and do their work virtually while they're waiting for that test result i think i'm following your question uh mr clay could you approach the podium please and um i'll pick it back if need be for the answer about the testing one thing i want to point out i've noticed a lot of community conversation our school nurses are equipped with tests currently and so they have rapid tests they can administer those in

055school easily to be able to do that i think you may be referencing community testing i'm kind of talking about a sort of a unique situation actually not that unique it's happening a lot where you know your kid wakes up they have a stomach ache or a headache you take them to walgreens for a test because you're not going to take them to school for a test because they're symptomatic you're waiting for the results of the test for three or four days over the course of that time while you're being a responsible parent trying to you know not send a kid who's a little sick but under normal circumstances probably not so sick that they wouldn't have gone to school can they learn during that period of time what it sounds like you're referring to

056is in a typical year if a student had any of these like symptoms we would ask them to stay home as well in your case what you're saying is that they're also staying home waiting on a test so it's your question how they will be marked attendance wise okay dr springer would you approach the podium please i know it sounds like it or makes it either one it's not really specific but it is happening i think a lot among those who are trying to get out absolutely the state law and the state board rules only allow us to count a child as present that is currently under quarantine we do have a variety of options parents can avail themselves to excuse the absence while they're waiting for that and we would certainly encourage them to

057please keep a child that may be symptomatic at home and to do that even if it were to be an excused absence now through the office of academics we're gonna we can provide work in schoology we can provide a similar level of service as far as being able to count them as present though i will have to defer to dr springer if she's aware of something that i'm not but the state statute we're currently using only allows for it in quarantine i believe at this point i mean can a can a parent say my child you know was symptomatic and we're waiting for a test result and therefore we need to quarantine can we somehow qualify that student under that circumstances right yeah so i would think we would need to follow up possibly and

058get some guidance from others to determine what what flexibilities we have within that to do that but we can certainly and we would want to do that as well obviously being able to count the children as present and participating is an important aspect and one of our goals we can certainly follow up and see what flexibility there is there based on our current interpretation i'm not aware of any but it doesn't mean we we can certainly seek additional so really does it come down to whether the district sent you home to quarantine versus south korea or the hefty or our nurses via the health well yeah somebody's sending you home determining you need to quarantine versus you making the decision to self quarantine okay but i certainly don't want us to discourage people who think

059their child needs to have a test for whatever reason from keeping them home i guess what i'm getting at and we know for a fact that those can be excused absences but we also have to align our attendance policy to the state policy and right now the only leeway that i'm aware of is being able to mark a student president who has been quarantined by the school via the school nurse and health department all right mrs elrod then mrs tyler and then back to mrs player peters thank you my questions are about our slide of many investments so in response to the exceptional education supports under accelerate academics is that for compensatory services or is that for additional services in light of potential loss or gains that we need to consider from last year um

060dr bailey you can approach the podium police we pull the slide back up in question i'm sorry i don't have right i don't have the presentation in front of me is it accelerating academics yes it's the second column and it's the second to bottom bullet point so the exceptional education supports there um the variety of those supports are going to be more along the line not necessarily compensatory services we'll fit compensatory services in as as required by law into the school day to the greatest extent possible and do that through a lot of service providers we already have based on the iep process that the iep team is who determines what amount of compensatory services may or may not be needed and through our implementation of clips last year i don't have the exact numbers

061in front of me i could work with deb mcadams to determine what those services were needed and what our plan of attack for that was esther funds were more allocated to accelerating recovery of special of all students and in this case exceptional ed students um rather than um just bucketing these funds for compensatory services so it's for additional services on top of any type of required compensatory correct because content compensatory service is something where again we're required to do in a normal year if something has required it and so these would be in addition to them okay and specifically around compliance of implementing the iep in the ways that will help and support students recover and acceleration got it are we currently working underneath those clips or their ieps now that we are not in

062remote we're using ieps my next questions which are about let's see i'm trying to make sure i have the right column i'm so sorry it is under the every student known column for translation interpretation and also for the mental health support do we know after these investments what our ratios will be for translators per student like how much we're reducing that or our psychology ratios and how we're reducing those do we know what those numbers will be they will cross a couple different departments so right hank if you want to take on the translators interpreters and then dr bellum if you want to take on the school psychologist so translators and interpreters have recently moved back to molly haywood who is our director of el um works in in the division of schools now so

063i believe we're adding about 22 positions and i don't want to quote these numbers exactly but that'll that'll increase based off the last numbers i saw by about 30 percent the amount of translators we have for these positions right now to provide immediate service to our families in need and then your question about school psychologists we were fortunate to get seven school psychologists position in the budget we are less fortunate in being able to hire them currently as there are very few available in the state of tennessee and so our special ed department our exceptional education department has been working very aggressively with hr to look at different possibilities of using that generous funding we received in our operating budget to to attract school psychologists back to metro that may have left us or we've

