04/13/21 MNPS Board of Education

001good evening everyone and welcome to this uh first board meeting of the month for april 2021. before we begin even with a call to even with establishing a quorum it's been a rough couple of days i mean it's been a rough year for sure but it has been a rough few days to be a parent to be african-american to be disenfranchised to lose some it's just been rough so if you all don't mind whatever it is you would like to do during the moment of silence please do so now thank you so much so we have established a quorum we are in full attendance we will begin our day by with a public participation period where the community can come and speak to us for three minutes uh once your name is listed or your

002name is excuse me i'm so sorry let's back that up we are excited to get to public participation but we do have a couple of visitors and one of them will lead us in the pledge of allegiance we have our parent advisory council otherwise known as our pac we have those uh city-wide representatives here we have the chair mrs bb heinz vice chair mr kevin walker and acting secretary ms don johnson but i think vice chair walker will be leading us in the pledge please stand i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] now we will move on to our public participation where members of the community can come for three

003minutes and speak before us at the end of those three minutes you'll hear a ding if you see your name listed we will call it out also we'll begin with miss katherine hines heinz okay hi my name is elizabeth hines and i live at 4856 lynn drive right by the zoo the purpose of the parent advisory council pac is to provide opportunities for effective involvement of all parents in metro nashville schools promote healthy communication support partnerships with and among school stakeholders so how we will how will we do this we need support we're looking for parents and principal partnerships want to set a stage where mnps will come and listen to the parents and the pac leaders will create a way to get feedback from parents through meetings surveys and just conversations we're all learning

004the team members we're made of myself the chair vice chair kevin walker i'm our acting secretary and one of our cluster pack leaders don johnson a couple of our cluster pack leaders were not here today there are working i've got erica lanier darius chamber and anne-marie farmer we have lots of school pack reps so that's a rep from each school and we're still building that list we've got mmps school board member liaison miss emily masters and as of today officially miss marianna merritt is our mmps coordinator she's with the family engagement she's an mnps employee we're connecting with our city council members trying to convince one to be one of our liaisons and a few local community partners so that's what we're doing we do not have a budget we don't have a grant we

005don't have a penny it's just parents and our email address is mmps pack gmail.com i manage that email account i check it every day my office hours monday one to three wednesday mornings thursday evenings and saturday afternoons i want to make sure i'm available for all of our parents so that whenever they're available i'm available for them upcoming events in the rest of april we have our pac leadership meeting on april 20th we've been invited to attend district 4 committee meeting by mr john little on april 24th and then there is a committee achieves 18 meeting that we've been invited to myself and kevin on on april 30th so who am i i'm glad to be here thank you again i'm elizabeth hines i'm chair of the pac my term began february 2021 and it's

006going to end may 2020 may 2022 i have a lot of work to do i want to get as many parents involved as possible and i'm hoping that will help us i'm hoping the school board will help us and i look forward to hearing from everybody thank you thank you do y'all have the bill uh can you text him all right next we have lindsey like leak fleek my apologies it's all good all right hi my name is lindsey week i'm at 866 beth drive and i'm coming so first thank you for listening to us and i want to come talk to you today because currently the tennessee state legislature is considering several bills that are detrimental to the success and well-being of our students and staff as educators we have a duty to provide

007our students with the skills and knowledge they need to navigate the world this includes recognizing and supporting the lgbtq community while there are people in our district our legislator legislature and across the state that disapprove of lgbtq people our district has decided many times to support lgbtq students so now is a time when we as a district need to take a stand for our students as professionals we know that supporting students identities is essential for social and academic success it's why mnps recognize international pronouns today it's why we've invested in restorative justice programs and positions it's why schools across our district have been building gender sexuality alliance programs and it's why educators like me can feel safe to speak with all of you about this dangerous legislation we need you to tell the state that

008we don't want them controlling our classrooms we don't want them denying our students access to inclusive materials lgbtq students deserve to see themselves mirrored in the curriculum all of our students deserve to have a full curriculum that is honest about our history and includes diverse perspectives about our present schools that teach about lgbtq history see lgbtq students with higher self-esteem and sense of belonging and cis straight students who are more empathetic and more likely to stand up for their peers that's the learning environment we should be building and we need you as our board to tell the state that we won't accept these anti-lgbtq policies thank you thank you uh honey elle honey harris everybody it's good to be back in this building good to see everybody i am honey harris and i want to

009say i live in the best district in the world and i am a product of hickory and tulip grove faculty and staff and students yes this is my baby tulip grove right here y'all hello members of the board my name is honey harris and i have worked for mnps for over 20 years actually i'm going on 25. first i want to thank you for including the step raises and the maintenance portion of the effort budget every year that i've worked for the board i have not been paid the same number of days and been on payroll as the teachers missing those days result in an annual salary that does not reflect my worth nor the cost of living in davidson county those skipped days also create pay periods where i as a support employee have

010received a check as low as 200 for a two-week time frame but when i first started 20-plus years ago i had a check that was so small i wrestled with putting the dollar amount on here because it wasn't a dollar that it wasn't even worth printing the check and that's what i said to our bookkeeper but that was a time before r12 that time did exist funding these seven days would mean the world to me and my family funding these days will allow me to pay all of my bills in a timely manner purchase healthy nutritious and balanced meals as well as purchase school clothes for my son to begin the school year like his peers he is at a critical age he's about to start middle school where social emotional experiences and attending school

011daily is highly important during covit we have seen just how important it is to have paid family leave when our loved ones get sick we should not have to choose between taking care of our family and being able to pay the rent the best example i can give you is i teach special ed and when school started back for us he's in fourth grade there was a five-day window when i was supposed to report back and when he was supposed to report back that was five days that i had to take without pay and i had sick time but if we had paid family leave i wouldn't have to make that choice metro government employees have had paid leave since 2017 and this is the benefit everyone should have i work hard every day and

012have dedicated a lifetime of education to our most vulnerable students i am not asking you for anything that i'm not willing to work for i'm asking you my employer to show you show me the same dedication loyalty and respect and investment that i have given our students over the last 20 plus years please do not forget that a majority of your employees have children typically that are enrolled in mnps the impact of not paying your employees directly affects the significant number of mmps students keep our mission in mind when you make these funding decisions thank you thank you fabiola camargo don johnson yes ma'am thank you my name is dawn johnson i reside at 303 timberdale court i am the mother of a fourth grader at creve hall elementary school and i'm an i am

013the overton cluster parent advisory council chairperson and the acting secretary for the pac uh the overton cluster straddles districts two and seven and i want to thank board representatives frida player peters and rachel and elrod three names um for participating in our cluster meetings regularly and i also want to really thank emily masters because she is welcome to the pack and and been there to support us we've had a couple of meetings with her so far and she invited our attendants regularly which means a lot as a parent and we appreciate the support from the board i volunteered to be the overton cluster pack chair after meeting abby trotter who was vested in bringing back the district pac and with a small group of people had maintained the overton cluster pack my concerns when i

014talked to abby were that families on my street were leaving once their children reached school age to head to williamson county additionally we have multiple families that have chosen to put their kids in private school when i look at my current neighbors that have kids that are in the school district we have students to go to four different elementary schools i love the school of choice because it's a great option some of our parents can actually take their kids to a school that's close to their work and then they can also choose a place that's good for their child but i wanted to know why people weren't putting kids in our local school and so i talked to them and what i found out was that they were complaining about the test scores from the

015websites that you see such as great schools they were looking at the school ratings and they were talking about safety parents were actually i mean i thought i was messing up this i only have one child i better do it right the first time so they were like putting their kids in elementary school in kindergarten they were like why are you sending that kid to middle school i'm like what i barely got here so they were looking outward to see where are they going to put their kids so that they could get into the right high school all right yeah she was five so and then if they didn't get into the right middle school they were looking to see what it was going to cost them to put their kids in private school at

016high school and so i was looking you know but why are these what's wrong with these schools because in 2019 when i was having this conversation overton had 9.8 million dollars of scholarships they had students going to 67 different colleges and three of those were ivy league i couldn't see what was wrong so correct or not though perception is reality and there is perception that mmps schools aren't great i want to make sure that the work that we're doing is portraying a reality that is accurate your group you have a group of parents with the pac that can be a great opportunity to share information and be champions for the district we are here thank you parents are the largest group of people that you can have on your side and i continue to welcome

017the opportunity to work with our parents you guys as the district as a pac leader and continue to open the lines of communication and thank you all thank you lisa kimbrough hi hi lisa kembrow 103 wellington park court i am a native nashvillian and a mother to a first grader and upcoming twin kindergartners out of respect for our school and the support team that works with my son i would prefer to not disclose our elementary school one of my twins is a transgender female she started presenting signs of not conforming to her assigned male gender at birth when she was two and a half things progressed and she socially transitioned to female in the spring of 2020. we've always accepted her as she is and we're proud of her courage to live the life she

018was meant to live she loves to dance and sing and think she is the greatest at all activities even if she hasn't she does not lack one ounce of self-confidence my greatest wish for her is for this to never change when planning for kindergarten my husband and i met with the principal in january of 2020 to discuss what the school had in place to support our daughter then still our gender non-conforming son while the principal explains that title ix would protect her he did not offer any specific policies the school has in place or would consider putting in place to support her he explained there had not been a known transgender student at this school during his tenure and that a few years back there was one student but they ended up leaving this coupled

019with the fact that when i reached out to the school counselor in september of 2020 she put off meeting with me until the summer before school would start for her kindergarten this did not make me feel like there would be a concerted effort around a comfortable environment for my daughter our elementary school is award-winning and a fabulous learning environment for the majority of children but it should be supportive of the social and emotional needs of all children zoned to attend i want to note that my first grader has adhd and is currently being tested for the autism spectrum i discovered this with private testing and when the school learned of this they immediately set up an intervention meeting and we felt supported this demonstrated that the school is capable of meeting every child where they

020are if the need falls into an area they are comfortable with i had hoped my twins could join my son at this school as one of the reasons we moved to our home was for that school alone but as my daughter transitioned it became clear that was not an option we have unfortunately not enrolled her in nnps kindergarten i now have some questions for you do mnps school-based staff receive training on how best to support transgender students outside of the basics of title ix even at the elementary level when you register your child for school you provide a birth certificate is there a process for communicating to the school prior to the beginning of the school year that the student has a gender expression different than what their birth certificate says you must make it

021widely known that lgbtqa plus students are welcome at all levels of maps student schools elementary schools cannot look past this demographic many trans children transgender children are aware of their difference between two and five years old so by the time they enter kindergarten and throughout those elementary years they should feel supported and who they want to be and able to focus on learning in school it is imperative in urgent need that you develop a strategy to include these children in the every child known overarching goal i do not feel like my student is known thank you amanda kale greetings dr battle ladies and gentlemen of the board my name is amanda kale and i'm the president of mnea as well as an mnps teacher i'm here today to commend you for creating a budget that

022does right by its employees specifically i could not be happier that step raises have that step increases have been placed in the continuity of operations budget because this sends a very clear message that honoring teachers years of experience is as is as important to calculation as the utility bills it says that if we want every student known then we are willing to honor the experience and commitment of the professionals neces professionals necessary to make that possible in the past several years that my fellow educators and our allies have been fighting for a fully funded school system we have often had to explain why funding step raises is so important we have repeated it again and again since the district abandoned the practices of annual step raises over a decade ago that many educators have found

023their wages frozen resulting in a net loss of lifetime earnings and shrinking retirements many students have repeatedly endured interrupted schooling for a semester or more by being taught by a substitute or being reshuffled into an overcrowded classroom because they were just there were hundreds of vacancies that couldn't be filled the cost of keeping wages low has been expensive in more ways than one we also know that no one sitting in here controls the purse strings teachers are well aware of our fund that our funding comes primarily from the metro government in the state we know just because you asked doesn't mean you will receive but we really won't receive if you don't ask so it truly truly feels like a new day dawning and i want to give a heartfelt thank you to this board

024to dr barnes and dr battle for making employee compensation a number one goal for funding in this current budget for putting stuff raises where they belong in a non-negotiable category of continuity of operations we can't change the past but we can invest in the future if we want the best and the brightest teaching our students then we need to create a career path that the best and brightest will choose and that means ensuring those step raises are guaranteed so thank you thank you for not making us explain once again why step phrases should never be optional thank you for listening and most importantly thank you for acting thank you see arthur leland evans leland evans 558 cedar drive good afternoon metro national public school board of education mnps teachers faculty and staff and metro nashville

