2.27.25 B.O.E. Work Session & Business Meeting

001well usually it's up here e e this good evening we are now beginning the Germantown Municipal School District Board of Education work session on February 27th 2025 it is 4:34 p.m. first item on the agenda is the capital Improvement project discussion Mr Manuel and Mr Kathy I believe we're gonna get us going yes we will um so a lot of the information that we'll be referring to is in your District update also so if you want to turn to page 20 21 22 23 24 25 uh and 26 but we're gonna start on page 20 in your book um it's time for us to start moving on projects and um always just want to get the board it's a opinion on how we're moving through these projects as you know once we actually go out

002to bid for the projects you approve them all in individually so this isn't the actual official approval process we're just wanting to really um gauge your interest and desire to continue with the plan the way that uh it is laid out when we do the five-year Master's facility plan so before we do that I want to talk a little bit about where we are fiscally and and how would we pay for uh the things that we are proposing because as you know when we developed that plan that's really based on Architects and Engineers Mr Kathy's Department they're looking at how things are wearing down the number of work orders that are submitted for roofs for different parts of the buildings that's really how they determine the or the order and the sequence of the items

003on that list um but as you know that's just a list it's not a funding plan for those projects so um that's really where we need you all to sit down and and for us to talk about the order that we want to proceed so where are we uh financially and how do we want to accomplish uh some of these uh objectives that we have in this current fiscal year so if you see there um on the first page we have saved in the past two fiscal years over8 million that has rolled into our Reserve so as you know we always try to budget very conservatively and we want to make sure that if we had any challenges or issues we are always leaving the reserve that's needed to pay the bills but we think

004it's time to use some of that Reserve to handle the projects that we currently are uh that are proposed in that plan so as you can see just in the past uh two fiscal years and F fcal year 2223 there was 4.6 million in unallocated funds at the end of the year in fiscal year 23 were there was 3.6 million in unallocated funds um our current total Reserve balance is $4,240 so if you want to know uh where we are in the current fiscal year and that's going to be important as we talk about how we want to uh accomplish the projects moving forward so if you look and anyone can go see this on our website if they want to uh under our departments and if you go to operations and you go to

005our five-year Master facility plan you can see the projects that uh we have proposed and and the order that we want to accomplish them and we have really done a lot of work and accomplished a lot of the things in this current fiscal year but as you know the things that were already accomplished and we already encumbered the the money we already went out to bid for projects the Houston High track U and field uh Stadium renovation that has been uh approved we went out to bid that project is scheduled uh we have the Farmington wireless access points which have been completed the Dogwood wireless access points and that's for the internet um wireless internet service those have been completed the houst ey elevator replacement that one the board has also approved and encumbered that

006money so those things have been accomplished so as we are making plans for how we are going to U proceed this summer uh that's we're looking at the projects that were not uh already accomplished so what are we talking about so the first projects uh that we think uh we want to accomplish are smaller but they will have a really large impact on that school so first let's talk about the Riverdale projects uh that we want to um go ahead and move forward so one of the things that you know about the Riverdale Community is they are hardworking and they don't complain a lot they just put their nose to the grindstone and they work hard but sometimes to a fault um as we've been going out to Riverdale and I think you saw this

007when we went out to really advocate for the preschool funding and we brought legislators over there they have teachers and staff in the hall providing services and they actually put up the medical Nets and and right there next to their teacher Lounge they're out there providing small group intervention there uh if you go and you're looking for the financial secretary or you're looking for the sped secretary they're actually in the gym storage closet that's where they have the four secretaries set up uh in that building so we have realized that with some very small changes to the facility and we're going to bid these as two separate projects based on this conversation that um we can have some major impact on where people are providing instruction for students so what they have realized and if

008you turn to page 22 you can see what we're talking about and some pictures and there's actually a picture of the medical net or screen that is set up to so they're educating students behind that medical net you can see where they're actually uh in a corner providing instruction to students they have had less and less use of lockers um at Riverdale than when we first designed this building 10 years ago so an easy uh solution for us is to remove those lower Banks of lockers they have three Banks of lockers one in the downstairs area of the new building building and two in the upstairs area you can see it on page 22 on the blueprint you can see where they're talking about the two sets of um bays and what they want to

009do with those spaces they're not loadbearing walls that they would be putting in but they would be removing those lockers they could use some of them in other spaces around the school so they're going to address that as we go through but they would turn those three spaces one of them into four offices for the clerical staff that are currently in that storage closet outside the PE and the two upstairs one would become instructional spaces so you would have a smaller space so they could provide speech services OT PT they could provide intervention RTI um these would be small instructional spaces so you're talking about one teacher with maybe eight children seven children could be one to three depending on the needs that they have so that's the first smaller recommendation it does go above

