001This Sheep. like to welcome everyone to the March Elizabeth and Board of Education uh meeting and uh at this time we will turn it over to Mr. Van Hus to lead us in moment of silence and pledge the flag. Please stand. Please pause for a moment of silence. >> Thank you. Attention. Salute. Pledge. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. It's time to approve the consent agenda and the regular agenda. Can I get a motion to approve? >> Motion and a second. >> Second. Any changes? Any questions prior to? Seeing none, the motion's to approve consent agenda and regular agenda. All those in favor say I. I. >> I. Any
002opposed? And there are none. Um, it's time now time for citizens to speak. We didn't have one any we didn't have anyone request to speak at this time. So we'll move on to special recognitions and I'll turn it over again to Mr. Vanus. Thank you Mr. Ples. At this time we will be recognizing the EHS Murder 101 documentary students. So Mr. Campbell, if you'll step up to the podium and enlighten us, please. I feel like this podium's smaller than here, but the students can jump up here if they want. They can be support. They're going to be speaking here in just a minute. So, y'all can jump over here if you want. Yeah, they'll be speaking in just a minute. Uh, but forgive me from reading from my notes, but um Mr. Mitten said I
003had to go back eight years and tell it all in order, and I said, I better write this down. Uh but in 2018, my sociology class asked me to support them while they researched a series of cold case murders uh in and around Tennessee in the 1980s. And although that was a little bit unorthodox, I did decide that I could still teach them sociology while they used their passion to try to bring some justice to some longforgotten victims and maybe some light to some very old cold cases. In May of 2018, the students hosted a press conference at Elizabeth and High School and they shared the results of their investigation. Uh after working with an FBI behavior analyst, they concluded that there was evidence that a serial killer was active in and around the state
004of Tennessee in the 1980s. Although uh they did not identify the person, uh they did give them a name and that was the Bible belt strangler. And although some experts doubted those claims at the time, uh the young students showed that they could do high level work. And it really did set off a firestorm of media attention which eventually traveled all the way to Los Angeles where it eventually was contacted in 2021 by KT Studios. Uh they had recently produced the number one true crime podcast in America and they were looking for new interesting stories to tell. Um, so after agreeing to allow them to shop the idea to various podcast platforms, uh, we pretty much forgot about it for about two years and then eventually we got a call back and said that there
005was interest and they wanted to move forward with the idea. There was only one problem at the time. I wasn't teaching any classes. So it was just me and two students who met before school every day at 6:45 and one of them is here and so we worked on our own time. The kids worked for no credit. Uh but we completed the recordings in 2023. Uh we had to wait almost another year for the podcast to air. It aired in 2024. It went on to be the number two uh true crime podcast in America and it went to number one in five different countries. So the students were soon appearing on News Nation, Inside Edition, Nancy Grey Show, uh The Tennesseeian, The Times of London, The New York Post, all ran headlines about it. And
006class members were appearing on radio shows as far away as Canada, uh Dubai, and New Zealand. Uh but someone else was listening that we didn't know about. Um the students were recognized by the state of Tennessee in spring of 2024 for bringing um a lot of attention to some of these old cases and some of these victims. But also a lady by the name of Diane Mcounal was also listening. She's an Emmy award-winning producer of a TV show. And so she heard the podcast and she really liked the story and her students. Her husband is John Watts and he had just finished uh directing the Spider-Man Far From Home trilogy and he was currently working on the new Star Wars series and a movie with Brad Pitt and George Clooney. But he decided that he
007wanted this story to be the next one that he told. So in fall of 2024, um the award-winning director Stacy Lee actually appeared here. Some of you might remember that. And uh gave the school board an update on their vision for what they wanted to do with the project. And of course, they were given permission to begin to uh document some of the work of the students for the school year. Uh that all finished up in fall of 2025. And the production team was so proud of the work that they wanted to enter into Sundance, which is the most prestigious film festival in America. Uh I found out that they receive about 19,000 film entries every year. And this year they only chose two episodic documentaries to premiere. And one of them was Murder 101
008about our students. So, I was able to attend the premiere in Utah with a student and hundreds of movie buffs and film afficionados and I realized something pretty amazing while I was out there. Uh, the crowd laughed, they cheered and they cried when they witnessed the work of our students. And, uh, we didn't even leave the theater till 1:30 in the morning because so many people wanted to talk to us about the work that the students had done. Uh I even spoke with an Amazon MGM executive who said that they felt the students had created a new genre in true crime. Uh up to that point they said that all productions centered around usually either the victims or the suspects or law enforcement. But this was something totally new because it focused on ordinary people