064even reached out and done some research asking psychologists and surrounding counties what may make metro an attractive place to make a permanent move to we also look at contracts for that work unfortunately our organizations we contract with are also staffed at a shortage so we're very blessed to have that money we're working very aggressively to make sure that we're our students are benefiting from it but those additional um psychologists and all that funding have allowed us to really close the gap where we were lagging behind on our evaluations most recently um the most recent update i got from deb mcadams and her department was we have gone from having 600 outstanding evaluations to a little over 150 i believe was the last number i got a couple weeks ago so it's certainly going a long

065way to make sure we're closing that compliance gap okay i know that reducing our ratio of psychologists and translators has been an ongoing want for us for our budget so i'm glad that that was a priority within our essar funds i also want to say that i am glad to hear that our bus drivers and having monitors and a potential recruiter just for those positions is pro is really important um as we all probably know the beginning of the school year that is a common discussion to hear from families about just bus concerns in general this year is probably just an exaggerated year of that for sure um and so i think an additional or just specific recruiter for those positions because they are so exceptionally hard to find particularly in our urban area to

066not only recruit and to retain i think that's a really good use of dollars and so i'm glad to hear that um and then my last question and i'm sorry as you can see i have so many notes y'all you just can't see them all is um on the build infrastructure column we had information about i may be in the wrong place on that one it is about the realignment of mnps reimagined and working within the clusters yes acceleration of metro schools reimagine the 20 million dollars for the alignment of clusters do we have any updated timelines on those alignment of clusters or any new information to share with families we don't have any updates to date what we are looking at in that acceleration others uniform strategies across all of our clusters again we

067will be submitting this um later this week and it is pending approval for us to be able to to move on at which time we've already started working but at which time once we know the funds available and the timeline there we can begin that acceleration got it thank you mrs tyler um yes i am so i know last year part of the big push towards making every student known was really opening up the support hub to the to the schools and having um members of the former formerly known central office as the support hub going out to our schools is that something that has continued into this school year yes it is and a different um structure from last year last year we were asking for all hands on deck in a in a

068very frequent manner this year we have continued on and dr barnes if you want to add anything feel free we've continued on with that initiative with continuity and which schools our support hub leaders are connected to and they are getting out and making contact on a weekly basis but physically less frequent than they were this past year so here's an example on the first day of school we had one of our instructional technology leads who was out supporting her school i was visiting the school and she literally had a class of her own and was helping them navigate their first day making sure that they were getting settled in and so as opposed to being at the support hub she was at the school and really just plugging in and supporting the school leadership team

069where there were needs so that initiative has continued again in a little bit of a different structure every support hub member has essentially adopted a school and we have a structured way of making contact with the principal and then being on site across a month's time throughout the year and um so i know sometimes things come up quickly um one of my district schools that my own children attend is harvest valley elementary and it's been one of the hardest hit schools right now with positive coveted cases unfortunately um and there was a point in time where all of the office staff was out on quarantine all of them and yes and they were still and the nurse was doing something else with her and our um the staff that was there was very overwhelmed with

070contact tracing and trying to keep the day-to-day operations going is there a way for somebody to reach out and ask for help if it's before one of the check-in days um if does that make sense oh i don't know that we are in constant come on up don't you feel me i just i know and i don't want to say i mean i know that that the people that are working at harpett valley are just absolutely phenomenal and i could not be more proud of that school but i also know that sometimes it's hard to ask for help when you're in the middle of it and so and let me be clear about this and i'll kick it over to you dr bellamy when it comes to the quarantining process particularly from individual to class

071or staff the green light doesn't happen on what we do next without the support of the support hub so those conversation conversations happen immediately a notification likewise the notifications that come to the board but dr bellamy can talk about that avenue of communication and the supports that are being made available to our schools to help keep the continuity of operations going in the case of something like you're explaining um principal gleason a did a fantastic job was doing cafeteria duty um all last week because her office staff typically does jobs like that mr high her executive director stays in touch with all my executive directors stay in touch with their schools on a daily basis so they're the first point of contact so chad was very well aware or mr high should say was very

072well aware of the strain that principal gleason was under and was advocating um to me and then to the support hub in ways that we needed so there's a strong chain of communication and the executive director is always the first stop for that and then i again i have several structures where they report to me if if they need additional help whether it whether it's sometimes i reach out to dr barnes and we provide additional substitutes even for positions you wouldn't normally get them for or things of that nature so again very proud of of the staff there for what they went went through that first that first week of school mr high for his support of them and principal gleason they did a great job oh yes i mean the care that they've taken