010my threshold for approval if we go and this is just an estimate until we go out to to bid for these but estimated cost is 200,000 for the those projects so does anyone have questions about um that project and we can pay that out of our current what you've already budgeted uh for this fiscal year for projects I have questions about the Riverdale interventions or office spaces I just wanted to say that um having seen this live um and heard from multiple parents who interestingly enough it is right there outside the teachers which is where the PTO board meets once a month so the most active parents in our district at that school were the ones that kept walking by and seeing this happening and it was like Hey I knew great intervention was going

011on I had all the confidence in the world in that but it was a matter of this looks like a little triage like you would expect this to be the clinic you know um and I I personally saw the flashcards in the in the very uh very small ratio intervention taking place when I walked out of there a PTO meeting myself and I was like huh okay and then had a conversation with the superintendent just about some of the parent feedback and then over time when I was there last year with Mr Bond for Schoolboard Appreciation Week it came up then as well so I really just say all that to say that I appreciate people one speaking up because everything that superintendent said about Riverdale 100% true and it's been that way since day

012one since the forever that's always been the way of Riverdale that has been the mindset we'll make it happen we'll just figure it out we're just gonna do it we're gonna find a way and they'll do it well given whatever the circumstances are that they're having to deal with um but I I really appreciate the people that spoke up and advocated for this need and for the appropriate um spaces for our clerical staff my goodness like again we have space you can use it like this that's not what it was intended for and so identifying this um and then acting on it I appreciate the consideration for um you know and I know that all these things we're going to talk about here today note all cost or pre- bid estimates as you just said

013but this is something that's very reasonable I feel like and will have a lot of impact are there any other questions on that first project once again as the project goes forward and uh we will come back to you uh once we've taken it out to bid and the board has the choice to approve that project at that time or deny it but we just want to make sure that we're keeping you informed that this is how we're proceeding moving forward the next um project before you move on yeah I was comment too I was Riverdale this past month or so and saw these spaces and it is uh these are spaces that you know while the lockers are there they could be used in more efficient ways but um also I think it's it's

014good to point out these intervention spaces I mean this is just a change in the way that uh education is done now like it's not necessarily that we have to have more more classrooms but you need more spaces where you can uh tutor or right or do the other services that we're providing yeah and that's one of the things that's changed over time RTI didn't exist when we first started as a district as a a state initiative that we have and uh the tutoring programs that we have with the one to3 ratio and the third grade retention or promotion law depending on what you call it and the tutoring that's that goes along with that all those didn't exist as we first designed this building so we're just trying to stay current and and meet

015their needs we've also seen a huge growth in the special ed preschool program like we've talked about that that that's been expanded to two sections at that school so we've had added additional instructional spaces and that's why uh these things have kind of been uh left behind and like I said the school does a great job of making doe but we don't want our schools to make doe we want them to have the right facilities and right uh things to support their programs okay um if there are no other questions on that first project uh another one that we are considering is the orchestra space that they have um also when we went there on the tour and this is a concern for many in the building the orchestra does not have a a space

016in order to instruct their students so they set up in the multi-purpose room they store their instruments in the hallway in that main hallway there um it is a huge distraction for all the classrooms that are around there because they know that they're going to be fighting with the sound that's coming from that Orchestra room uh and this has been something that once again we we have heard over the the past few years from parents who are like oh we're making it doe but this isn't exactly the the way it should be so another project that once again we would bid these separately for us would be uh to add around 1,200 square feet and this is just an estimate pre-design we haven't even gone to architect yet to do this um this would be

017downstairs across from the new art room that's in the addition um if you go there's a metal wall that actually is magnetic that would become double doors that or doors that would go into this uh music space it would have potentially some storage uh space for the instruments there but to get them out of the multi-purpose room and out of the hallway uh into an actual instructional space I think would have a huge impact on that school so yeah I agreed completely that's that's been a huge need over there for you know I guess for many years um and we were there during the tour that day and they were using the m and Mr short I think sometimes has to actually do some clean up in that area just to be able to teach

018the class and so I was looking here at the satellite view so I between the New Edition and the old Edition uh there's a sidewalk it looks like it runs in there so we're thinking it wouldn't go the sidewalk would probably have to be relocated but it wouldn't go all the way back to the old part no no we would run this parallel to the building but once again we haven't taken this to architect I mean we we' mentioned it to the Architects that it's something we want to consider but we haven't gone through schematic yet but I was wondering how we would do it because just thinking about the property um and where we would go with it but I I think it's completely appropriate this is a huge need over there uh you