025public school community my name is leland evans and i'm a proud product parent and partner with mnps however i stand before you today to voice my concerns about the need to make civic and political education a priority in public schools based on the tennessee report card for mnps there are 85 569 students enrolled in public schools 40 percent are african-american 28 percent are hispanic 68 percent of our public schools identify as students of color while this is not about race this is about representation and decision making now while the school board is a diverse group that reflects our public schools we see that our funding comes from metro city council and they are not in fact the inverse is true 27 percent of metro council identify as people of color to be more specific nine

026african americans one african immigrant and one hispanic it is time that we start teaching our children how this system works so that they can be adequately equipped to run for offices and bring change to their communities we can teach them math but if we don't teach them about taxes it still won't add up we can teach them science but if we don't teach them their civic duties life will just be an experiment we can teach them how to read and write but if we don't teach them about legislation they will continue to be illiterate to the system that controls everything around them i will finish with this my senior year i had one semester of government class and at the end of that semester we took a field trip but we didn't go downtown we

027didn't go meet our elected officials we didn't go see the state capitol we didn't go see city council we took a field trip to the maximum security prison as an adult i reflect back on that and it makes me believe that the people making decisions already know where they believe public school students are headed i ask you today to make sure that you make civic and political education a priority in our public schools thank you thank you sabine good evening uh chair board members and dr battle my name is sabina moyudin and i live on 81 ravenwood hills circle in nashville i serve on noaa's or the nashville organized for action in hopes education task force and i am also the executive director of the american muslim advisory council i would like to thank the

028many board members who have met with noaa members sharing time interests and information noaa's primary concern this year which is a mutual concern of mnps is that we need mental health and social emotional supports for kids and youth after this difficult and disruptive year noah believes that is critical to support kids and reduce racial disparities in discipline because although we know we don't know everything we do know that even though suspensions are down racial disparities still exist while about 44 of elementary school population is little black boys and girls those same babies account for disproportionate amount of suspensions and expulsions we also know that multiple studies prove that children who are suspended and expelled from school are much more likely to end up in prison thus noah is asking for funding for advocacy centers with

029the specialists in every elementary school we are asking for funding for restorative practice assistance in every middle and high school and last we are asking for funding for professional development in tier one training for all staff in this budget you have asked for what mnps needs for our students including the necessary sel resources to support our principals and teachers and most importantly to help keep all of our young people in school and learning how to manage their behavior and become the best young person that they can be if the budget is not fully funded by the mayor and the city council we want you to prioritize the social emotional well-being initiatives we do not we want you to not allow social emotional programs to be cut again even if you don't get the funding from

030the city thank you thank you may christensen good evening my name is may christensen i live at 604 highland view drive and hermitage i'm here tonight to ask for your support the anti-lgbtq bills being pushed through the tennessee general assembly will result in harm for youth in mnps and our school board is one of the last lines of defense between our precious students and state-sanctioned erasure i know teachers will continue to be brave for our students and do everything we can to protect them but i ask that you use your power to affirm us as we fight to affirm and protect our students as my colleagues have and will stay eloquently tonight this slate of bills will result in alienation and despair for this already vulnerable group of students in a myriad of ways i

031could use my testimony to describe each bill and how exactly it will lead to harm for my students however i think it will be useful to frame this issue in its larger social context as a sociology teacher i tell my students from day one that our job is not to decide what is right or wrong with our society and culture we consider how the interaction of diverse groups of people contribute to the diversity of beliefs and behaviors in our larger culture we do not debate the existence of groups of people or their right to exist because they exist whether or not we believe that they do what our representatives in the tennessee general assembly are doing this month is attempting to debate the right of a group of people to exist they are using arguments

032about what is right or wrong to criminalize lgbtq students and art and bar teachers from affirming those identities they are creating policies restricting the freedoms of youth in our state to be themselves citing that families should have the right to insist that their heterosexual and cisgender children should feel comfortable in the school environment ostensibly by never interacting with beliefs or people that are at odds with their own the problem with this line of thinking is that the truth about our society does not change based on what we think is right or wrong believing something shouldn't exist in the way that it does has absolutely no effect on whether it actually exists in our society our level of comfort has nothing to do with whether something is true and regardless we should not be prioritizing one

033student's comfort over another student's very existence the truth remains the truth regardless of our beliefs trans people and our students in mnps are the truth they exist they have existed since history began and they will continue to exist whether or not these laws go into effect that means that our choice be isn't whether we agree that it's okay or right to be lgbtq our choice is whether or not we're going to stand by as our state representatives seek to deny the truth the passage of these bills will have no effect on whether or not these wonderful students exist it will however have an enormous impact on the extent to which these students feel supported in our schools and in our larger society in short it will be the difference in whether a student themselves believe

034they have the right to exist i hope i can count on you to support the right of every student in mnps to exist in our communities as their full selves their lives literally depend on it thank you thank you casey norton hello my name is cassie norton i live on airwood drive in 37214 and i'm coming before you tonight because i'm worried on behalf of lgbtq students and teachers in our district there are a host of anti-lgbtq bills coming down from our state legislature this year these bills should they pass will directly cause emotional psychological and even physical harm to our lgbtq students and teachers hb 50 1535 sb 659 will stop us from using any supplemental materials unless the state board approves of them and that body is not made up of educators and

035has proven through past policies not to have the best interests of marginalized students as its priority hb 800 ssb 1216 will go a step further and ban any textbooks or instructional materials that approve promote support or even address lgbtq issues and lifestyles as a history teacher i am especially horrified by the combination of these bills our students deserve to hear the true history of our country from the trans soldiers who fought in our civil war to the fact that baird rustin planner of the famous march on washington was an openly gay man and to the relationship between lgbtq rights movements and other liberation movements lgbtq students deserve to see themselves in the history we learn and in the stories we read and hear it's incredibly important to student well-being and self-esteem to hear and see

036stories of people like yourself there are also studies that show benefits for cis straight students who are more empathetic and likely to stand up against bullying when they are taught lgbtq history and stories and this leads me to hb 529 sb 1229 which would allow parents to act their students out of any materials related to gender or sexuality this would lead to further stigmatizing those identities and experiences which just causes more fear and misunderstanding and unfounded hatred and finally hb 1233 sb 1367 would forbid us from making accommodations to keep our trans students safe this will directly put trans students in harm's way and expose them to further bullying or violence in addition to affecting their mental health inclusive curriculum and safe classrooms are important for all of our students but i'm especially afraid of

037the effect this will have on our vulnerable lgbtq students and teachers can teachers like me and my lgbtq co-workers and friends be targeted by homophobic parents if these laws pass can our students be targeted for even more bullying and marginalization we have a duty to stand up for our students our district has done a lot to support lgbtq students from adopting culturally responsive pedagogy in many classrooms to better understanding the fa the fact that our lgbtq students face higher rates of bullying harassment and depression to creating so many amazing gender sexuality alliance clubs across the district what i'm here asking is this what will our district do to keep protecting lgbtq students and teachers if the state legislature continues these attacks what will our district do to stand up for gay and trans kids who

038need us thank you for your time thank you laura leonard hi good evening i'm laura leonard i live at 142 brenda lane antioch tennessee and i'm here to thank you for what you have done so far with the budget in terms of correcting teacher salaries i'm thrilled about it i cannot wait to go back and tell my colleagues all about it because they ask me every day are we getting raised are we getting a raise are we getting a raise so now i finally have some good news to tell them but i'm also here to let you know what i think you already know that the work is not yet done we really do need to work on fixing the salary scale and raising salaries so that we can be comfortable living in nashville where

039we work so i look forward to working with you to fix the salary scale and to raise salaries and again thank you thank you thank you thank you janet smith good evening dr battle and board my name is janet smith and i am a current teacher in metro i come tonight to speak on the topic of funding teacher pay i fully admit that i come for selfish reasons in the past the board has focused on boosting the pay of early and mid-career teachers that have but failed i feel have forgotten those of us the later career teachers who have supported the district and served it students in the budget years of finn and thinner as a teacher gains experience and their value to the district increases so should their compensation i understand there may be

040a need to top out steps but that should not mean that experienced teachers do not deserve or need periodic adjustments i ask is it as you consider funding step increases for early to mid-year teachers did you not forget those experienced teachers who have talked out they are equally deserving of the same consideration for increased compensation and i thank you for your consideration and support of longevity pay thank you kellyanne graff or zoe butler beck i'm kellyanne hi i'm kellyanne graff i live on glen rose circle in 37210 and i'm an ela teacher in antioch so i'm here asking you to stand against hb 800. which would let me get my language up i'm sure you've heard it a hundred times tonight now my phone's not working but um which would potentially criminalize instructional materials or

041supplemental instructional materials that promote normalize support or address lesbian gay bisexual or transgender issues or lifestyles i'm concerned about this bill because i'm concerned that how i identify who i am as a person and who i am married to saying that in a classroom could be considered promoting or normalizing a lifestyle it could be considered instructional material if a student has never heard a term before this happens constantly in my classroom i've had students say the f word as an insult to another student and i have to pull them out of class and they're like that's not a curse word i'm like do you know what it means that's an instructional moment where i'm teaching the history of this word and how harmful this is and how harmful it is to me as their teacher

042to hear it not only for their other students their co their peers to hear this as well i'm worried because anti-lgbt lgbtq plus bullying is very prevalent in our schools for straight and non-straight students where gay and the f word are slinged as insults against students indiscriminately i'm worried that we as teachers will not have the resources or the support to stand up against this this hurts all of our students but it doubly hurts our lgbtq students because not only are they attacked but they also hear their identity used against others and leveraged to harm others so also as an ela teacher i see that this bill will erase writers and texts many of which are already in our curriculum in our scope and sequence so like edward albee james baldwin audra lord dorothy ellison

043w h auden elizabeth bishop mary oliver case and calendar a quick and messy county colon classics as well as some of the most vigorous and engaging texts being written today we would not be able to teach them or at least not teach them in the fullest way in our classroom if this bill passes in order to avoid quote promoting normalizing or supporting or even addressing non-heterosexual identities in the classroom to address them in any way the only option we have with this language is to address it in a negative way so either we have a full erasure or negativity and i'm worried that that is more biased and more harmful for our students than normalizing and addressing it as neutral thank you thank you and zoe butler hi i'm zoe butler i live in 37206

044and i'm a ninth grade math teacher at mcgavig high school i'm here today to also talk about the anti-trans bills in the house and specifically hb1535 which talks about um no supplementary materials unless the board of ed has already agreed upon it hb 800 which is no discussion of lgbtq plus lifestyles hb529 uh that parents or guardians have to review materials or be notified about materials if they pertain to lgbtq uh plus lifestyles and also hb1233 about shared spaces and whether or not transphobic students would have rights to not share spaces with trans students etc so i think my main points are to give you my recommendations for how you as a school board can move forward and work with the city and also just to reiterate your duty as legislators to help and protect

045our trans students so i wanted to remind you of the 2020 supreme court case bostock versus clayton county georgia that applied to employees and whether or not they could be fired for being lgbtq plus but the majority opinion also outlines that gender identity um is equivalent to gender in the eyes of the law so therefore uh any laws that discriminate on the basis of gender are also discriminating if it's also discriminating on the basis of gender identity which violates the 14th amendment the equal protection clause title vii and title ix i also wanted to remind you as i'm sure many of you know that anti-trans ideology comes from certain interpretations of religious texts and that it's your duty as legislators to do everything you can to uphold the division between church and state so my

046recommendations for you are to work with the um the city government to try to block this bill from becoming a law and leveraging your power as community influencers to rally public support and also to codify the that harassment and bullying against lgbtq against gender against gender identity i know that in the bullying harassment documents and memos you've outlined gender and sexual orientation but i wanted to reiterate that gender identity should also be codified as something that is we cannot discriminate against and also to urge schools to um create curricula that involve lgbtq evidence-based um in biology and social studies um thank you thank you and i believe that concludes our period of public participation but before we move on i would like to wish our muslim neighbors a happy ramadan uh please remember to be

047as gracious with your neighbors as possible um if you're not as knowledgeable about ramadan feel free to google it so with that we'll move on to the consent agenda are there any amendments before we move on all right do i have a motion to pass remove approval of the consent agenda as presented second second all right uh mr peters ii dr gentry has uh motioned all in favor and that's unanimous all right we will have some uh oh i'm sorry a resolution regarding the fiscal year budget i believe mrs player peters will lead us through that but we'll also have a quick committee update after or during reports all right go ahead uh let's play your peters okay um i would like to make a motion to approve the regula the red hold up i'm