073of those students and the staff there it's just i like i said i could not ask for anything better and i've been very proud to be a hound dog parent and then i guess so a completely separate question now is if talking about the looking at the ability to try to um fund the coveted pay for people who meet the the um strict the rules that you guys are kind of setting up around that in order to be able to meet that need would that be something that could once that decision has been made and we have gotten the funding for it would that be also retroactive so somebody who had to take some of their sick leave but was vaccinated and their doctor said you can't come into work you can't work virtually for

074whatever reason is that considering we started school on august 10th i don't see a reason why we could not figure it out i just wanted to make sure that that was well that we'll definitely review it okay thank you all right uh we have mrs player peters then mrs masters mrs poopo walker and mr little um i had a question a question from a employee asking about testing so if an employee um is exposed they can go to the school nurse for testing basically and if they're a non-school-based employee can they go where can they go to get testing i guess within the district does that make sense thank you doctor thank you um so yes communicate with that employee directly and there are school nurses that non-students and non-teachers can use at the school-based

075site in addition to that dr springer's team set up a drive-through testing here on some mornings that they can come through and get that test as well as request on demand if that's what's needed okay all right mrs masters thank you i just i wanted a little clarification about how a quarantine student can go about getting in touch with a teacher through the virtual school to provide them with instructional assistants i know abigail's kids are doing that right now but that's it's a great question a great opportunity for me to give a good plug to our school our supports our staff at virtual school they've done a fantastic job of providing wrap around opportunities so there are drop-in hours office hours i mean you can literally go into a link on their website and it's

076it's right at the touch of a button we've recently released a video about a four minute video through my executive directors to all principals that the expectation is when a child goes into quarantine with the letters and the other things they're given that they're giving a link to this video that explains step by step how to go to the virtual school web page what you click on depending on what grade your child's in and whether you want to come to standing office hours where there might be multiple children there asking for help or whether you want a one-to-one appointment additionally sean braisted has been helping us out we've worked through a communication that i hope we hope will be released later this week that will take you through the entire process beginning to end so

077what happens you've been notified that you're quarantined what happens next whether it's attendance protocols how do i get counted present how do i get my work in schoology and how do i get support from the virtual school so we have both of those resources that we've been trying to aggressively push out that i look to see more communication on later this week for the full package but all principals should already have access to that video and so any family listening my first step would say reach out to your principal or reach out to um to kelby garner the executive principal at mmps virtual school through email and she will connect you to those resources very quickly so this is there's a good follow-up to that i'm very glad to hear that um that communication is

078going to go out to parents that's sort of just like step by step you're you're in quarantine what now um because our school nurses are drowning um they're just it's it's so overwhelming and i know i got i got the close contact call as a parent too and i had questions and then i started feeling kind of bad like oh i'm keeping this nurse on the phone asking her all of these questions so i think to have that clear communication out to parents so that nurses aren't having to answer all of those questions every time um i'm just also wondering about what can we do right now to get help and not even necessarily um you know medical help just you know some sort of help with making the calls for the for the contacts

079help to sort of expedite the process of everything the nurses are having to do from the testing to the calling to the paperwork to all of it well the first line here is that when it comes to the academic supports the first line of defense is going to be the teacher not the teacher counselor principal so it's not the nurse's responsibility to share all that information we've got a process in place for those communications on on that end we are still in the process while we are funding a nurse for every school we're still just like bus drivers like our teachers just like our support staff we're still in the process of filling those positions and so part of the supports that we've pushed out to our school teams are doing things i'm like you

080know making sure that you have your cohort of students aligned your seating charts directory so we're making sure that we're streamlining streamlining all of those supports for our nurses to help expedite the process but again we're seeing numbers like we did not see last year with fewer students in in our buildings and i don't think anybody was anticipating that with this new variant that we will see the the level of um seeing just how transmissible this variant is and what's requiring for quarantining and the number of positive cases and so we're continuing to monitor and adjust some of those strategies of helping expedite those contacts being made and of course the instructional supports come directly from the teacher and or the principal dr battle if i could just add that the principals are often times

081helping out with contact racing when the nurses become overwhelmed and dr springer's department and mine work pretty closely pretty often i speak with dr bull quite often about what her nurses are experiencing what they need and we work with executive directors to try to support in particular when there's a hot spot a great example is through one of our soi ed's renitta perry has worked with all of her principals and they have binders now with seating charts in them so instead of having the nurse having to track it down it's right there for her so that she's not having to to reach out a variety of ways and that's a strategy that became shared at my executive director meeting and we've tried to disseminate out so that we can continue to just help our nurses