009like our students and how their lives and perspectives change when they get to do real work and uh grow up and learn about seeing other people as real people. Uh let's see. This summer, the world will get to see all this hard work. Uh, and everybody in the world is going to know what we already know, and that's that we have amazing students and a tremendous school, and we live in a fairy tale-like community. So, uh, we trust that um, you know, and when we trust students with meaningful and although sometimes unorthodox work that they actually can make big change in the world. So on Amazon, excuse me, on July the 6, it will stream on Amazon Prime and The Secret will then be out. So everybody can be looking forward to that. And really,
010where are we after eight years uh since the students first had their press conference? Now, it's been confirmed that the work of the original 2018 class was not just right, but it was actually more correct than they could have ever known. It's now been confirmed by law enforcement and genetic testing that not only one but up to 16 serial killers were actually operating in Tennessee in the 1980s, although the law enforcement had never said that. So, our students were really ahead of the time and ahead of the technology. And really, we just had to wait on everybody else to catch up with the good work of our students. But, it really is my pleasure to have a few of these young people here with me tonight. Uh, it's kind of crazy to think about. We've
011been working on this for almost a decade. I think Will has grandkids. I think I've got his Yeah, I've got his grandkids in class. But um anyway, it's really great to have students that have been working on this for so long. And um I appreciate their fact that they wanted to do something a little unusual, fight for victims, and I want to thank our school board, administration, community for always supporting me and our students whenever we try to do something that's maybe a little bit different. So, I'll turn it over to them and let them tell you what they have learned and how um maybe doing these type of things has impacted their lives in the last few years. So, I don't know if y'all drew straws, but >> the elders of the >> Good
012evening everybody. Appreciate y'all for being here and thanking us for all of our hard work. Um, pretty much the biggest thing I learned, um, just going through this class is just when you give, uh, students a chance and opportunity to improve their community, they will go for a mile. Not only will they do that, they will be fully engaged with their uh, with their work. Um, most of the time when we look at school books, you know, it's going to be hard to do an exam, do a test, and things like that. But when you give a chance, an opportunity, like for us, we had one question. Can we find one person in 300 million people? And that turned into six people. So I mean, we took it and we ran it for a whole
013mile. And that to me is so important because not only did we get um the empathy side of it, we called uh the victims, our sisters, because we wanted it to be so personal and so motivating. Uh we also got out of our box. You know, usually you don't have outbound calls unless you're calling your mom or your dad and tell them that you're sick. So we've been call we call the police departments uh to kind of help uh in our situation. Um so that got us um basically out of our comfortableness being in school. And lastly, just seeing uh you know 16, 15, 17, some are 18 year old kids really doing something in this community is always going to be a plus. And that my that's my whole life is seeing youth getting
014better every day. Having a chance to change not only just in their school but around here in our communities, in our state, and in our nation. And I feel like our class done that and I learned so much from that. And just being being a part of it. So, thank y'all. >> Hi everyone. My name is Emma Wuben and the spring of 2025, I graduated from Elizabeth High School. In the summer before my senior year, my mom and I got a phone call from Mr. Campbell saying that he had these really exciting plans for this class and he gave us very little information. But if you know anything about Mr. Campbell, he always has something up his sleeve. And so, when we started this class, we We had the choice to choose between opening a
015letter or reading a textbook for the whole week. So obviously everyone chose the letter and we got the chance to help a lot of people and it wasn't a class where we were working for a grade. We were really helping these people and bringing closure to families that hadn't had any kind of closure answers for years. And it was just a really special experience and I think we all learned and gained something from this class. And I think one of the main things that I learned was to not take anything for granted and that Every day is a blessing and everyone is lucky enough to have the experience. >> Hello everyone. I'm Riley Witson. Okay, I'll pull it down. Um, thank you guys for having us first and foremost. It's been so sweet coming back