048double mass here i can make a motion to approve the resolution uh regarding the fiscal year 2021 2022 budget for the metropolitan schools oh that second it was it passed through committee it was unanimous vote during the budget committee um i would just like personally like to thank dr battle and mr chris henson for their work in presenting the focus investment and priorities for the school as we heard man the teachers speak that employee conversation was our number one priority we discussed this at the board agenda and proved our budget priorities back in january and dr badar's staff were able to focus and relate these to the core values and the core tenants and really put to show where our values and where we like to put our resources i will read the resolution just

049for the record whereas the director of schools is charged in creating a budget for effective and efficient operations of schools and whereas the budget is aligned the priorities articulated by the board of education whereas the proposed budget is presented to the mayor for consideration inclusion of the overall budget of metropolitan nashville davidson county and whereas the council considers the budget proposed by the mayor and appropriates resources to fund the metropolitan national public schools and whereas the board of education annually approves a budget of the operations of schools therefore let it be resolved that metropolitan nashville board of education supports and accepts the 2021-2022 focused investments presented by director of schools and the recommendation of the budget priorities for the 2022 fiscal year furthermore that the metropolitan nashville board of education recognized the crucial need to

050fully fund the continuity of service and to maintain the same level of education for services to our students as the baseline budget for the current year all right he said it's ready for a vote all right um we don't need doctor to be all right all in favor please raise your hand all right it passes unanimously this budget document is on the website uh feel free to follow along on our journey as we go to kind of uh advocate to the city advocate to the mayor for as much funding as possible with that we'll move on to director's report and again we'll have committee updates from the board retreat if you uh had a committee meeting please just receptive and just go on and i'm so sorry so i i always forget that our budget

051is broken up into different smaller budgets so we have a nutrition and foods budget we also have a federal programs and grant budget uh please take it away mrs player peters all right so i make a motion to approve fiscal year 2021 22 nutritional funds budget with the total expenditure of 47 million dot 47 million 436 000 uh dollars i make a motion to approve second all in favor did you have anything mrs tyler uh unanimous all right we'll move on to the recommended approval of federal programs and grants fund budget okay and i make a motion to approve fiscal year 2021 2022 strategic investments federal programs and grants fund for um a total uh projected amount of 323 million one hundred and thirty three thousand four hundred and forty four dollars a second all

052right all in favor is yet again unanimous now we will move on to reports dr battle and then committee chairs from the board retreat all right good evening board members i want to say that i appreciated the great discussion we had last friday at our board retreat and i look forward to continuing our collective work to reach our north star of making mnps the premier large school district in tennessee and beyond as we move to the next slide i just wanted to highlight briefly that our risk will remain steady at about 4.5 out of 10. covet 19 is still spreading in our community but it has remained at a relatively flat pace which is evidenced by the transmission rate at about 1. in our schools we've seen an increase this week in the number of

053students being quarantined now keep in mind these are these are for all schools for comparison back in november when it was just elementary and special day schools we had 214 staff quarantine or isolated in a week and 770 students quarantined or isolated so the numbers are relatively stable compared to last year and we've seen a significant decrease in staff testing positive and having to be quarantined thanks in part to the vaccine being available to everyone we still encourage all staff to get the vaccine available through our partnership at vanderbilt or one of our many other community locations some of our students are now able to receive the vaccine in davidson county as well and we're working on plans and around options to have an mps student-specific vaccination roll out soon there have been some challenges

054in getting staff into schools due to delays in the background check process but we have been continuing to sign families up and increase testing at schools in order to ensure a safer learning and work working environment we've had about 9 400 students and staff sign consent forms so far with testing conducted at schools with nearly 2 500 tests performed between march 22nd and april 9th maher is going to be ramping up testing at our schools as we move into the final stretch of the school year as we've seen some coven 19 surges in other parts of the country anecdotally i'll say that at one school we had several cases reported of staff or students who had tested positive through outside testing because of our partnership with meharry we were able to rapidly deploy them to

055the school to perform rapid testing so that we could see that there wasn't a cluster at risk of shutting down the school and we could minimize the impact on student learning knock on wood but i'm proud that because of the decisions we've made in safety and contact tracing we have been able to avoid some of the disruptive school closures that other districts have experienced for those who haven't signed up yet to participate in the testing program you can go to backsafely.org to register i also want to remind families that registration for our promising scholars summer program our summer learning experience is now open through may 5th so far 6 336 students were signed up as of yesterday and 2 250 staff had applied for positions within the schools again we anticipate being able to serve

056all mnps students who are interested in participating this summer and providing enriching learning experiences for all students to continue their learning progress i do want to point out that while the 40 000 number has been thrown around because the district is required by state law to offer at least this many kids opportunity if we have this level of participation and more than 6 300 students it would still be the largest we've ever seen for a summer learning program in mnps we will continue to push out the word about this and urge all families to consider this option to give students the chance to continue engaging and learning in the face-to-face learning environment after a very unique year due to the pandemic now at this time i would like to welcome up ashford hughes our executive

057officer of diversity equity and inclusion he is going to be discussing the important work being done to develop our equity roadmap to put in place a necessary framework to ensure that we are providing an equitable education and creating an equitable workplace for all students and all staff that we serve so at this time i will turn it over to esther hughes thank you dr battle good evening board chair good evening board members i am really excited to be here with you this evening to discuss a topic that is really important to this district it really excites me to do this work is we're all talking about equity equity and what it looks like i really want to level set to make certain that we know that this is just the starting point we have a

058long way to go and equity is ever-changing as we look at the concepts the needs the concerns of our students so this is just the starting point and an update to where we are now in my first months here working with this great team but hopefully setting a vision for where we can be i really want to start off and assess what i bring into this work because it's really important that you know that i come into this work as a father of two young boys one is in the second grade in an mmps school as a mentor of young men for over 10 years as an uncle as a practitioner in this equity work before it was called equity work and doing the work in the business of the community but also as a

059member of a community that is also saw hardship i'm from knoxville and we saw what happened in austin east i live within five minutes driving of austin east i grew up with a lot of kids in that community so i know and have lived experience what equity inequities look like within our school system and without that is why this is important to me and within our community because it is a community project a community undergo undergird this is why we must get this right so what is our current state right now in metro nashville public schools for too many of our students the predictability of success or failure in public education has correlated with race class disability ethnicity and or zip code systematic inequities have led to the lack of opportunities to maximize a student's

060full academic and their full social potential whether it have been our tornadoes the recent floods other weather disasters within our city and covid19 the inequities across our community and within our school district have been amplified our parents our students are seeing all type of things taking place nationally that is affecting them socially that is affecting their families financially that has taken a toll on their mental health and we know that many of our students are asking for better they're asking for how they can be more connected not only with their peers but with the world around them these are some of the issues that we are facing in school many of you know these issues these are just to point out a few the disproportionality and discipline the disproportionality in students being prepared to read

061and master at grade level disproportionality along the lines of numeracy and kids being ready lower graduation rates by race ethnicity language and other barriers we can also talk about the access to advanced academic courses as well these are the issues that many of our students are facing but i always like to go to the then what are the solutions to the problems our solutions the mantra that i work with every day in our team on and in my team and this team behind me is that we fix injustice not fixed kids we know that right now our children are facing a lot of challenges but it's not up to us to always only work on the families that are at or below the margins in those children we need to fix the injustices that they

062come into school with our equity road map this equity framing will be foundational to establishing the new norms that we create coming out of covet 19. equity is far more than a state of being an abstract ideal rather it is an operational principle that enables educators to provide whatever level of support is needed to whichever student requires it i like to always quote this from paul gorsky an educator and founder of the equity literacy institute equity is neither optional nor negotiable this is who we are as a school district these are the values by which we will be held accountable our equity roadmap is a guide it is not a how-to manual it is a call to action to accelerate the equity work that is already taking place within this district and i will touch

063base on that a little bit later i also want to talk about this is not just ashford's equity road map this is a framing and a road map based on the science the social science based on the research current research past research but most importantly on the lyft experience for my teachers from our families and from our students i want to just provide a couple of the the institutions and the learnings that are helping me and my team and this team i work with on a day-to-day basis develop a strong sustainable equity roadmap we look at all in many of our neighboring school districts that are utilizing and implementing an equity role map we have many within the southern region but many of our states within the midwest that have been doing this equity journey

064work for much longer we look at institutions that many of you have talked about is where the harvard graduate school of public education the council of great city schools vanderbilt peabody college of education their human development and counseling initiative also the race research and justice initiative as well the national equity project and annie casey foundation but what excites me the most about the research the science that we're utilizing is the boots on the groundwork and speaking with teachers speaking with principals community members families and importantly students that is the work of the listening as we compile where we hope to be the vision around our equity journey our why vitally important our why it is our shared responsibility to ensure every student in every nashville neighborhood and community has access to a high quality education

065institution our why is that for 13 years we have students in our building and we create the individual that will go out and lead our community that is our why our what to achieve equitable outcomes we must institutionalize shared language tools and measures of accountability for supporting our students and communities this helps us get to that personalized learning experience where every student has what they need to be successful our how our equity roadmap as i said will be a continuous journey that we must impart upon with each other to create meaningful and impactful change this is where we adopt an equity lens the framing by which we see things differently we question things differently and we establish an equity framing by which we align our strategies to meet that central goal students every student known

066every student meeting the standard every student meeting success i go back to the slide focused on our core tenants our four core tenants these are the values these are our beliefs that we say are non-negotiable within our district these are the values and beliefs that we wake up every day and say we are going to meet this standard this expectation for our students this is what equity is about equity is embedded in all of these core tenants and all of the work that we do equity is not the initiative where you go and talk to ashford and ashford does this one thing it's embedded across departments it's embedded across within the busing it's embedded across everything that we do but equity is not waiting for ashford to complete this roadmap equity has been in place

067since i started in july equity was when we established an equity matrix for how we would distribute tablets and devices to students that had the most need equity is the virtual health centers that was constructed by dr springer because students and families our english learning language family said we need help and support equity was by the navigator program where dr battle stated every student will be known and we will find a way to connect with them on a one-to-one basis one of the most important elements to me where equity already began was in the literacy reimagine process to me literacy literally is the equity imperative of our day of our district i cannot say that enough as a person and i'm gonna personalize this in elementary school middle school in high school but most importantly

068my earlier years i had a massive stutter the the will to read teachers helping me learn to write and then take oratorical contests and the literacy helped me become not afraid to speak in front of audiences like you today but to help better myself and now champion literacy for kids moving forward the equity work is taking place now it is not waiting for ashford so let's look at our road map our road map is a lens an equity lens by which we see the work differently to become a more equitable school district we must adopt a new way of understanding the work of equity shifting from a historical lens that upholds structural inequities to an equity lens that creates just access and opportunities for all requires a theory of change for reimagining what our district

069could look like we have heard often about right now we are in the process of reimagining what our district is in several phases this is an important phase of looking through an equity lens by utilizing this lens we are able to now view the invisible structures policies and behaviors that sustain unequal outcomes and interpret the ways of working that serve implicitly or explicitly to perpetuate the opportunity gaps that we see across many of our school communities it's important to note the dimensions of what this equity lens looks like because this is how we think and act in service of our number one focus our students exploratory thinking also we call it liberatory thinking this is reimagining one's own assumptions and beliefs about others and their capabilities by interrupting internal beliefs that undermine productive relationships it's

070important in this equity work that we center the work we have to be centered in the work to make this happen everybody has to see what their role is in being successful in this inclusive partnerships inclusive partnerships bring together and engage diverse individuals from educational institutions community caregivers to collectively create solutions you will hear from here on out me talking about co-creation co-creation partnerships because that's what sustainability looks like resource equity resource equity means consistently prioritizing and allocating time money to align with the level of need from our students and our teachers fair policies and practices these are systems that promote equitable opportunities to reach equal positive academic and social emotional outcomes for our students this is the lens by which we look at how decisions are made by how we assess the positive or

071negative outcomes from decisions but this does take a shift in ideological and commitment to change our roadmap will be assessed by some guiding questions i wanted to share a few i just read two or three of them this grounds us in the work the team knows that i ask questions often and senior cabinet every meeting i'm in i'm a question asker not just to ask questions but i want to see how we're thinking am i thinking right am i asking the correct questions to get to the root cause of a situation so some of our guiding questions how can we increase transparency and engagement resulting in better sustainable outcomes and productive relationships what is currently taking place what are the inequities that we actually are trying to seek what gets measured gets done we're in