082as they continue to be on the front lines of this and this is a shift in structure as well because in previous months we did have additional covey support on the ground and so we're having to shift in those roles and responsibilities can can we start reporting the data not just by school but by um grade level melissa approach the podium thank you so under ferpa we have to protect student information so the more granular you get the more likely it is that you could identify students that had tested positive and so to keep it to protect student privacy we've done it at the school level um okay i might follow up with you about that are you asking get rid of the school and just tell me across the district how many third graders

083fourth graders no i mean i think school level like instead of everybody in one school getting a note saying somebody has been you know and you would have already been contacted and just sending it to just the third grade in that school where there was a positive well really i just want to know um you know and that's usually what we get from parents and i can understand that but the us department of education put out guidance i was trying to help that well i'll tell you i want to know by by grade level um because i'm really interested for example in a middle school where half the population typically is eligible for the vaccine and half is not i i would like to sort of dig in on that breakdown of you know like

084my eighth graders vaxxed and had a close contact and didn't have to quarantine because he's vaxxed and masked and asymptomatic so i would like to see what that breakdown looks like because i feel like sometimes seeing that sort of data in black and white in front of you can might help to incentivize some eligible for for the vaccine i don't know okay um i'm dead that's all i've got for her all right genie frito was next um no i was next i have you and then john he made that up okay so first of all i think this is amazing that we're able to deploy all these resources i'm still worried about us hiring a lot of people that we can't keep so i know y'all are paying attention to that but i just really

085when you think about advocacy centers and mental health supports and social workers and you know most of those supports to your point and and keeping our eye on that are contracted services so our ability to scale up we did have to um analyze where those contractor services um could be and who we can partner with to provide those to avoid like you said some of those staffing and funding cliffs that we want to try to avoid very excited to see parent university on here i used to help run that program so i don't know if there's any thought about how that would be deployed i think it's more important than ever obviously it used to be classes for parents and so forth and so on but i think it could also be an important tool

086maybe for pac or maybe for i don't know and so i'm just wondering will will you guys create sort of a department or a staff it up or how how is that going to look we're definitely planning to staff it up it could there will be contracted services as well and we use the term parent university because of the success we've had but we're also innovating um in this space understanding that it might not need to look exactly the way that it did in the past but reassessing around one our modes of being able to connect with one another but also the some of the needs have shifted and changed and it is there an opportunity to do more family um opportunities with student and parent i mean we're we want to be very innovative

087around how we deploy parent university and being but being very strategic about what we're trying to accomplish given our focus outcomes so i know that there are a lot of people talking about how it's hard to get tested people trying to get their family tested i don't know that people want to bring a child who's been exposed into school to be tested is there a world where these community support hubs where people have been going for laptop help could become a place where testing could occur so that this family doesn't have to go to the school but could go to a place where there's already we will definitely take that under advisement might be another i mean i know we're trying to capture some trend data right now about how often and frequently they're being

088accessed but that's something that um our team can look into are people still going there for help i i figured they would when we were remote and people kids were not in school but now that they're in school are people still coming to them yes because we've expanded the reach of those community hubs for not just to be around technology but almost kind of a one-stop shop enrollment right nutrition services whatever the need may be we wanted to staff those so that we're meeting our families where they are and providing those resources and then the last thing i'll say is i'm hoping that we are i'm assuming that dr randolph is doing this but we're putting measures in place to know if this stuff pays off what's working what's not working year to year you

089know yes of course as dr randolph is coming to the podium one of our signature initiatives um is a practice partnership if you want to talk a little bit about it we're going to be kicking it off formally in just a few weeks so okay um several things going on there thank you for the question yes i mean we're working to be very thoughtful on the front end of value of setting up program evaluation so we can iterate along the way what's working what's not um and how do we adjust so several things going on dr battle just mentioned the research practice partnership with vanderbilt which is launching um vanderbilt has skin in the game and we have skin in the game really excited about that work and working on that together we also are

090looking we're hiring a position for dr tangus's team to focus just on esser it will be a short-term grant funded position not atypical on that team dr changus could speak to that but i'm certainly funding that we also are have a couple of other university partners working on specific projects with us like tutoring and the literacy framework works so we're leveraging just like across the board outside partnerships and expertise as well as internal ability to do those things thank you mr little and and jenny you you took the words right out of my mouth um so the question when we asked just about the best used practices i see 48 million for school i guess it's school-based budgeting light like how do we determine what works so we can use those best used practices for