019know for me personally prioritizing obviously the office intervention but I would say you know the orchestra and all that because that frees up the multipurpose area to do a lot of stuff that you down the music there was greatti but if you're teaching a math class store it is probably not but no this is a huge need and so I'm glad to see that this is a consideration I i' had been thinking about this but wasn't sure how we go about it but yeah I'm certainly supportive of this so once again as as we move forward we'll come with more images and diagrams and civil engineers would be involved but the Architects actually said this is a place that it could could go for us and I was just going to say this is again

020a need that I've heard from parents and teachers there since I've been on the board okay I just is been an ongoing ask it's been identified for some time and you talk about how the shift since we've been a district the needs and and you know the evolution of how the space is utilized that's the beauty of it um and right now when we had the um committees for the Houston High master plan this got brought up a lot the Riverdale Orchestra and it was interesting because it was all about my child wants to potentially go there and grow in this amazing program but this is what they're dealing with at this stage and level and I'm GNA tell you right now there's already kids at the high school that came from this program in

021the multi-purpose room playing that are some of the youngest all West All State Orchestra um participants and it's just been a matter of we weren't thinking like this our Orchestra program has has bloomed in a way that again when you were thinking of hey Miss where are these people going to be whether it be choir whether it be band you know um the needs have have have Arisen and it's really important that we stay a little Nimble and I think that's what we're doing but we're seeing success of that program and the growth of that program so having a a space that really is specific for music Fine Arts in general I think is another commitment to the Arts that that we are constantly talking about um improving upon and again it's it's laying the

022groundwork for you know future progress of students but mainly like some of this other stuff but really this one is one that that the families that are in this program and and have been in this program and the staff that has made it so much of what it is this is really something that they have been passionately advocating for so I'm so happy to see that it is um on the list okay are there any other questions on riverdale's programs the next uh big project that we want to accomplish is uh something that this board has identified um and we've talked about it for several years moving away from the modular classrooms that we had both Farmington and Dogwood uh to provide brick and mortar solutions for those schools so the first project that we're

023going to tackle would be Farmington and then next would be uh in the next fiscal years would be dogwoods program but we're going to start with Farmington because as we look at the facilities historically even before we grew and we saw our our district formed uh farmton has had portable classrooms out back uh in the field behind the school uh when we uh switched over to the maer classrooms which is a really good solution to what we have but it's not something that we want permanently because uh when you think about Safety and Security having one centralized building with exterior doors locked is safer than students coming to and from even though we have locked doors and we do our best that's something that this board has talked about in the past that we want

024to make sure that we are providing a brick and mortar solution so on pages 24 and 25 you can see and we have gone farther with this with the Architects uh to actually sit down look at the campus look at locations of utilities um look at the spaces that we have there we're talking about adding at farmton elementary school um on the that's the the south side of the school U it's the first drive so it's the one that the buses currently go uh down it's the smaller of the drives it's not the one on the playground side you know there's a drive closer to the the playground out there this is the one on the other side in between the houses and the school it would be back there in that drive that we

025would add uh this space so what they're talking about adding are three um Fine Arts spaces and you can see those classrooms there these would mirror what we see when we created the brand at Riverdale what we have at Forest Hill Elementary School and this is what we were going to want to do at Dogwood to when when the time comes we're going to want to add a true Art Space that has higher volumes sound baffling sinks for paint 21st Century Furniture so if you look at any of those art classrooms that's what we're talking about building there in between that space we would have a multi-purpose space and the or a dual utilization space just like we do it have at Forest Hill a room that can be both an art room and a

026music room so you have more sound baffling you have storage for instruments but you also have sinks uh there that's that middle artmusic space there and then you have a true uh dedicated art room that would be on the end music is perfectly set further down in the building so it's farther away from academic classrooms um but we would want to also have Kil and storage spaces there to the south of that um you see three classroom spaces uh that we are intending to use two of them for preschool spaces that's why they have the bathrooms in between uh and then there would be one additional classroom that's next to to those two preschool spaces um there are two office spaces there for counselors because they're currently uh in the modular there and then we

027have a a unit that is attached but it would have a separate function for us uh we currently have our durm toown Online Academy that uh they use uh facilities here they have Offices here but they also use spaces in churches to provide assessments U Mr cath I'm not sure where else they're currently Tess or miss out over you can say or oh Union uh on unions campus over there near that's where they're actually U providing assessments for students and testing for students so they're just trying to make it work right now um this project would also attach that one uh space for the Online Academy so you can see it's got one classroom attached with three office spaces for their staff and then there's also uh some toilets for for that space so when