072our current system is there an opening for momentum or demand for action that will have a meaningful impact on student experience and learning outcomes you know those are questions we see right now as i've been at jerry baxter and at maplewood working with young kids mentoring there is a call to action for our young people need mentors our communities want to hear and see equity you heard from people today about our lgbtq members yearning for just access that is where we are these are the guiding questions so what is equity the one million dollar question everybody is talking equity equity showed up everywhere it's on every tv show now it was the buzz of the buzz of the buzzwords so what do we mean by equity i like to have this visual because there has

073to be a distinct difference known many times when we talk about equity people are talking about equality equality is about sameness equity is about justice and getting what you need to accomplish what you need to accomplish i want to give another visual that someone helped me see equality states that every student coming into mnps will get a pair of shoes equity states that every student coming into mnps will get a pair of shoes that fits their feet that meets their size equity is about individualizing the experience this is what we've worked with to date to identify and to collaborate on what educational equity looks like and what it means and i'mma read this from the screen because i think it's important that we look this over in equity educational equity makes certain that each student

074receives what they need when they need it to develop to their full academic and social potential regardless of their race gender sexual orientation disability ethnicity language religion family background or family income equity focuses on justice so let me be clear equity is about all students equity is about all students but there is an important element of equity that we cannot hide from again i fall back on the social science i fall back to the data i fall back to the lived experience and that's the element of racial equity racial equity ensures that every student will have just opportunities to reach their full potential and are no more likely to encounter life's burdens or benefits just based on the color of their skin it is important to note and let's be clear racial equity is not

075a zero-sum game when we address the needs of some to lift boats we are not doing it a detriment to others everybody all means all means all and that is what we're talking about equity is not a guarantee that all students will succeed rather it assures all students will have the opportunity and support to succeed a clear distinction that we need to keep mindful of the essence of education equity is that each of us must develop the necessary skills to treat the collective of diverse people around us with the same degree of hope aspiration and positive expectation that we afford ourselves so how do we achieve this equity i look at it across the lines of what does our personal equity look like professional equity institutional equity these are levers that we must push upon

076personal equity guides again that centering of how we show up how we uncover our own biases our own privileges and stereotypes and how that interacts with each other and how we interact with students professional equity how do we successfully implement practices that can help ensure individualized support for our students institutional equity this is where systematic change comes in explores how schools and school systems can overcome institutionalized factors that limit student achievement these are the levers when we think about what do we need to be pushing to get towards equity the framework i'm most excited about the framework this is where and you'll hear me say this often again you hear our team say this often where we move from theory and concept to day-to-day actions and what that looks like from our support hub to

077our departments on down to the day-to-day classroom culture practice and leadership that triangle in the middle of that triangle is where equity lives each of these three core tenants have to be focused upon they have to be worked on with the same sense of urgency if we're going to create the relationships the relevancy the expectation and the rigor to meet equity where it is right there in the center the success of equity depends on the school and the system's ability to create an effective framework that guides all decisions practices and policies accordingly a strong and sustainable framework organizes and ties all of our initiatives and strategies to the singular goal to our singular focus student supports and student success by applying a framework to equity a school addresses its context builds understanding of the students

078and creates powerful learning culture that guides an effective implementation of not just best practices but best outcomes so when we look at this triangular approach to the frame where we talk about culture these strategies are the strategies that build culture focus on learning culture of the school and on the cultural competency of this of its educators why does this matter we all know that culture starts to tone whenever you walk into a building a school building whenever you walk into our support hub you can tell what the culture is culture dictates the expectations culture is vitally important to creating the new norms that we want to take place practice practice are the strategies that focus on what teachers do every day in the classroom and how these things these things impact student achievement i go

079back to the initiative that i'm most excited about literacy what do those practices and strategies look like to help our students to be able to read if our practices and strategies aren't aligned if they aren't backed by the data and the research kids will be in our school buildings for 13 years just aimlessly being in our buildings but not fully participating in a learning environment leadership these are strategies that address district principle and teacher leadership needs the vision the direction the sustainable innovation and the driving accountability i i hear that word accountability all the time right so that's important but accountability is along the lines of a continuum that's what this framework helps we talk about making sure that we're clear with what we're asking is it in alignment with the goals and the direction

080of meeting those student needs do we have inspection and analyzation of what's going on do we continuously give feedback on both ends to better both people in the process and what about the coaching and support that is why all three of these must work together so as i look at culture and i look at this triangle i think what are the personal strategies that we will be aligning to make sure we build a great culture what are the professional strategies that we're building what are the institutional strategies that we're building to create this great culture we can go down the same with practice and leadership personal professional institutional what are those strategies to address these things these are based again on the science the data and the lived experience and i'm always keep going back

081to that so how do we get there i talk about a theory of action of change in action because we need both we need change but we also need action what do we believe is required to shift mnps from the current system that often maintains historic inequities across student groups to a system that creates opportunity by eliminating barriers and removes the predictability of academic success and social failure if we reimagine the system if we communicate transparently if we create a sense of belonging for our students and our educators if we develop inclusive culturally responsive leaders and if we face the reality of the challenges and the opportunities that we have then we establish a more cohesive and equitable education ecosystem in which every student feels a sense of belonging every student feels like they have

082a personal uh opportunity to be successful every student known these what i shared next is what i call our core domains of transformation these are the areas of focus that we say if we align our strategies around these five core areas of focus if we work day in and day out to personalize this work to get better to meet our students needs these are the five core areas that we'll see change and support from what you'll see on the slides coming up is that underneath our core domains are specific commitments and through those commitments we have strategies that align to get there i'll share just a few on the next slide but i want to call off our core domains culturally responsive teaching and learning school-wide systems and institutionalized structures family caregiver and community partnerships

083district policy practices and procedures support hub also central office commitment to racial education equity culturally responsive teaching and learning one of the commitments we have under there is to ensure that each school has a culturally responsive curriculum that embraces equity and classroom instruction i continue this is like my infomercial for dr bellamy the literacy process that we have is so vitally important in moving this forward again if a student does not is not able to read from the onset throughout his days the rest of the equity work is just out there we have to get the instruction and the reading right off the top school-wide system is institutionalized structures systematic use of a broad range of disaggregated quantitative and qualitative data to enhance equitable opportunity experience and success having the data is one thing if

084we don't use the data to move the way in which we act if we don't humanize the data to put the jimmy and john's behind the decibel points then we just have data that is there that you already have known for the past 10 15 20 years family caregiver and community partnerships families and school staff work in an authentic partnership to develop and advance a shared definition of student success this is another great initiative that i love working with dr springer's team on around how do we create and enhance family engagement that is what i consider one of my largest i consider the holy trinity families teachers and students working together to create the necessary change needed to create the space to be successful district policy practices and procedures policies and resource allocations that promote

085the development of school environments this also speaks to our vendor diversity and what does that look like as we talk about equity not just in the school building but how do we showcase equity in everything that we do in metro public schools our support hub commitment to racial education equity a clear ambitious vision and cohesive narrative for what achieving and institutionalized district-wide racial equity looks like again to be clear racial equity is not a zero-sum game all means all we rise boats for all kids so what are our our goals in this process we have an overarching goal to create the institutionalized conditions by which 100 of our students are engaged in personalized learning so they can meet their expectations and be graduation college and life ready by life ready i mean after 13 years

086of being in our buildings when they walk out of here they are fully able to articulate their needs fully able to articulate and be a part of our civic process fully able to engage and go out and get a living wage job to take care of themselves and their families that is what i mean by us being life ready also we have some supporting goals to get to the overarching goal narrow and eliminate opportunity gaps across what we already know is being measured and looking at what else do we need to measure qualitatively quantitatively to get to what we need and one of the most i just can't be more excited enough about this is i'm working with leaders on this as well to create and adopt a toolkit of guiding resources for district and

087classroom leaders to incorporate concepts and theories into day-to-day actions we're working right now to implement what does it look like to create a framework for student voice what does that look like across every school in every classroom from the district on down how do we create that family engagement toolkit all of these things are vitally important to support our educators to support our families and to support our students our outcomes when we do all of this right when we collectively meet each other on this journey we will look and find intellectual curiosity and strong academic skills many of our outcomes are going to affect both our students our educators and our families we look to identify an outcome of self-love self-acceptance self-determination and pride in one's multiple identities and an empathy for and meaningful connections

088with others vitally important as we talk about the social and emotional needs of students the social emotional needs of teachers and their families so what are our next steps again i talk about this is just the start of an ongoing process we never truly get to where we say we got it equity is over we're done we got the concrete strategies we don't have to do any more it's forever a revolving process but we begin now we've begun so the listening tour the first thing that i came in and started to work with my team on is how do we not dig into the work how do we listen how do we talk to those in the district to know what's going on to gather better insights in a in a partnership now with pencil

089and deloitte we'll be doing more of that over the next couple of months to really dig deep in here for more teachers more of our family members and more of our students about what does equity mean for you what does it look like how does it show up in the classroom for you how can we as a support hub be supportive to you meeting those needs communications plan this is probably the second thing the team knows i talk about all the time how are we communicating what we're trying to do where are we trying to communicate that across which platforms we will work to devise a plan so that everybody knows from the teachers the families early on in the co-creative process about what we're trying to do again our why our how our what

090and our how data and assessment scope we will continue to work with dr changus and his team to really develop what that looks like what that assessment of are these policies practices is this strategy actually working we don't have it right now where i can say definitively this is where we are this is what our data scope will look like you all know the the normal things that we measure but we are looking to make certain that we have that visible dr changus and his team are working on the data dashboard we will partner with that to make certain that we understand what we are measuring and seeking to measure as we address equity within our district and finally an implementation timeline we know that the implementation of any process is vitally important and equity

091is just as much about a process as it is about an outcome the implementation process is going to be key to make certain that we have everybody rolling in the same direction we all understand where we are in this journey together that will be something but the next time you see me here before you we will have that have worked that out collaboratively with different people across the district every student known every day whatever it takes every student known every day whatever it takes this is the energy this is the mantra that we have to bring every day around this equity work the pursuit of equity will always require the creativity dedication and persistence of those who take on this challenge it is a challenge it would not be easy we would go through bumps

092and bruises but as my grandmother would say baby nothing worth having nothing good worth having is going to come easy and this is the work that i know we're ready for this is an important journey to take based on our role in the human development of the young people of which we see every day for 13 years right but you ask yourself what is different about this right we talk about equity all the time what is fundamentally different what are we going to do that's different now i add or i offer a few things this is where we adopt the equity lens upon how we look at decisions across everything even board decisions we utilize the framing of uh that focuses on personal equity professional equity and institutionalized equity across that framework of culture practice

093and leadership and then the third thing we implement we implement we implement personalized learning experiences plus culturally relevant instruction plus implementation equals actual equity for our students vitally important so when i think about where we are in this equity journey as i close that we're in phases right now phase one is to adopt our equity mindset we're committing to understand that equity is a journey that requires collaborative commitments we're collaborating valuing and prioritizing inclusive communication we're framing fostering a culture that encourages self-reflection and new perspectives our phase two will be we will drive our equity plan in phase two where we nurture provide social and emotional sports supports to students and staff where we empathize where we implement culturally responsive teaching practices where we build by replacing institutional inequities with innovative supports and where we

094challenge where we challenge to ensure that all students are held to high expectations whether you're in a school of innovation or whether you're at a top magnet school where everybody is coming to visit you and you're getting national press we challenge everybody the same phase three we expand our equity vision we support deliver ongoing professional learning opportunities we listen continuously continuously soliciting feedback and then we persist we persist to drive positive change throughout this district through perseverance because our students demand it every student known every day whatever it takes thank you i'm just going to clap [Applause] all right so we'll open the floor board florida for any questions garden hey miss tyler um i have questions about both promising scholars and your fabulous presentation so for the promising scholars i saw that if you

095go to that summer.mnps.org that's where you can find the application if people have not applied yet and want to and it has the list of schools and the times on it where can we find the sites that have the child care available so that the parents will know which sites have child care available on it and which ones don't gary um randolph if you can come up to the podium please she's doing a lot of coordinating in the space go ahead there's a lot to do um yeah great question we just ran an rfp for those providers it just wrapped up this week so that information is forthcoming we're trying to get out as quickly as possible okay um if that information doesn't come out before the due date it will okay yeah i just