091the monies given to the school um so you're talking specifically about the spiral um so from sr2 we spiraled down about 24 million dollars through all of our engagement it's been pretty overwhelming that um that practice um should be continued so we're right now budgeting around 48 million dollars inspired directly to schools what's the most important here is that we have worked extremely hard and with some other researchers around those best practices practices the high yield strategies that schools should be leveraging their funds for so we've provided kind of a guidance document if you will with the guardrails around what those best best practices are where they help move the needle and the buckets that you see in order for us to support but also monitor the impact on student outcomes it's very important for

092us to think about this in terms of getting those dollars and resources closest to our students and schools so that while we're thinking about district strategy we have also very unique school strategy around meeting the unique needs of their students in their in their um learning community so it's kind of a twofold approach district strategy because we know that there are some um needs that are consistent and and district wise but we also have some very school school specific um needs that we want to make sure we're able to address those challenges so those guardrails are there and we have an opportunity with our facilitators and our executive directors who are coaching our principals and monitoring that impact okay thank you and just a couple follow-ups for the building infrastructure accelerate academics the indoor air

093quality which i was excited to see on here because i just thought that was a really good opportunity like how would how would that flow out and how does that look because i know a lot of people asked about are we updating our air systems um i'll invite dr randolph back to the podium but i do want to remind us that this is a second investment for enhancements in this space so estrogen two we had some two one 11.2 million and sr2 that was about 10 projects this will add more to that so they're they're around improved airflow and hvac projects at schools where they need and how do you guys determine which schools get what so facilities has as you can imagine some extensive lists of needs and they have prioritized those needs there's

094a couple things to remember around facilities one is we've got to be able to complete the project in the time of the grant which is actually quite challenging we were on a call with some other districts who've had to abandon some of the facilities projects that they wanted because of construction costs in the timeline of some of these things so we've been very thoughtful about things we can actually get done in the time frame before june 24 so that was that's one of the criteria as well so need and then can we accomplish it in the time allowed and and also kudos to our facilities team if you're thinking about our capital needs assessment that we had a plan that we could really leverage to determine where the greatest needs were first and then uh

095move them forward and then last question as we like how do we see the plans because these are really good like post-secondary transition support work based learning support like what's the best way to utilize and look at those plans just so we can be familiar with how the district is going to operate so one thing this board should be extremely proud of and you might remember that one document from our board retreat we color coded what kind of source of funds we were leveraging to move our aspirational budget forward if you look back at your aspirational budget you're going to see lots of investments through our esser dollars which are tied directly to our focus outcomes our core tenants our signature initiatives um for um our students on behalf of the district so that's the

096first place um to look we were also very responsive to our stakeholder engagement particularly around our spiral to our schools and where those funds might be best used so if you go back to that aspirational budget and those documents you will see a lot around the theories of action we went back and reviewed those against where we are today and they are all very relevant and our needs for our district as we move forward what are the questions all right we have mrs masters mrs uh player peters and this will be our last round uh mrs tyler i think oh sorry about that okay i'm sorry mrs player peters and then mrs tyler um now that the vaccine has been fda approved for those employees who didn't can we consider um either having some partnerships

097with the department of health to do a vaccine drive and then have some leeway like voting like they can take some time during the day to do it um is that something that can be considered as a partnership um to do that to make sure we have most staff do it and then if they do have side effects um how can i fit into the quarantine leave or sickly if there's effects from that well it's the same process we've been using since i think it was march uh when um we were prioritized for for the vaccine we've even been pretty innovative and creative of having some clinics and some kind of enrolling opportunities to limit the time for even travel for our employees and so i think we it was mentioned earlier about the testing

098site so we are continuing to be innovative around how we can get access to our employees to limit you know any extra challenges and barriers to them getting the vaccine and so we'll continue that particularly on the heels of that fully advisor being fully approved um and then um i was going to let mr little know that we've been doing as with the capital needs that that we haven't waited for esser funds to do work on our schools to improve ventilation but we have been leveraging the funds that already exist getting such a large investment in our capital needs fund by the city council last year is really helpful we upgraded all of our um existing hvac units to have the highest merv filters that they could handle i think it's just really important that

099the public knows that we are well aware that ventilation is extremely important and it is something that we are really looking into and have been and so although we are spending a lot of essar funds looking at hvacs we're also spending capital needs funds on that too so that's not something we've been ignoring it's something that has been on the radar and something we have been taking care of all along and then just kind of to to follow up with that i know every school is a little different just with location and the unique populations that attend each one and i know that i've had several questions from different people about what is the ability of schools to have outdoor classes or to have outdoor lunch and i have been saying that's probably a building

100level decision based on the different things that are going on there but if you could kind of give us a little bit of overview on what what could we do that with the weather not being terrible at the moment is there any sort of guidance that you're giving princesses highly encouraged i mean anytime that we can get our students outdoors whether it be for recess or pe or for lunch i mean every building is different the needs are unique so those are building level decisions but there are decisions that we fully support with the right measures in place for students so highly encourage whenever possible when feasible to get get our students from the indoor setting to the outdoor setting and then i know sometimes part of the issue with allowing an outdoor lunch is