016here and seeing some familiar faces. I know I've only been out of high school two years, but it feels like a lifetime ago. But um I actually got a really cool opportunity this previous summer to work with KT Studios in an internship and research for their daily true crime radio show called True Crime Tonight. Uh researching some current and ongoing criminal investigations and cases. So that has been a super cool experience and I'm so thankful that this podcast opened up that door for me. But Mr. Campbell approached me and asked me to share a few words of what this experience has taught me. And that is a super difficult answer to give because I have learned so many things. But if I had to narrow it down to the main thing I've learned that has
017really changed me and impacted my life, it's that there's always someone. There is always someone that cares, someone that is willing to help, someone that wants to hear your story. And if you can't tell your story, there is someone that is willing to tell it for you. And that has taught me that we are never alone. This life stinks sometimes. It's really hard. It's really scary and daunting, but we aren't in it alone. And I think that is so beautiful. And I was actually in my death investigations class today at Milligan. And my professor brought up a piece of scripture that I wanted to share with you guys because I think it is so fitting. And this comes from Proverbs 31:8. It says, "Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who
018are destitute." And I think that just speaks to our job as people and fellow human beings that there are people aren't as fortunate as us. And it's our job and our responsibility and our blessing to get to tell their stories and help them out. So, thank you guys for giving us that opportunity. >> Yeah. If you Yeah. If all of you will come up here and we'll we'll take a picture. >> Get in the middle wheel. You're the oldtimer. >> Stay. Stay right there. Sorry. Sorry. One more. Sorry. >> Come back. One more. Come on back. >> Come on back. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you. Um, at this time we normally at least allow if you're interested um and you need to if you want to leave before we get into the more
019formal part of the meeting. This would be a good time to leave. We have a very short agenda. If you want to stay, but if you need to go um you won't offend us if you go really quickly. So, >> thank you. Thank you all. >> It's amazing. >> Okay. Again, always amazing things in the special recognitions and appreciate our students and our faculty and everything for all they do. So, now it's time for reports and I'll turn it over to Mr. Van Hus for his report. Thank you very much. Um, not to put anyone on the spot, but you notice we have several other students here and it's my understanding this is SGA students. Is that correct? You're earning hours to attend this meeting for I guess community services at what what are you
020earning hours for? >> Awesome. You picked a good one. >> You picked a good one. Yes, you did. But we're glad to have you and you feel free to come back to more than one. You're you're welcome to come anytime. So, uh so thank you again for an opportunity to share a couple of things here with you. I we're very hopeful that we are beyond all the inclement weather. Knock on wood. Uh so, so again, just want to uh commend our staff and our students and families for being flexible. Uh that's never easy and it seems like this year every almost every weather event is you know hit between 5 in the morning and you know 8 o'clock in the morning which is very difficult and very unpredictable and so um I just appreciate everyone
021being flexible and understanding uh during during those decisions. Uh again we just want to thank Mr. Campbell again and all the students involved in that. if that doesn't excite you to see those students that come back and how well they're doing and and hear some of that. It's very inspiring to me. So again, thanks for all their work and their willingness to share. Um, also wanted to recognize uh Chelsea Bofman. She is our uh family resource center. Uh she's uh over our family resource center. She's our coordinate school health uh director and she was recently uh recognized with a state award for excellence in student, family and community involvement at the coordinate school health convention and she there were three finalists and she was the state winner. So we're very very proud of her. She's
022doing a fantastic job all the work that she does there on that and we're not holding it against her the fact that her dad is Mr. Isaac's. So proud dad over here. But regardless of that, certainly she is doing an outstanding job. So just wanted to recognize her as well. And I told I called her today and said, "I'm going to do this. You're welcome to come if you want to. You don't have to." And she said, "Well, it's good enough. Just mention it." So um couple other things. Um of course, Miss Walker is not here today as you notice. Uh her mother passed away earlier this week. So obviously keep her in your thoughts and prayers. And also Mr. Colbert's uh father passed away earlier this week as well. And so again, just keep