096want to make sure that it will it doesn't yeah that parents know what they're applying for and they know what support they'll have available it'll have an asterisk beside it says contracts will come before you okay i'll just share that okay all right thank you um and then i just um i just wanted to go to your thing i just loved the framework of culture and practice and leadership together i think that hits the nail on the head everything starts from the top and then you know what i think so sometimes we look at the superintendent and sometimes we look at the teachers and we forget the principle in the middle and i feel like that's the linchpin for creating that community within the individual schools and the support for the individual teachers and also

097providing the gap and the bridge between the superintendent and the individual schools and i just love that you guys are really focusing on that leadership position and that you're looking for pd for that and so i just wanted to um encourage you i thought that was wonderful and then also i i wanted to say you know as you work with dr changus who is has such amazing historical knowledge of mnps i mean he is just known statewide for the the great work that he does i just want us to make sure that we have listed out what exactly we're measuring and that we check to make sure that the tools we're using are actually measuring what it is that we want to measure because i think sometimes especially with our assessments that we've been seeing

098over this past year and and historically in some cases as well the the tests the assessments that are given statewide perhaps or or in other areas are not giving us the kind of useful available immediate knowledge that we need to actually support our students in real time so just want to encourage you to definitely look at that data but make sure that we're not just giving a test for a test sake but that it actually measures what we want it to measure and that we have clear parameters around what exactly we're looking for and how the test meets those needs to help us figure out how to make change and i think that dr changus is going to be really good for helping with that um and and i just want to keep pushing that

099to make sure that we don't pile more on our teachers and more on our administrators but that we give them what they need the tools that they need without overburdening them and i you know the data is extremely important and i'm glad that you recognize that we just need to make sure it's data that's useful absolutely other questions all right we'll go mr little miss bush mrs lupo walker um one wanted to say um i felt like i was in a sermon i haven't been to church since last february and the whole time if you have been to certain churches i wanted to run around the boardroom um the pastor had arrived but but just just incredible information and really as a new board member things that i wanted to see and hear that i

100felt from as i talked to parents and teachers and so please let me know where i can be a champion because again like the whole presentation i was just jumping for joy i had to run and get my pen because it was it was everything that i was thinking about you had already thought through and presented it in this presentation so i just wanted to say thank you thank you very much hello mr hughes how are you doing well in yourself um you and i work together in in the antioch community together i know your passion i know your drive and i definitely appreciate this presentation because i know you and i know exactly what you set out to do and when it comes to greatness so great presentation i want to talk about prison

101to pipeline as you know and i'm a huge testimony and of course i'm a true example of a boy mom i have five boys and black and brown boys and we understand and we know the challenges that our black and brown boys are faced with now even before covet and i'm sure dr changus i know he's probably thinking why is my name keep being mentioning um he can agree possibly because i've been through many of his presentations and talked about data and how our boys are basically on the bottom of the tug and pull so we need to figure out how we're going to get there and i just encourage you to do more of a fast track method just because we're such an um we're in a position that we we just can't wait

102um that much longer and i just want to get your feedback about that because i do understand that if our black and brown boys don't have the support that they need most fathers are not present incarcerated and they don't have that support that they truly need thankfully prayerfully that i've had that for my sons so they're headed down the right path because they have their father in their lives but we're trying to figure out i think i heard you say about community community partners and things like that so that we can kind of help bridge that gap but we do understand that literacy is one of the biggest problems we have with our boys and what happens with our boys when they don't when they don't know how to read or write they get in

103trouble they go to the streets they go to those gangs that they feel that they can you know they can be a part of and of course unfortunately incarceration and unfortunately sometimes we experience kids that are killed um so it's really important like i just said when we have fast track method measures need to happen quickly because if not we're going to continue to see these problems of course we have a lot of injustice going on going on right now with our black men so we need to try to figure out how to help mitigate these problems that we're having with literacy i keep going back to literacy because that's the problem when they feel like they're not a part of or they feel like they cannot do it then they find other what other

104means that they get into that's not going to help set them up for success so i just wanted to kind of hear from you about the presence of pipeline and how we can help be able to dive right in so that we can stop that type of process that's happening to our kids and i greatly thank you for the question the question is is great and right on time and i want to share a quick personal story before i answer that so why that particularly is important to me so again i talked about me being from knoxville living five minutes from austin east right so as i came to tennessee state uh you know my best friend was killed in knoxville five blocks from austin east high school from gun violence right i had another

105friend about a little bit later that summer get killed as well right so when you talk about lived experience i kind of know innately what that is right and i came to tennessee state university to be a business major wanted to make a lot of money but seeing that you know being experienced with that and a lot of other friends were going in and out of jail at that time many of which are just now getting out you know i wasn't always in a uh double-breasted suit with a tie on speaking before this illustrious body so i got in and changed my major to political science because i wanted to work to make certain that black men and young black women did not end up dead or in jail like my best friend someone i

106spent from the time i was 10 to 19 with every day at the house you know experiencing the joys the pains of growing up and what that meant to me that is why now as i say i've been mentoring young boys for 10 plus years in my various organizations because it means that much right now within mnps we've established you know working with uh seo department uh something called color of voice where we've been in several of our high schools speaking to young men of color and it's also hasn't been inclusive of our white students some of them young boys have participated as well but we know that when we go in there and engage them in a different way and we can connect with them at a different level they give us feedback they

107tell us what they need to be successful right now as it comes with literacy with our particular young black men as we address the school-to-prison pipeline it's going to take a community uh it's going to take a village it's going to take us partnering together that's why with the my brother's keeper network which i've worked with and support brother lionel matthews who is a friend of mine since tennessee state university we're working with the united way to put something together books brothers to have black men come and model reading to our young men but what you're talking about is something that's vitally important to me and that's why with the rights of passage program with quincy engle we are really working to make certain that we in every school find out ways that these students

108that need mentors how do we create the framework to get them what they need and not just us showing up but i show up because i have to showcase if i'm a talker i'ma be about it as well so we have to do the same thing with our community groups so we're engaging our faith community our black faith community we're engaging organizations like propel like noah to say we need you to come in and mentor work with these young boys right someone had to believe in me enough to say you need to get out of the way or that's going to be you so i have to impart it in others it is my job to work with this school district to bring people in that's why dr battle said ashford we need to be

109working with american baptist college in their seal program social justice equity uh advocacy and leadership initiative to really work with our young people you know i wanted to happen yesterday right but we are laying the groundwork now and that's why we started to jump in with these high schools where we saw the greatest need my hope my aim is that through this equity work we will have a mentorship program in every school that is addressing the needs of all these young men but we also have the community backing these young men in love and in support we have tennessee state university we have all these universities that are out there with men that can do this work this is the work um i want to say it's going to happen quick but we are putting

110in levers in place to do that and we are actively i'm actively working with the team to recruit individuals to say what do you all need as young people what are you not getting to be successful what can we do to put those levers in place we have a list i have a list of about 15 20 partners that have been mentors throughout this program over the past some have been reading partners but some are not but through the my brother's keeper network and that alliance with air trusts and that alliance we are really galvanizing people to say literacy literally again is on the cusp of having these students be in that school-to-prison pipeline students have told me hey you know i'm here to get my license i need help reading but never really got

111it we have to change that and we are here with this uh mentorship initiative to do that more strategies will come in the future but we are focused on that and that is important to me right that is important to something that i want to see that we achieve and working together to achieve that thank you ashford thank you esther that was an amazing presentation i want to echo my colleagues that that was really inspiring you clearly put a lot of work in and how many how many months have you been in the district now has it been a year already nine and a half ten joined right in time for the pandemic so um i wanna just first of all thank dr battle for prioritizing this position in your cabinet for making sure that

112ashford's voice is heard at the highest levels i think that's it speaks to the importance that you place on equity and i thought your framework was really inspiring you know one of the things that i didn't hear um i'm assuming is implied is you know i have a mentor star hermann who says for every unit of change you expect you have to provide an equal measure of support and so for us to really change the paradigm in this district we're going to have to support staff through a whole range of things and one of the things i didn't hear here is how are we providing the tangible supports to schools and one of those is through the student-based budgeting system how are we prioritizing equity helping principals understand how to make equitable decisions with their

113money um in their building using disaggregated data and all the things right and i'm hoping you and your team are part of the framing of how we do student-based budgeting i think and then are we seeing the results are we getting what we're looking for because the unit of change is at the school i mean i think you're right the principal is the unit of change here and so i'd just like to hear that you're involved and that this framing is part of how principals are approaching funding uh all of their staffing and stuff that is absolutely part of the conversations that i've been involved in from speaking with mr henson and others throughout the district why did not put it in the presentation it's because i haven't been fully enough to really give quality

114information to report on and i would rather not report on it than give false information or inaccurate information but that is definitely something that i'm a part of a lot of conversations around that i think people know hey this looks kind of you know let's call ashford do we need to put some type of lens on this before we move forward and i've been fortunate enough in a short period of time building relationships through a computer screen that people you know can trust me to say hey we believe what you're telling us hey help us see this through a different lens right uh so i hope the next time you hear from me i'll be able to better and accurately uh comment on that with an approach i mean i think i'm not i'm i'm

115not calling it out per se in the presentation what i'm saying is it has to be part of the dna of how we align resources to every school and how principals align resources to their teachers and and how they prioritize programs or partnerships right are we really embedding partners in a way that impacts equitable outcomes so anyway thank you for amazing work thank you [Music] freedom oh one thing i just like to say thank you for your work and that way everyone else says but also just us as a board as we continue through his lens i like the way you laid out the complexity of equity i think as we saw through this pandemic you know we had to make some tough choices that was uncomfortable for some people for some stakeholders and parents

116and that as we do that as we make this culture shift that's happening in our nation during terms of equity but as we govern that is no it's not a zero-sum gain but there is discomfort as we make a systematic change as we fund equity as we implement equity and we make it all of our culture so i just want to challenge all of us around my colleagues here as we do it we're going to make some really tough choices choices that we can't abstain on we can't pass on that we get to make collective choices as we make this a priority in a culture and a school like what genie said about making it more on the school level and and as aviola said about you know giving the employ the principals the ability

117to do it we have to set the culture and the tone and i may make some of our constituents uncomfortable or unhappy in the meantime until we create that foundation where everyone can benefit from it and will benefit from it but it is a systematic change i just want to challenge us as we go have those discussions with the community at large with those stakeholders that it's not a one-time fix there's not a one policy fix because we can't eliminate or fix one program without affecting something else on another end like a balloon so just making sure as we go into this that we're thoughtful in the process and the complexity that it's not just a one-off thing it's a complex thing that one affects another but then also we have to have the courageous

118decisions and the courageous courage to do those things to make those they are equitable especially in the long run when it comes to literacy and resources and education and culture and teaching and employee and business and all that stuff like it's a it's a big thing and so just thank you for the work thank you for laying it out so as we talk to our constituents as talk to teachers talk to parents that this is a framework we do it in the complexity of is this not just giving resources to one part of town or to one segment of students is a more global aspect and diversity and equity is measured in different ways and that diversity is just a measurement and equity is actually the process that we do it so as let's make

119sure we challenge us to do that particularly as ourselves as elected board but also dr bowden our staff that um that we provide the leadership in the culture so she can do it so you can do it and the senior staff can implement it rachel and then i'm sorry mrs elrod and then mrs masters thank you um i too am glad that this position has been prioritized as we are a minority majority school district we have as we learned at the board retreat on this past friday a high number of students with ieps we have an increasing population of students with neurodiversities and of course as we heard through our participation today we have ongoing concerns about our lgbtq plus populations so i guess my questions i'm going to start with are about the next

120step slide so within that on the listening tour and it's my understanding that might still be going on how are we identifying who we were listening to i went through and looked at first starting with students right how do we identify student groups that either the organizations that i mentor that are in mnps some of the student councils that are there one of the reasons we started the color of voice was to really go into the schools to hear from students that may not always rise up to be on these committees but like they need to have their voices heard as well so we looked at uh teachers so for the most part i've been trying to do a working to do this a lot with the small team that i have and with the