028they're doing assessments when they're Pro bringing students in uh to take their benchmark assessments or their end of course assessments they can take those there uh in that space so we think that would be a a good use uh for this project and another piece to this too May really um and we're going to have to go out to bid once again we got to see what we can afford we'll do it as uh bid alternates um we are assuming that we're going to have to build um a road around the back of this building because as you know whenever we deal with the Fire Marshall and we construct something they're going to want to get their fir truck within so many feet of every corner of that building so part of this project too

029is to bring the drive completely around uh that school that would have a huge impact on the car rider line uh on Cordis you could then staff staff it and run it just like you do at Forest H elementary school where you can bring the cars in get them off the main streets and get them around the campus uh so we think our neighbors would be greatly pleased by this addition um this does have two costs to it 5.5 million for the construction and then 1 million for the removal of the current modulars 100,000 sorry um sorry not 100 million sorry I'm speaking too fast 100,000 for the removal of the modulars because as you know there are Plumbing connections electrical connections uh currently on that site so Mr Kathy's here he can answer questions

030for us about this project or I'm willing to also all right so looking at the satellite here it looks like the existing uh prek playground would probably have to be moved that's correct it would have to be it would have to be either moved or what we would do is similar to what the city just did over in Houston Levy Park you know they're moving the playground that's there back to the three acres that they retain so we would do a similar assessment to see see if the play equipment is worth moving or if it would be more uh if it would be the thing to do to put a new playground in but either way it it would have to move that's correct and one of the things that we may also look at

031too we may want to move that anyway because if we we if we have our two preschool classrooms here connected here we may want to make it look like Forest Hill does where it's actually attached to the classroom so they can go in and out of that space and EAS of obviously there's a cost associated with that but it's not you know we're not talking can't imagine hundreds of thousands to do that um so I know there was talk I know Miss Brassfield I think they raised a bunch of money for a regular playground over there because they were having to dual utilize the park which obviously there's a lot of concerns with that so where did I don't know where they settled on that new playground where is it going where does that fit

032in here so that would go uh in between where the addition would be going and where the uh for lack of better terms where the fields are uh where where where they're um and we actually looked at that because they're obviously chomping at the bit to get started with the playground which would move faster than the addition so it would go in between that in in between that space where the fields currently are and where the addition would go and where the modular currently are all right then my last question and I'm fully supportive of this this is a huge need over there and I also think we're GNA see some growth there I don't know how much but with Glasco going and I don't know what you know as fast as they're building houses

033over here I don't know how fast they're going to go in glasow and I know some of them are you know at least they're going to go for minimum age at some point but I think it's going to be open so I think that area in particular is poised you know depending on the price range I think that area is poised for some growth so I think for us to be out in front of it I think it's a as a proper move um all right I'm looking at the budget for this year it doesn't break down specifically it just says 180,000 for module release payments for modular at both Farmington and Dogwood so do we have a breakdown of how much it's costing current Farmington and you I'll circle around why I'm asking here

034just a second sure uh Dogwood is 100 of that and Farmington is 80 of that because Dogwood currently has eight modular classrooms and Farmington currently has six other way around okay so it's not really freeing up that much but it does free up you know we'll just up say 100,000 of capital each year that we're currently outlaying that best free takes a while to get back to you know 5.5 million but but at least it is something where we we would have money make this investment we have money now a little bit to tackle some of the smaller projects that we have the list so okay thank you and I think that um this conversation's been going on for a really long time as a superintendent said about the modular you know the return on

035investment you know lease versus brick and mortar and three I guess how many boards are we into now where this has been a long time coming a lot of good work's been done again shift with the preschool um enrollment and also just the needs from the classroom and then the goal addition with that ability for office and assessment it it really is kind of perfect timing in my opinion um thankful again for for the record those modulars they're nice and they're they're just not part of the building um we've come a long way in those compared to the old portable days but I think when people in our community think about Portables we always talk about Riverdale and I think it was two meetings ago we were discussing how Farmington was part of that way

036back too there was a lot of that going on for a long time in that field and so to to reimagine like when I just turned it here and I'm like trying to imagine like this whole new landscape of that campus in the heart of town um utilization Improvement and and just more like getting people together in the building this to me is is really this is kind of a special project but it's also a really um smart project very prudent from the standpoint of getting everybody together in the building and I'm excited to hear about some of the other little parts that are going to go along with that and I'm most excited that it's only going to be $100,000 to get the other stuff out I'm joking but I'm not rounding up to