023keep their family in your thoughts and prayers as well. Uh obviously, we're right on the heels. Uh we're we're right here at the beginning of spring break. Everyone needs a break. Uh that emphasis on the everyone. So uh we certainly hope everyone will enjoy that when we come back from spring break. It's the mad dash to the end of the school year. This is just going to fly by. There's so many events that will take place. And so again, we hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable spring break. And that's all I have. >> Thank you. And board member reports. Um I know we had some people attend some things last month. I don't know if you have things you want to share or anyone else. Did was have we met since you went to
024the legislative? >> Okay. I slept since then. Um I do know that some things that were brought up while y'all were there are coming to a head right now. So I know uh Mr. Van Hus sent out uh an announcement of just some things and I think concerns for most boards um across the state and u again we just need to be uh be active and be vocal in support of public uh education and um again um we do it to with different guidelines and standards than others and um again I appreciate those I I know some of you, if not all of you, have sent letters and emails and um we uh we appreciate that. Anything else from any board member? All right. If not, uh Mr. Shimmerly, welcome. We'll hear from our city
025council liaison. I >> only have just a couple quick things. And those students that are here tonight, city council meets the second Thursday of each month. Love for you to be up there. their meetings are longer. I'm just >> Well, it depends, but yes, you're right. I have to for that. Um, back to school bash. I serve on a lot of different groups as director Van Hus does as well, but uh we talked about maybe a list for the vendors for the tables just as a suggestion. So, we won't all of us be going out and buying boxes of crayons and giving all the kids the same box of crayons. But, that would be helpful because we're getting ready to go out and make some purchases for back to school bash. We're looking forward to
026that. working those tables and getting our uh ch children and kids back to school when we get ready. Um also coming up here next month, it's hard to believe it's been a year already, but we've got budget workshops coming in this this year. It's not going to be a terrible year, but it's going to be a flat year pretty much. Only thing we're looking at as a city, we're looking at obviously pay increases. Always have to look at that. And we're looking at uh insurance obviously as well. Hopefully we'll keep our insurance down as we did last year. We're hoping, but we'll see on that. But uh that's coming up as well. Uh we do have our city retreat coming up here April the 16th through the 19th. That's when we go in, shut the
027doors, and basically fist fight. So we uh we we seriously we do a lot of planning at that three-day workshop. We do a lot of we finalize our budgets, but we do a lot of planning, a lot of discussions. So anything that the school system would like to get and get before council, please get it to us before midappril so we can take it with us and put on our list and to uh discuss and cuss and whatever we do. But we do again appreciate everything you do and appreciate the school system. Thank you. >> Thank you, M. >> All right. And student liaison, Miss Helen. >> So, two weeks ago, we got to host our first ever EHS club fair for the eighth graders who are visiting for a CTE tour. And that was
028super successful. And I'll just tell you a little bit about it. We hosted it in the courtyard. And we had all the different clubs come and set up a booth and just introduce their club to the eighth graders. and we heard from them that it was their favorite part of visiting the high school. So, we're really excited to do that again in coming years. And another new change is that we've expanded our offerings for weightlifting in order to encou to encourage all student athletes to also take weightlifting during the school day. So, we can just hold ourselves to a higher standard of excellence and it's a great way to use the RCAP. And some state news, as you probably heard, they didn't pass the code to cut world language requirements. And one thing our district
029represent representative said was that she got lots of emails from the community about just people's opinions. And I'm really proud of all of our community members and students who just stood up for us. That's it for me. >> Thank you. Um, it's now time for the regular agenda. First item on the agenda is to approve grant contract between state of Tennessee, Tennessee State Museum and Elizabeth and City Schools. Can I get a motion to approve? >> Motion to approve. >> Got a motion and I'll take one of those as a second. Mr. Bob, I'll use yours as a second. Um, >> yes. Yeah, absolutely. >> I'll hand it to you. >> I'm going to go ahead and uh call on Mr. Hensley if he'll come up. This is a a grant that will that he'll
030be managing and he'll tell you a bit about the project. It's a really neat project. So, I'm I thought it'd be great for him to share a little bit about that with you. So, >> it's uh thank you all for having me and thank you for considering this grant proposal. Uh so, this is part of uh federally this is part of the America 250 which has been a priority for the federal administration for this year and Tennessee came up with their own Tennessee 250 uh which is a way celebrate all the different ways that Tennessee history and culture has affected the formation of our nation. So grant funds were put out or an RFP was put out for grants uh for different ways for communities or institutions to celebrate parts of Tennessee history and culture.