101you still have students that are in the cafeteria but you also want to allow students so then you become staffing yes um is that something that that if the outdoor area were to have parent volunteers to come is that something that we would be okay allowing them to oversee an outdoor lunch and not go in the building one of our mitigation strategies which is an alignment to all of the health guidelines is to limit visitors in schools so what school teams are doing is leveraging their staff as much as possible we by law have to have our teachers have to unless they volunteer not to they are afforded a duty-free lunch but also limits the amount of supervision so i've personally seen schools getting creative and innovative it might not be every day it could

102be every other day depending on the grade level the size of the school but it is definitely i mean if a school is offering an opportunity for outdoor lunch we fully support them in doing so but they have to do so based upon their staffing needs and of course we're still pushing our support hub folks into schools to help alleviate that as much as possible in fact we had our exceptional education lead the principal was out at one of our exceptional education schools and she went out and was a principal for not only a day but i believe a few days to support them so we're trying to do everything we can to keep those that continuity of operations but also recognizing that it's good for mitigation strategy as well to be outdoors as often

103and frequently as we can yes yes and i definitely agree it is we cannot legally ask our teachers to take on lunch duty that is part of our mou i want to make that clear that is not on the teacher's shoulders to take care of but we are doing things indoors like we're feasible spacing our students out monitoring you know when they're eating versus putting their mass back on so there are things that um picking up kind of a grab-and-go lunch in some cases so when they're not able to go outdoors there are strategies that we're encouraging and recommending our schools um executing upon indoors and then for our schools that have portables i know that there's a very different set of parameters around ventilations in a portable than there is inside a school do

104we have any sort of mitigation policies to help with portable ventilation i know some of their windows don't open at all period and some of them can slide it just depends on the actual portable itself um so just i don't know is that something that we have considered do we have plans to help with ventilation and portables i'll have to defer to our facilities team there's one advantage here there's usually a path outdoors getting to the portable but david profit if there's anything else you want to add particular more specifically around portables with regard to portables they each have their own self-contained wall units those wall units do draw inside air or outside air in to help recirculate air or provide air changes that's what the cdc talks about is air changes not circulating air

105but but bringing in fresh air they have their own system of doing that with those through wall units that we already have okay but we don't open windows i didn't think so none of the portables i ever taught and let me open windows right and and right but that's the way they work okay i appreciate that thank you that's helpful all right i just and i just wanted to say before we move on i just i'm very pleased to see that you have listened to so much input from teachers and parents and from us about the things that we think are necessary and as well as talking to experts in the area like mr prophet who understands how ventilation works in all of our schools and what is feasible for us to actually do i

106just i can see that the priorities you guys have set are really putting our students first and the safety first and i just wanted to let you know that i see that i appreciate that i like being able to see that we understand that there's an issue staffing buses so we're doing that and we understand that we need to keep up with ventilation so we've got that on here that we know that mental health is extremely important so we are making specific investments in those things and so i just you guys are doing a great job trying to meet all the needs that we possibly can with money that is finite even though it seems like a lot it's finite and it's one time so i appreciate that and i see that and and thank

107you all right i just have a couple of questions if you don't mind dr battle first would you mind highlighting some of the important dates on this esser plan submission timeline like when is it due are there any other opportunities for community members at large to ask questions or just to review the plan dr randolph do you mind approaching the podium please and responding i'm happy to report that it's due friday and yes it's up on the website what you saw tonight is available um anyone can go and look at it and there is a email address esser mnps.org that people can submit questions or comments too but i will remind i mean dr battle did a great job of underlining that we will have hopefully an approved plan by october 1st um but like

108these sr2 as an example we've had four approved revisions since we submitted so what we submit with with changes or new needs are identified or what we will be able to revise so it is not something that's ever set in stone oh please know that i'm not pushing back i love the plan pending approval yeah pending approval that's right well and and also your question about engagement um we've had multiple engagement opportunities that's also highlighted on our web on our checklist as required by the essa plan so multiple stakeholders surveys we've tried to gather as much feedback as we could certainly thank you for that how are we looking with hiring nurses have we met whatever needs we had are we still in the process of looking for nurses you know i know we have

109that partnership with metro health but where do we stand we're still in the process of hiring nurses i don't have the numbers in front of me but that is ongoing and will continue to be a priority for us as well as a matter of fact i can probably answer this question across the board we we are still not in our ideal space for staffing across the board but the team is plugging in and pushing through in so many ways to make sure all of the needs are covered this was why was also important for our transformation and to our support hub model because it is requiring all of us to do what's necessary to keep our students in person learning and safe and lastly just what do you need from us outside of spreading the