121support of the staff going to talk to teachers haven't got anywhere near uh the level of engagement that i would like to have outside of you know the teachers that i've been able to come in contact with in this environment friends and colleagues that are teachers but hopefully now with the support of pencil and deloitte helping me in this we've identified how do we have stakeholders uh to really from the teaching core at different points in time to be able to engage them we talked about the importance of families again that trifecta's the family teachers and students being engaged in the process is vitally important so how do we meet families where they are and have those conversations i met with some propelled families you know at six seven o'clock one night to hear from

122about eight of them right doing things like that connecting with those families where their needs are definitely identified who within central office within our support hub you know needs to be a part of this curriculum our mtss team all of the teams that say let's talk about our counseling team to really identify hey this is what i want to talk with you about how do we make sure we have information i want to be able to connect with you and then looked at who are the community groups that are advocates for this work who are the community groups that are really engaged and have come up to the panel on nights where public domain has been given to speak on some of the issues and address how do i connect with them whether it's noah

123whether it's passages whether it's alignment those other groups that are out there whether it's the parent advisory committee that i've been on and talked to as well those were some of the organizations entities that i looked at how do we support them or how do i engage them other parts and families right when we look at specific because i have also a cousin that has disabilities right he has not only dyslexia but he has high severe add we talked about how do we connect with parents with disabilities so debbie mcadams has been and her team have been one to help kind of galvanize groupings together so that we hear from those families as well so that everybody knows that everybody has a stake in this support and understanding what equity is so that we try

124to touch all the factors right if i'm having if i have a blind spot that's why i ask questions of the team who am i missing who have i not thought about that needs to be in these conversations but one was just looking at a big asset map of all the organizations entities across the county right across our school district to identify where can i start to plug and listen where can i start to plug in and now with support i can do more of these focus groups to cover more ground to connect with more people and how long will the listening tour continue my assumption is that it will go on forever as our communities continue to change but to get to our implementation timeline how long do we think we will have until

125then well a good leader never quits listening right but in order to meet our timeline right we'll continue this our this specific listening tour until the end of the summer right to be able to help us gather more information to condense and make certain that we're hearing what we say because i think communication is clear has to be clear words matter and i want to make certain when a parent tells us something that i recite back and i hear exactly what they're saying so that we are going in the same direction so i would say by the end of the summer the specific listening tools around our equity road map would end but i think it's just beginning to do more listening as we talk about implementation as we talk about assessing what things happen

126nashville we've had every weather storm you can think of over the last year so we don't know what's ahead of us so always having the organization and the foundation in the structure and the process to listen is vitally important many of the team behind me have set up the same type of processes and structures as we talk about reimagining schools with our k-5 expansion as we talk about the literacy initiatives so we're putting those engagement mechanisms in place to do that continuous listening yeah i would imagine as well that you know continuous listening is not going to end at the end of the summer that you know just like your commitment to someone's commitment to being anti-racist is a daily commitment that you would have to make i agree that listening is going to be

127something we have to continue to do um and i look forward to seeing our timeline to my colleague freda player peter's point we're going to need to be able to uh have community input and community agreement to this somewhat and being able to push this as a board and making sure that we have a unified voice on it to that point because of the amount of concerns that we heard tonight have we identified any policies that we really should maybe be considering as a board in this listening tour thus far that we could maybe go ahead and get started before we get to that timeline to be more proactive i would have to follow back up with you on that i would need to think and analyze on it there's been some thoughts in my

128mind but to give you a a better uh communicated answer give me into the morning to follow back up okay thank you and let me check and make sure i don't have anything else i have one more question about promising scholars then i will let you go for promising scholars we have the 2 250 staff that have applied how many staff are needed are we are we on the right track is i guess my better question we are very um happy and pleased with the number of staff members i mean we're talking about teachers bus drivers paraprofessionals that's all encompassing in that number but i'm very pleased there because we weren't sure what that number would look like but that is going to be a moving target until we finalize the registration process for our

129students um so we're in a good place um for sure um but we'll continue to adjust based upon the number of applications and registrations that come in okay and then i guess back to this equitable lens um with promising scholars is it still that a student if they qualify for esy can go half a day and then continue through promising scholars what our team has done with regards to our students who will be eligible for esy my extended school year on program and promising scholars we have co-located our programs in the same building so our es y locations are the same as our promising scholars locations and our exceptional education team will be working closely with the families and the staff i really appreciated that um presentation and i also there's only one you write

130because you do all this and then you also are also the person who responds to me about optional schools st and there's only one ashford well there's ashford junior but uh okay actually we're playing minecraft right now you do so he's not pulling his weight okay okay you're doing a lot you're doing a lot it's very appreciated and i think um we certainly are going to need to think moving forward about expanding the team that that's focusing on these efforts because it's so important and integral to the work being done i just wanted i picked up on cultural competency of educators and i wanted to just expand a bit more on including leaders and school level leaders in that um our lisa kimbrough who spoke about her trans daughter who she does not feel comfortable

131sending into her zoned elementary school because of the lack of sort of understanding um that was coming from the administrator there and even the guidance counselor there and that's just one example i'm sure there are many many more of our school-based leaders not being fully equipped with the policies and strategies necessary for every child to be known for every child to be met where they are so i just wondered and you already did a little bit if you had anything more to add about how we will increase the knowledge and capacity of school-based leaders around all of these initiatives i think that's one uh working with the team as we reimagine uh what have you you know what does professional development look like what does consistent uh professional learning look like you know as i've

132been working with a team that is over human management like what is a equity look like is new teachers come in and on board how do we establish the culture the expectations and the cultural responsiveness that we desire of our teachers coming in and of our workers anywhere whether they're teaching whether they're driving a bus or whether they're in the cafeteria we all interact with students that's that's one avenue but i think as we continuously develop this out then we see what is actually needed how do we make this journey consistent whether we look at implicit bias whether we look at any type of cultural understandings across ethnicity across sexual orientation it has to be continuous nothing happens over one training for two hours we check the box and go on so the work around

133this will be forever changing i'm grateful to work with dr joy gus who is also hosting some book sessions with teachers and leaders across the district you know really analyzing and doing self-reflections on how do we better engage and interact how do we understand our place and our value within this system and how do we create value and importance for our students so while we are developing all these things i think it goes back to uh board member walker's uh conversation about how do we make certain that the supports are there so we look at hey let's identify what's needed let's identify how we make it a continuous learning process and then we evaluate like how do we know when we get there so we're in the process of how do we know when an

134individual is where we would like for them to be engaging with students so it's something that we continuously would develop out and i hope to have somewhat of that process for you as we come back and deliver this is our product this is how we move forward i think that sounds fantastic i would suggest as well um i know of at least three schools in our school system um that where there are trans children thriving as a result of the efforts of school leaders and and so of course it's frustrating to know that's not the case district-wide so we could seek out best practices right here within our own schools um because it's happening but we could even then and i spoke with a principal about this the other day who who is really striving

135to embrace all kinds of differences within his school um and i think he could even use he's he's doing great in my mind but i think he could even use more resources and supports and even to know that as a system that that's where our policies stand um and i like the question about what sort of policies do we as a board need to be putting forth to make our position um in these areas really clear so i look forward to your your thoughts on that um [Music] and i have just a couple more things if i may it's on an evening when when issues around lgbtqa plus students have been brought to the forefront in such a big way i i just want to be sure everyone's aware statistically speaking we probably have about

1364 000 lgbt students in our school system about 1500 of them are probably trans if you're just looking at percentages lgb students are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide trans kids are more than three times as likely to attempt suicide as their straight or gender conforming counterparts so this is a really important group of students for us to be considering when we are talking about providing the supports that are necessary to thrive in our schools and when you talk about culture practice and leadership and i asked dr springer about this with implicit bias training will this include um information about our lgbt students and i got of course the answer i wanted because my feeling is that as a board and as an administration mnps cares about every student i've stated that many

137times um from this seat i just want to be sure that we are really wrapping our minds around the issue at hand and that lives are at stake i think that's all thank you thank you for your work with dr gentry hey ashley so i don't know that this is a question or this is something that i would anticipate you having a clear response to tonight so don't panic um but i think everyone knows that this isn't this district's first foray into this equity see previous boards have had the conversation we've taken the conversation to where it will have the most impact and if this is something that's important to us as teacher pay has been proven to be and we've demonstrated is important to us we've demonstrated that through the budget and so in

138previous boards where we have made changes to the budget they have definitely impacted what ms walker has referred to that this reference the student-based budget which then impacts what student what resources what activities what extracurricular bonuses and experiences students can have and so the the thing that i'm looking for ashford is you know we've talked about teachers we've talked about expanding it to all leaders but we can't forget that this board is a part of that leadership and so when we talk about professional development and equipping individuals to have conversations around equity to have conversations and addressing the concerns when we get to the point where that we have to be courageous when we get to the point and i think i don't know if it was miss elrod's comment i made the i wrote

139down the word may and say that parents may have a concern about it parents and teachers may voice some concerns when it gets to the fact that down to brass tax and the hard decisions around resources and distribution of funding has to be made this board has not always been very good at responding to those concerns and so i would hope that the board is included in some form of professional development we we all again not are nodding our heads around this table that this is the right thing to do and i believe as miss masters does that fundamentally each person here at this table believes that this is the right thing to do and that to ms master's point it's not a broad stroke effort it is complex as miss player peters has said

140that it is about the individual student if we really are serious about every student known that what it takes to be equitable for all 80 plus thousand students of our uh 80 plus thousand of our students is going to take some real digging into who those students are what their needs are what the challenges and barriers whether they're social emotional or academic to their success that at the end of 13 years they are that student that citizen that you've talked about mr hughes and so this board needs to be prepared and trained and equipped with the right and i'm sure it's in this presentation but some simple straightforward responses to the emails and the text messages about what happened to the two of the five strings teachers that my school had to the question that

141says how does removing those two strings teachers from my school help the literacy outcomes for a school in district one because those are the questions that we are going to get asked because everyone even people watching this presentation right now out in tv land are nodding their heads that it's the right thing to do until it hits home and it's going to hit home when we did make a little bit adjustment and that percentage of title one dollars um it wasn't what was initially asked for to have the impact that we know was necessary but we made some movement in that direction it's going to require moving a little bit more pushing a little bit more on what that threshold is and getting dollars to your question miss elrod getting dollars to where they need

142to be to have the difference and recognize the outcomes that you've articulated in your presentation so i would just encourage that at some point in your preparation of professional development that the board is included in that and that we are equipped to stand with you to stand with dr battle to stand with all of you that are doing the work and and making the effort and making the adjustments to get to this space of equity to create a universal lens through which we view all of our programs and all of our decisions and all of the ways in which we deliver and engage with our students one-on-one because when every student is actually known it's going to be hard it's going to be hard to get to that work and if you don't have a

143board of nine not eight not a majority but if you don't have a board of nine that is prepared to have the conversation with the parent that's worried about the two strings teachers it's going to be more difficult for you thanks that was such a great drop the mic moment but i have some questions i'm sorry uh but actually she touched on mine you can pick that mic up and just finish i appreciate it um so now the trainings this is a bit of a in the weeds questions i'm just wondering because i know i've been asked by community members trainings around implicit bias are those mandatory for educators or i i really just want to hear it for the community to hear that are they mandatory or is it a self selection i defer

144that to dr battle yes um thank you for the question so i'm just going to step back for just a moment because dr dente mentioned this at the end of her um comments everything that we're talking about falls under the um every student owned umbrella so when you think about our core tenants when you think about our focus outcomes when you think about those 14 signature initiatives this great team which i'm so honored to work with because we have so much knowledge and expertise came together for many many days and hours and the thought process literally was what will it take for every mnps student to be known and so when we have this conversation that came up i think ms masters or ms tyler asks us about professional development that's why you see that

145strategic investment in our operational budget that's why we know we have to expand that work in order for us to create these engaging differentiated professional learning opportunities that we can connect with all leaders at all levels i mean so that's where the thought process has come from so in order for us to do that we have to expand our structure our capacity and structure and in people to be able to provide those opportunities and it will take us as we move forward to redesign a whole lot of other things like our calendar there are some requirements there so going into next school year what you what you will have every school must continue to adopt their tier one approach that's the requirement every school must have one and all of their team members must train

146around it we have to be very careful though and i think we've talked about this once before around the language are used for mandatory trainings that requires additional investment when you require them particularly when it's outside of the school day and so we will have some mandatory trainings um this year mainly around literacy and some other things aligned to our um core strategies right now for our sel work implicit bias cultural um what am i trying to say culturally responsive teaching thank you and some of those other trainings um dr spring and her team have worked closely with our cni team we will be releasing a pd catalog and we've got a very unique way that we're going to roll that out this year to encourage that professional development for our staff and the planning