031So, uh, I worked alongside Miss Foster, the theater teacher, um, and Miss Harden, the creative writing teacher, of what is a way that we could promote Elizabethan on a larger scale that we know important things that have happened here, but does the rest of Tennessee know, does the rest of the nation know? Uh so we put up a proposal that we would research and create a play about the uh Bimberg strike uh that happened in the 1920s that was led by women of Carter County. Um and then perform the play for the community and also film the play and promote that on the internet for anyone to be able to watch. Um so all of that will take place during the uh 2627 school year. the first half or the fall semester will be used
032for the research and the playwriting and the performance will take place in the spring semester. Uh the the grant is for $10,000. So the funds will go towards purchasing uh different uh props and costumes and such for the actual play and then also for uh small amounts to go to teachers for all their help outside of uh work hours. >> So who will actually write the script? Will that be >> Students will be doing >> Yeah. So students will do all of the work. >> That's great. >> Yes. >> So they'll do the research. Uh like we'll be working alongside partners like ETSU's Archives of Appalachia has a great collection on the Benberg strength. So that's already a built-in partner that I've talked to. Uh but they'll be the ones doing the leg work for
033all of it. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but from a historical standpoint, that was one event that really put a focus on worker conditions and things like that and really stepped the whole country forward from there. And I think from that strike, there were other strikes around the country that really shed a lot of >> So this was the first strike south of the Mason Dixon line and it happened in Elizabethon and it started a string of strikes at rayon factories led by women throughout the south as well. Uh, so this was one of the most important parts of labor history in America that most people don't know, including citizens of Carter County. >> And there's some actual video out, I don't know if you've ever seen it or not, that they took
034their actually the they called the National Guard in. They had they had gun turrets on top of Ben. It was it was a >> So I I have all of that footage at the high school. >> Yeah. >> Uh that was shared with me to have all of that in our archives. >> Yeah. It's really one of those things that we've kind of forgotten about, but it was was a big deal and really helped shape again. >> Yeah, there is a direct line from that happening and the formation of the 40-hour work week. >> That's really exciting. >> Any questions? >> Thank you. And thanks to Miss Harden and Miss Foster, too. >> Yes. >> And look forward to next year. >> We'll save a seat for you all. Where were the play and stuff?
035Where were you doing that? What will be the location or the venue that you use for the actual play? >> To be to be determined. >> Um TA Duggar might be a great place. Uh Bunny Kate if it's finished with their invasions. Maybe it'd be outdoors >> if weather permitting. Uh so to be determined. >> Good deal. >> Thank you. >> All right. That's fascinating. piece of history. >> Yes. All right. The item or any comments or questions. I just kind of blown away by >> If you want to see that video, go to the high school and Dustin can show you. It's It's really fascinating. >> Got some footage of First Baptist Church, too, on their funeral. Sorry. Yeah. It's pretty neat stuff. >> They show them picketing down what is Elk Avenue now
036in front of in front of Benberg. There's >> film footage from the 20s. >> Yes. >> Wow. >> 20. Was it 29? Was that right? When was the strike? >> So that's pretty close. Pretty close. Yes. >> Pretty close to 29. Yeah. >> He's been working all day. He don't >> Yeah. Yeah. Pretty close. >> All right. Okay. The item is to approve grant contract between the state of Tennessee, Tennessee State Museum, and Elizabeth and City Schools. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? And there are none. Okay. So, just to let you know and again for your all's benefit, if you still need time, uh we are having a quick budget workshop immediately after this meeting, but we will give people a chance if you need to leave before that budget
037workshop. Uh but just want to let you know we will still be meeting, but we'll take just a minute or two recess before we get started. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion. Thank you all for being here. We'll take about two minutes, three minutes recess, and then we'll get started right back.