110good news reminding community members and parents about the use of esser dollars and what's to come i mean just how else can we help i think um you know continuing to we have what you see in this plan what you have heard and engaged with in our signature initiatives are research research-based strategies they're the practices that we should be leveraging and so continuing to communicate those we need continued partnerships so if you have community partners or members or leaders who are interested in helping and supporting any of these initiatives please send them our way we'll be happy to connect them for instance we're our goal is to tutor up to seven thousand students we need volunteers we need community partnerships to help us do that and as you've heard through our esther plan a lot

111of what we're doing we'll be relying on some contracted services so we've been doing some asset mapping about around what might be there the partners who've done great work with us and our students but if you see opportunities for partnership that helps us extend every dollar as far as we can to get significant impact for our students please please reach out we want to talk to whomever we want to point them in the right direction for if they want to apply to help but any of that advocacy definitely will go a long way i think this is also a critical time for us to be paying attention attention to policies and and other legislation that might be coming down the pike later we want to make sure that we're protecting our ability to do what's

112best for our students and on behalf of our staff so again awareness around what might be coming on the pike in that piece but anybody who can partner with us around these research-based strategies to address the recovery needs of our students and also to accelerate their progress we are open to i love the way you phrase that protecting our ability to do what's best for kids so thank you thank you thank you but that well i'll kick it to mrs tyler if you wouldn't mind briefly recapping our teaching and learning committee and then mrs poupo walker if you would recap governance yes um so we had a focus specifically for the teaching and learning committee on advanced academics we went over all of the programs that we offer at all different levels starting with the

113encore gait program the gifted and talented education program for our younger students and then up into the high school level of ap classes ib schools dual enrollment dual credits and all the different ways that we can offer advanced academics to every student in our in metro so to kind of push excellence thank you this is pupa walker dr sevier um abele walked us through 17 policies that needed to be amended or updated and adopted we deferred on two policies policy 4.301 on interscholastic athletics and on policy 6.402 on physical examinations and immunizations a way we'll pick those up in an executive session and for the viewing community you can go to our website look at our agenda for today and you will see these different uh governance documents these new policies listed in that packet

114so don't feel like you're left out of the conversation with that we're going to move on to announcements we'll start down here with mrs tyler just another pitch i said it last time i'll say it again if you are interested in helping out in our schools if you are willing to be a high dosage tutor you can go to pencils4schools.org backslash volunteer and it's if you don't feel comfortable going into a classroom to help tutor then you could always do virtual videos which also you could do through pencil same address pencil for schools dot org backslash volunteer so we need all the support we can get and we appreciate everybody being willing to support the community as much as you can thank you mrs masters thanks i just want to be sure everyone is aware

115that the parent advisory council is having their large their first large meeting of the year on august 31st and they are hosting it that one on teams um and it is from 5 to 6 15 p.m and with each monthly meeting of the pack they're going to feature a different area of the work of mnps and this one we're going to have our own dr changus talking about our our student dashboards and just providing more information for parents about how that's going to work and then we'll get moving forward um september through november we will have those meetings here in the board room just prior to board meetings and they'll be sort of a town hall style again focusing on different areas of interest as they arise so please follow them on twitter it's um

116mnps i'm not sure what the twitter is but it's mnps parent advisory council it's but you might want to mention that too oh yes about to say something so i was going to ask you to do thank you sorry thank you um so so yes parent advisory council and we're still looking for some cluster reps for that as well so if you're interested in getting involved message me or message them on twitter or facebook i also wanted to thank our metro council and specifically it was dave rosenberg that brought forth a resolution of the council supporting um the work that we are doing here in metro schools to keep children safe and keep our staff members safe by continuing with our mask mandate so we were very appreciative of that resolution i think that's it

117thank you mrs player peters all right mrs elrod thank you tomorrow is overton's excuse me for clearing my throat in your ear tomorrow is overton's meet the teacher night it's from 5 to 6 30. you're able as parents to meet the teacher and a vote on title one spending so they really would like you to come out it's just a quick informal truly just meet them they are asking that if you go inside of a classroom and you see that there's more than five families that you wait and that you go into another classroom at that time to kind of make sure that there's not too many people crowding in one area and of course masks are required um then i would also like to thank a national diaper bank and they just donated a