147to go along with it so once you have built your capacity what are you going to do with this new learning in new ways potentially a stronger strategies to to implement so it's less about the requirement or mandatory and making sure we're meeting the individual needs of our students with consistency around our values and beliefs as a school district so those offerings will be made available throughout the summer as we move into next school year and beyond every school must adopt their tier one approach and have the follow-up training to go along with it can you help with the shared language to make sure the community understands and you say a tiered one approach just so there's three levels particularly around our seo response that dr springer helped me in case i have a brain

148freeze here we have our social emotional learning approach we have pbs and restorative practices our three main and then we also will be offering to complement those implicit bias on the culturally responsive teaching so on and so forth but the core approach must be consistent within the school gotcha again i've realized that a lot of the misinformation in the community is because there's a misunderstanding around language and around expectations with that language so thank you for breaking it down but even beyond that to dr gentry's point training is always an interesting topic because it's again it's not something you can mandate outside of in-service days we can't you know for equity work to be real work we have to change hearts and minds and what we i don't generalize what i as a young or

149woman of a certain age that's fairly young woman in stem who's african american what i've experienced is that many of the people who need these kinds of trainings don't self-identify that way they don't realize their bias that we all have but they don't realize it and how it it shows to their students so i appreciate the mandated uh tier one approaching well again i think back to when we had to cut this past year we had to cut dollars from central office because there's always been this misunderstanding in the community about what our central office staff does and the idea that we have in ashford hughes that not only manages equity work should be driving equity data sharing with the community building relationships is also the person responsible for the school choice means that we

150have a fundamental underfunding of thought partners we need to clear the path for our principals and our teachers to be able to do the good work but if we don't have enough money in a central pot to be able to support family engagement to be able to adequately support equity work to be able to support navigating school choice options i mean we just we do our families a disservice so i we've got to stay on this soapbox driving this home to the community that we are not mismanaging money we just don't have enough of it and there are so many different needs again just being at the capitol for those two weeks was really eye-opening about the the misperception and misunderstanding around what it takes to educate a child and what it takes to educate

151diverse children so anyway i'll pull back a bit could you talk or video could you unpack just a bit toward the end of your presentation you talked about the data data scope and how that's kind of one of those steps you mentioned a dashboard could you unpack that just a bit and maybe take me through a timeline if you have one in mind and it can be a rough timeline yeah i think when i was speaking of the the kind of dashboard was the partnership with dr changes and his team about the data dashboard that is one of our signature initiatives but also just understanding that i want to be transparent with the community to say this is what we're trying to measure right so i think in not maybe having it all mapped out

152where it's nice and pretty but at least having something on my page that says these are the metrics around equity that we are trying that we are seeking to measure you know we all know the discipline the numeracy literacy you know advanced academics what does that look like but what are some qualitative things that we can put on that we're measuring based off of our survey that we do a panorama survey and some of the belonging uh questions that we asked some of our students so i think as i uh continue to work with dr chankins we'll be able to map that out but i would like to have everything concurrent with each other as i provide and as we provide the final document uh later this summer okay so we're looking over the summer

153at a tentative time to have a dashboard that we can talk with the community about that's helpful and of course i understand that things may change but please just keep us updated because i'll be excited to see that and be able to share that in the community i also i know that there are a lot of different community work groups and i mentioned this toward the end of last year about having board members if you were open to it to sit in some of these seats in these work groups as community members and or leaders i know alignment nashville does a great job of convening groups they actually have a data team a data a team that talks through data agreements and although all those things for different community partners that want to engage with

154mnps are there any community work groups you sit with or that you know of that could use a a school board perspective or that could um that needs us to sit in those work groups to hear from the community i mean not you know not as a fly on the wall but actually participate as work groups so something not that we where we would not intimidate community members who are already in those work groups but that we could really add to the conversation and do some work well i think one that i i serve on is uh passage passages passage uh and the work that they're doing i believe you may have presented one time early on but i believe they need that different perspective uh noah which has a group that's focused on a

155lot of things on the education space really needs uh someone from the board to be there is listening to give a different perspective those are the two that i can call out right now i would also say the imf in in the denominational ministers fellowship you know as i serve and listen to them and we talk about what's taking place in education i believe they need a strong infusion of what's uh taking place in metro and those are the ones that come to mind right now that are kind of like the most active that are working with us you know weekly monthly to try to uh find solutions to these complex problems that we're faced with those are the three that really stand out right now all right well as you think of others please

156feel free to let me or let us know i mean dr sevilla and mrs bobo can kind of help us strategize and think through how to sit in those spaces appropriately be working community members also i'm sorry to just throw you all out there but my thought partners um i know in all of our different the data that we get is typically broken down by demographic when you talk about this dashboard i'm assuming that it'll have not just disparity data based on content uh yeah consequences or um out of school time but it'll also talk about literacy rates poverty rates enrollments of schools i mean will it be a really high arching you know a big umbrella that captures everything or is it going to be more kind of academically focused i can't answer that

157for you right now in the process of developing all of that okay uh i hope they have a better answer for you in the future okay um and lastly i think this is and you can if you don't mind you can be seated i think that was my last question for you this is just a general statement around advocacy i know i'm sure miss mrs masters will talk a bit more about our time in our committee at the board retreat but we are certainly advocating to the state we're looking to ramp that up in different ways and actually start engaging with the state board of education but please know that it's not lack of effort we don't always talk about these things but we're communicating with council members we're talk we're responding to community members

158we're engaging with staff and we are certainly reaching out to the state legislature so please continue to advocate to us but also remember where our power is limited you know feel free i mean i do think next year when the world is officially back open we need to revisit that day on the hill because that could be really powerful for community members but it also was very powerful for those state legislators um the last thing i'll say around equity is that again it's just been a really a really interesting time to i mean the last three days have just been rough if you have at all been watching the news or been on social media it's been hard and i just equity work is very very important and it's something that i mean i i

159i drive through east nashville and i will literally see the yards littered with black lives matter signs but then i look at the schools in that district and or in that community and i listen to parents who will say they would never send their kids to their own school because it's unsafe a school they've never walked into but a school that they are making assumptions around and honestly it is typically based on race and unfortunately race and class mirror one another they are definitely they definitely uh correlate so we have these great conversations around equity and as dr gentry said you know it's like we at this table the community just gnaws and yes we're all about equity until your snowflake has to give up just a little bit so someone else's snowflake can have

160just a little bit more of what they need and i just i can't press that enough that we've got to be more mindful as community members how we impact equity whether you're a leader at this table or you're just a community member with a child or someone who lives in the community as a neighbor we all influence equity by the words we use by the the perceptions we maintain by the open-mindedness that we either take on or ignore and we've just got to do a better job as nashville as a community at large because babies are literally hanging in the violence a three-year-old the three-year-old died yesterday i i have a three-year-old dr battle has a three-year-old and we end up arguing about all the wrong things we don't talk about those we don't talk

161about anything that we can actually seek to measure quickly i'm not going to cry so we'll go on to committee reports would anyone like to begin before i'll call on you well actually i mean committee reports or um a review of our board retreat every once in a while we have a board retreat to make sure we can actually unpack and have work sessions ask questions it's just a longer full day and in the past has typically been a day and a half so it's a good time for us to really dig into data ask questions and build relationships as a board but things are going to be moving really really quickly and differently this year with the budget process so we will likely have another board retreat in may this one is one that

162we're looking to have tsba come and hold the tennessee school board association come and host a half day professional development tammy grissom and ben torres i know they don't mean much to you in names but they are they are the leaders of that organization they'll be working with us to make sure that we are acting as appropriately as possible to make the kind of gains that our community wants us to make for students so that was the essence of the board retreat it was this past friday thank you to the staff that was able to uh present i really do appreciate my colleagues and the staff for taking you know for having my baby there i knew he hit that wall midday when he started biting his tablet but i appreciate your that you all

163maintained professionalism that you all were so so sweet to him so we already have had a recap of budget but please feel free to i mean i'm sorry mr slater peters to talk through that at the advocacy mrs masters if you wouldn't mind touching on that um anyone else that i miss dr gentry with director's eval if there's anything i miss just let me know is it fire peters um earlier today you know we passed the budget we passed the resolution for the operating budget the nutrition budget and the strategic investment budget um so those passed unanimously so at this point those will be transmitted to the mayor's office the mayor has to file his budget by may 1st which is a saturday so most likely probably april 30th so we will work with mr

164fisher and the mayor's office for any questions of clarification so this is also a good time for parents and students and teachers to really articulate the investment of our taxpayer dollars that education is a priority for you that you will make that known to mayor cooper but also to the metro council we have our department budget hearing on may 26th at 5 pm in metro council council chambers uh um scoby chambers and so at the courthouse downtown um so that will be the next steps once we receive the budget allocation along with the metro general government from mayor cooper the council will consider the budget and three readings um and from that we will take the number that mayor cooper and the metro council allow a lot to us and then we'll come back and

165put more defined framework on to the budget so i would ask the community to make sure that as we move on you've seen and heard from the community about the resources that requested of us and from us um that we have shown where our priorities are um and now it's designed to have the lens of the metro general government to show what number so we could act on those priorities and those um those strategic plans so again thank you to dr bad on our staff the way we've transformed the way we present the budget showing our priorities and showing the true cost and show transparency thank you to ms elrod mr henson and too many of those who have worked with metro council to show how we've been very transparent of how we fund how

166we calculate and where we spend our dollars in an efficiency of our dollars that we have worked to show where our dollars go and where our values are and so now we are now just moving forward to weight so we will continue to be a part of that thing for everyone for their input and um i think that's where we are so we will have another budget meeting probably in mid-june once we get the budget allocation to finish out the details of the budget this is masters sure so um we started the retreat with the discussion about advocacy um and mark north gave us an update on um state level legislation uh that has been passed or um is pending or has been put off until next year everything around education um and we focused

167our conversation heavily on uh state level advocacy feeling that we um between uh having robert fisher who comes to our meetings which we really appreciate and then the joint council and school board meetings that we've been having and our access to the mayor to have conversations with him we we feel like we have gotten into a fairly good place with our council level local metro level advocacy at least the communication lines are very much open so we wanted to talk about how we could become a little more proactive when it comes to our state level advocacy and how we as a body could move towards being seen as reliable thought partners reliable sources of information about education in our state to our state legislators and so we are going to be taking some steps moving

168forward to try to open those lines of communication so that we will be able to talk with state legislators when bills around education that will deeply affect our students come into play and so that they will understand that we are the folks that are working in this day in and day out and we're coming at this very much with an understanding that um not all state legislators are experts in every area they come from different sectors and we would very much like to position the mnps board and administration um as trusted partners at the state level since it does affect us so deeply and that that was pretty much what we talked about i got a little bit rudimentary on everyone giving you out a little how to talk to your legislator sheet but i

169like i like a little how-to sheet with some do's and don'ts um so we talked about that a little bit as well wonderful uh dr ginger yes so we did have the opportunity to see the amazing work that the team here at central office was came together and delivered the version of uh from our rough rudimentary version of the director's evaluation tool and did an amazing amazing job um of recreating that functionality uh in an online platform that board members will have access to to begin to engage in the directory evaluation process so we did agree that we will have a summative evaluation coming up here soon and we'll put some dates out for board members to to to know when that's going to happen and i think we and when it will be finalized

170uh the great part about the tool is that uh we've also learned that it will give alerts to board members as dr battle is entering her information uh after this summative evaluation we will do quarterly evals a q1 a q2 and a q3 um this is where actually where dr battle will provide updates to us quarterly we do have the option to not comment on those quarterly updates but we do have to check the box both on the quarterly and the summative that we have read them we must indicate that we have at least read them even if we don't choose to comment and then of course there'll be a not a fourth quarter eval but a summative evaluation at the end of the fourth quarter so again super excited about the tool there are

171some opportunities to enhance the tool even as it sits today but as my charge was to my colleagues is that unless we can commit and codify this tool as the tool for the district and not just a tool for this board as you know we've had a different evaluation process and system for the 13 years i've been here i've been 13 of them um so if we get to the point where after going through it and using it that we believe this is the right way the right tool the right process then we can discuss what enhancements and then whatever process we need to go through to formally codify this as our evaluation tool slash process then we need to do that thank you for that thank you for that sorry today we also had