118bunch of diapers and sanitizer to coal elementary and also on the notice of coal i would like to thank antioch church of christ they provided um not only breakfast for the in-service before school started but they also provided the space and hosted us thank you thank you mr little all right um first sending my condolences to the families in humphreys county just looking at those pictures and the testimonials it just it hurts my heart and knowing that in nashville we experience similar flash flooding also as an announcement i wanted to just bring attention to just some of the contracting so for the next two years as we talk about a lot of the essa money we're designating millions of dollars in public tax dollars to companies to help build nashville beyond what our imagination can

119process and i know we have talked about policies related to minority contracting on this board and i hope that we can get the opportunity to take some of this new money and use that opportunity to go above and beyond to be inclusive of all nashville residents but especially with minorities where property tax is going to record high numbers it is important that we work with the district and the mayor to not forget about the residents and families who helped make nashville the it's city and so that's my statement on minority contracting and then going further andrew jackson elementary as it was highlighted today is having their open house i think tomorrow is when we're actually doing a celebration of schools okay great so wanted to highlight them and thank you close to the 100 parents

120who have called emailed agreed and disagreed on this universal mask mandate um and given us the patience to review the the executive order i've gotten a lot of calls from some happy some angry but it's i'm i've definitely been in overtime pay um and then last but not least i saw something on i don't know if we talked about it earlier but wanted to give a huge shout out to the mayor's office and i see robert fisher here as we talked about the digital features rollout as i looked at the end of the presentation in the teaching and learning committee i saw that we're aligning our policies and also to see the mayor's office aligning their policies on how do we stay in line and keep our students ahead of the curve when it comes

121to surviving in nashville physically and financially and that's it thank you mrs pooperwalker i want to echo john's comments sending a lot of love tonight to the humphreys county school board i can't imagine navigating a pandemic and the kind of devastation experience and so i know we're all thinking a lot about them um big thank you to the mnps team who put together the presentation tonight on advanced coursework and gifted and talented i know that was a lot of work and it was really well done we had a great meeting last week a community meeting at hillsborough to discuss the future of the stokes property on belmont boulevard we are accepting creative ideas and input feel free to email me if you have thoughts hillsboro had a great burro bash we can before last in

122the garage thankful for the parking garage where it's outside but it's not outside so you can do all kinds of things and be sure to be here next board meeting at 4 30 to watch our students get sworn in by judge callaway and to be sitting up here with us thank you thank you dr gentry i just want to um share the upcoming community uh meeting dates to talk about building utilization uh similar to what miss poopoo miss yeah poopa walker what's your name right okay just mentioned uh we have buena vista on the 26th which i believe is a thursday uh at six o'clock and it's going to be uh the meeting is going to take place at jones to discuss utilization of buena vista uh obrich church will be on september the 9th

123that location is to be determined as well as robert e lillard on september 16th on that location to be determined as well i have gotten outreach from a couple of organizations within the community that are interested in using some of these buildings to establish some programs that will benefit the community some pretty really interesting proposals i've encouraged them to put a few slides together and to contact mr prophet to talk about an opportunity to share their thoughts on at the time of those community meetings and i would also ask you all to be in prayer not only as has been mentioned for the families in humphreys county but for the family of rip patton who's a freedom rider who passed away as well dr gentry can you restate the date of that planet vista jones

124meeting is that this thursday it's thursday the 26th at six o'clock at jones all right well thank you for that all right um first i want to echo mrs tyler's sentiments around the about pencil and making sure that we sign up to support our schools i would like to challenge my colleagues if you have not already maybe consider signing up to be a tutor just donate your time telling a treasure in some way if you have capacity so just go to pencilforschools.org sign up it literally takes about a minute i also want to thank the pencil foundation for the breakfast that they hosted and all the different ways that they support our schools please continue to support them as they support us with that there's also a book and breakfast coming up in october if

125you're not familiar with book em they do a lot of support uh offer a lot of support around our community by donating books to students to teachers to families so please be aware of that um i would like to say on a somber note that we have lost at least two colleagues across the state and now at least one other high school student to covet in schools so we had that 16 year old in memphis that passed yesterday i think we're going to be saying this a lot our hearts go out to our colleagues and they will continue to until we have our our minds and hearts wrapped around this this pandemic but our hearts go out to his family then we had that 31 year old teacher and a parapro who both caught it

126in an elementary school so um mascot be careful wash your hands the pearl cone high school partner meeting that was scheduled for this saturday or the in-person meeting has been rescheduled information will be forthcoming and i'll be sure to share that out on the board floor and mr little thank you for elevating your concerns around minority contracting we're going to get you signed up for that new board member orientation and then i would i cannot wait to kind of follow your lead in making sure that we develop policies that we review our policies around minority contracting with that be the no further business this meeting is adjourned this has been a service of the metro nashville network if you would like to see this presentation again or for more information about this and other programs

127visit nashville.gov