172a naming of schools committee meeting after budget uh within that we uh formally changed the name from uh early college high school to nope middle college i wrote it down wrong here middle college high school to early college high school as it's already historically known so we wanted to make sure that we more procedurally fix that for them so that's what we did in consent agenda the last thing is we're almost in compliance mayor cooper has mandated that each board member of a governing board around the city or commission or board takes an ethics training we are almost in compliance most of us have made it i think we're just missing one so uh tony roberts will just be working with you to make sure that we are in compliance and talk about next steps

173with that we'll start with announcements uh dr gentry um so this i want to say it was yesterday but it could have been a month ago it's probably yesterday though uh robert churchwell had a uh their final session with their 18 mentors and mentees so it was uh eight up 16 16. so it was eight seasoned veteran teachers uh who were paired with uh eight mentees so they were either five of them were new to church well three of them are first time teachers um so i did have an opportunity to address them at the end of their session and and and hopefully uh encourage them to stay the course and and help them to and assure them that as a board we recognize the challenge that they face in this space of education in

174educating our students especially educating students um and the population that we have as a majority minority district uh and so uh it was it was it was great to be able to do that it did get a little emotional but i always do uh when i talk about um about our kids uh white's creek and dr griffin just shared with me a link to an article on score if i got that right about the the impact that providing larger opportunities for advanced academics which includes the early college is having so they've dr melz has committed to not allowing the pandemic to be a barrier to doing what's right for those students ensuring that academics and quality high quality academics continues to be a focus continues to be made available and so there's an article out

175on score right now about that work and and and now they're taking a look at at uh sort of assessing what the impact has been and understanding that there's still more work to do and creating a plan about how they will move forward and continuing to support the current advanced academic options that are available to the students and then what's what the data tells them about what additional opportunities should be afforded to the students so super excited again dr melz is doing amazing work at white's creek he has great support from the white's creek alumni association um that meets i think every other month we have a meeting coming up on april 27th which is a school board night so we'll be late uh to that to that conversation but they are also very engaged

176and very um interested in hearing how they can help and how they can support the work that dr melz the teachers the staff and the families and students are engaged in there at white's creek thank you mrs pooper walker i want to start by congratulating mose phillips from the class of 2020 at hillsborough high school for being announced that he'll be inducted into the mmps sports hall of fame um music city center has got open slots this week for vaccines you can register at covid9-19.nashville.gov for this week appointments this week anybody listening go get vaccinated um we will have a student member of the board application released soon in the coming days i want to thank ms bobo for helping with that and the communications team we will be very excited to receive applications from

177high school students i want to wish all of our muslim neighbors happy ramadan and blessings to that community i also want to take a minute to acknowledge the gun violence that was that took place yesterday in knoxville at east austin and here in nashville and as a long-time advocate for gun control i'm going to get on my soapbox and say that in in the united states this year we've had 130 mass shootings just this year there's been four in england ever ever okay tennessee has the eighth highest rates of gun homicides in the country firearms are the leading cause of death among children in tennessee we have an average of 105 children die every year from guns 60 of those are homicides and so we have a governor who pushed legislation this year to make

178it easier to get a gun with no training with no permit 75 percent of tennesseans oppose that legislation even more think that we should not ban classes to get a gun yet we're going in the opposite direction so i'm pleading with our governor bill lee and our legislature if you seriously value student mental health why would you make guns more accessible make it easier for people to cause harm to children to families to schools it should not be normal that we have school shootings in this country it's embarrassing it's terrifying that our children have to think about what to do when there's an active shooter in their school and so 75 of tennesseans don't support this bill yet somehow this governor and this legislature have decided to do this to us and so i just

179think we need to stop and think about using our voice to protect our children to protect our families to protect our communities and you know i don't believe having more guns equals freedom i actually believe it limits our freedom it makes me look more scared to go out it makes me more scared to engage so um anyway i'm off my soapbox now but um my heart's with um my colleague evidy satterfield and knoxville who's the school board member for austin east who attended austin east who's lifting up her community this week and thank you very much thank you miss bush uh no announcements mr little all right i can come back to you um mrs blair peters i'll come take a pfm um i just want to echo the sentiments of uh miss poopoo walker

180i am also a friend of school board member eva satterfield and so just to her the knoxville knox county school board and to superintendent bob thomas to say we stay in solidarity with you this is the biggest fear of any elected officials or director of schools to have something like that that happen in your own school building or property um that we just we our hearts go out to and we feel with you and we just stand in solidarity of what this tragic moment in time has to be and then also i just send condolences to former union president debbie cisco fcwa 38 we were in a labor movement together her daughter maria varasco was a human fall graduate who was murdered yesterday so going back to the importance of social emotional learning what it

181does to make productive citizens that it goes beyond the school board our main our main goal is to educate kids to make sure they can learn the academic material but it also makes them better citizens to be productive citizens so we talk about social emotional learning that's a priority in our budget that we want to fund it that's why because they are citizens debbie was a great president i worked with her son personally um and she was a great leader about with women moving the movement and also with their union members with their own education even outside of the formal school room but even an education as an employee to continue to better yourself and to be better union members to fight for workers rights and abilities so just as someone a part of the

182mmsps family our hearts go out to them um on a better note or a lighter note um congratulations to bb heinz or elizabeth hines who's the pac president she's in my district so congratulations to being the leader of that and then also um to the mps mmps hall of fame there's two glencliff graduates uh larry house who's in the class of 2020 um induction class in eureka baker dunn who's in the 2021 class congratulations to them and then also in my district we have a a large and important community muslim community in my district and i am proud to represent them and so as they deserve ramadan someone who's fasted for lent for six weeks please give our students of the muslim faith some grace as they go through their education because when you're hungry

183after hour 16 sometimes you get a little um in a little in a hangry place sometimes so give them a little grace as they come from this moment of this religious expression and spirituality that we give them grace but also celebrate them in this time of of their religious expression and commitment and that we stand with them for that so thank you all right we'll come back to mr little and then go back through on this way um i wanted to recognize um this past friday we honored uh late great anna shepard at the mcgavin coalition with a scholarship which her husband put it out to raise 1500 i think it's close to 4 000 now kudos is free to say mr player peter said to the parent advisory council ms elizabeth hines who is

184a propel parent mr kevin walker is in my district and ms johnson who is fired up about changing the perception of schools i'm going to be bringing forth a resolution at the hand close to 50 parents from the pearl cone cluster around purpose prep so i look forward to that of working with the district and just reminder that we'll have virtual office hours the first guest will be the parent advisory council and it will be saturday april the the 24th at 11 am and then last but not least propel parents will be out in andrew jackson this week napier and casey passing out flyers and talking about the promising scholars program all right mrs masters um i'm sorry i sit here and i email all of the staff while i'm sitting here as i'm thinking

185of things that i said that's why i'm constantly on my computer just just you know multitasking like you do um uh i don't think i really i did want to make one announcement i know i sound like a broken record tonight i do care about all children not el just not just lgbtq children but i did want to point out that one of the first votes we made on october 13th when i first joined the board um that's what we did add gender identity and expression to our anti-bullying policy in mnps which i think is a great base um from which to begin with with the additional work so i just wanted to be sure um and mention that and um and i also wanted to echo um frida in offering my condolences to the

186family and friends of debbie cisco she um i talked with her during my campaign for school board and the communications workers of america were supporters of of my campaign and she was very kind and encouraging and informative and i just appreciated her advocacy i feel like especially for women seeking leadership roles and she will be very sorely missed thank you mrs tyler um i just want to take a moment to honor our longtime bellevue middle school teacher jenny tiger who unexpectedly passed away last thursday jenny grew up in bellevue and graduated from hillwood high school and she grew up in a family who deeply valued community service and she took those values to heart she loved the bellevue community and she poured much of her free time into supporting it she could be found at

187just about any local sporting events including vanderbilt commodore and nashville predators games and through her more than 15 years at bellevue middle school she touched the lives of countless students and their families she was a reliable figure for her students long after they left her class and her fellow teachers knew that they could count on her for support and she regularly brightened everyone's day with her keen sense of humor and her welcoming attitude her loss is an enormous one for the community and i send my condolences to her family to her friends and everybody who knew her if you have a personal connection and want to come there is a visitation tomorrow night at bellevue presbyterian church from four to six and there will be a celebration of life service immediately following it at six

188o'clock so we um this is an enormous loss thank you mrs tyler this is uh elrod thank you at overton high school the end of course testing schedule is april 21st through april 28th with makeups following um and lots of additional information about that end of course testing and the schedules along with it or within this week's weekly update that was sent out yesterday additionally senior prom is may 7th and they are quite excited about that and so we are glad that they're able to do so um i also sit on the pencil board along with miss masters and i wanted to share some information because we had several meetings with them over the past two weeks uh with pencil just this past weekend they had a free book fair um and it was open

189to mnps librarians teachers and literacy specialists and they had about over 100 people that attended and they gave away 11 286 books 141 cases of poster board and in general they gave over about 128 worth of product and we appreciate pencil's partnership on not only providing materials for our teachers but for our students um additionally starting tomorrow pencil box is going to start doing what are called pop-ups and they're going to be happening at the following schools over the next three weeks they're going to be at amqui cumberland tom joy mcmurray werner and hayes so they're trying to make sure that they show up at those schools and provide services directly to those teachers because they've been able to look at their data and realize that those teachers aren't able to access their pencil box

190at those locations so thank you so much thank you all right so hooray for graduations it is almost graduation season i know this has been an interesting long year but we will finally be able to celebrate something so congratulations to graduating seniors if you're someone that wants to cheer on a school in your area please feel free to visit that school's website or see how what are ways that you can celebrate those students some principals some community achieves site directors and some of the counselors are um partnering with community members to make baskets or send send letters or just in other ways celebrate this graduation um on a somber note we want to send our thoughts and prayers and hugs and love to matthew portell the executive the wonderful phenomenal executive principal of fall hamilton

191enhanced option school it's a an elementary school that focuses on trauma-informed care he's just a great person he leads a great staff but he's having some family family illness so please just send your thoughts to him but in the same breath fall hamilton is having a partners meeting because the work doesn't stop they're having a partners meeting tomorrow at noon if you would like to participate please feel free to follow up with me this is something that many other community achieves schools do they host community partner meetings where anyone from the community can tap into the work and see how they can partner east high school we want to send our love and our thoughts to them as they go through this ib process if you're not familiar with ib the simplest way i can

192synthesize it for you is that it's an advanced academic programming that really focuses on global mindedness making sure that we think through and experience other cultures and other perspectives it's a great really great programming for young people so congratulations i'm going to say it in advance congratulations high school thank you advanced academic team for all that you're doing to support those students in that high school congratulations to pencil on their 39th birthday that was celebrated now a week ago really a beautiful trend i mean a beautiful celebration virtually but still congratulations to them and thank you for continuing the part with a partner with us um uh the academies of nashville if you're not familiar with them that is our version of vocational programming that is our way of making sure that students are college

193and career ready the academies of nashville really is a premier pro set of programming that allows for pathway development for our different comprehensive high schools so that students can experience the real world they can understand how their chosen field or their chosen pathway or just their general education content how that can prepare them for a job in the real world and so we love that the academy's tours have continuing to happen even in the virtual space and we just thank the academies of nashville alignment nashville um everyone involved for all that they do back on the sangra note gideon's army an organization that specifically focuses on supporting 37208 that's a zip code in north nashville making sure to act as violence interrupters making sure to build true partnerships around the community to make sure that

194whatever community issues there are do not continue to grow that they um all i can say is that they mitigate mitigate interruptions and they had a dire loss the last week it's just been a rough experience for families in that area so please send your thoughts to gideon's army and really all of north nashville for this last week but to raise us back up to give you a little bit of a smile the national public library yay they are back open now don't go flocking don't run but you can still do the curbside pickup or you can also enter the building it's sometimes just good to to go to the library um and lastly for thank you mr little on the purpose prep i just want to make sure i just think it's always important

195that we separate mnps and its staff from the mnps board i know i had a few families that were anticipating the purpose prep conversation tonight and we did not have it it was not on the part mnps staff did not drop the ball the board dropped the ball so mr little will be working with some of our central office staff to talk through next steps but that will be on the next agenda and with that again there's so much more we could say about the events of this past week but i just ask that we all just work to be better people in the future be there no for the business this meeting is adjourned [Music] this has been a service of the metro nashville network if you would like to see this presentation again

196or for more information about this and other programs visit nashville.gov you