037me 80 is still good but it's not quite a 100 um and these are all pre-bid estimates but I think that it's really going to be special for the People The Neighbors in that Community with uh as a superintendent said just that traffic pattern if I didn't live right down the street from it and know all about it if you don't live in that part of town that's G to change people's lives y'all I mean moms dads caregivers uh staff children bus drivers everybody working that car line uh and so we've seen the ability to do that in some of our other Renovations and how it's made a Major Impact for the Neighbors as well so I'm excited that this potentially could really free up some of that and get cars off the road just

038a couple comments from me I think again the Improvement in safety is very important just to have ex said one entrance one exit for the whole school I think also um it's important to note you know we're adding some art classes of course we have art classes there but those aren't art classes that are really functional again they're maybe a little bit bigger they have a sync but you're really not even supposed to put paint and and things down the sink and so it's just not a it's not what it's really supposed to be used for and so it will be great for all of our students to have spaces that are meant for what they're supposed to be learning um with the goal Edition would Dr fiser and her team be moving their offices

039out there dayto day or yes yes that would become their office space like we said it would be separate from the I think that's all I question about the Portables are we uh on any lease with those breaking the lease no we're not breaking the lease we're we're on a year-to-year lease with with those now so and like it's it's expensive uh we got into this I mean I suppose we've spent $1.8 million on yeah so early on we said oh no we're not going to be these modular they're only going to be here for for five years so we're going to do it but no we're I think you're eight now for having these but yes it is originally it was a a fiveyear lease I think when we started maybe four yeah and

040then we went year to year the company actually owns them so they'll come get those and then we'll have to that's the $100,000 we'll deal with the infrastructure other questions on Farmington and last but not least as you know we are wanting to um start making those improvements uh at Houston High School and so one of the things that we've talked about that we've done at all of our other schools is change out the ceiling Tow and grid and moving to LED lighting in those schools we actually had a bid opening today uh and so we're hopeful that we can bring that to the board if um if they choose uh for this project we have estimated costs but we think we had a good bid day that'll be less than this but this project

041um would be in two phases so the the this cost is for the first phase which would include uh ceiling to grid and LED lighting upstairs at Houston High School but it also um will cover common areas I think it's covering the auditorium Lobby and it's covering the main lobby in those spaces and the a building as well the Annex Building so the four areas that Mr Manuel hit the second floor in the main building the main entrance for the school the area over by the gym and Auditorium that's our most public facing space when we have events and things of that nature and then the the uh the Annex Building so four spaces and so then it would be a smaller project um in the next year but we don't believe that it would

042be too big a project to accomplish in one year if we wanted to go ahead and do all of the ceiling to grid so that's why they broke it apart it wasn't a cost function it was because of how much work can they get done uh during the summer time time when we try to push this all in so then the next year we would want to try to accomplish and and we'll come back to the board and ask again to do the the lower areas and then also painting too so yeah so I appreciate when we talked last night about that you kind of answer my question because I was thinking I I meant to ask why why the second floor the first and not because I was wanting the lobby for the main

043impression and around so we're we're tackling the areas that the people are going to when they come that's correct as much as I would like to see the cafeteria and try to do something there with ceilings that could be part of a larger project and so that doesn't make any sense to really put a ton into that when that there could be hopefully there will be that's right some I think doing that upstairs in the main areas I think will be uh really good yeah I think you we've all talked I think we're all in s page I think any any money we can put in Houston High money well spent at this point I think um you know and we will I haven't heard a single negative about any of the LED and ceiling

044TI grids at the other schools I think the teachers like the ability to customize the lights and there there some things they can do in the classroom so I've gotten really good feedback from teachers when I'm in classrooms I think they like that I think they like the fact that you know they if they leave the room they don't you know they forget the turn life light's going to go off and so just from an energy standpoint I know over there I don't know how many thousands of florescent light bars that we have but I know it's going to be really nice to not have to change those out so I see nothing but positive that there will be a cost savings on utilities as as as well as maintenance uh due to the frequency

045of the having to replaced the ballast and the bulbs with these complex fluorescents and in addition to that the if you just go into Houston High School and look up the the what the current condition of the ceiling tile grid and lights does not match the brand that we want to have so and then one last question I'm in the I'm in the gym for games and stuff did we ever do anything with lights in there so are they LED in there now in the gym both gyms in the P gym and the main gy those were converted to LEDs okay perfect okay thank you I just when we did the project at Houston Middle School the overwhelming feedback about simply the sealant Ty and grid impact on the daytoday instructional environment was like Game

046Changer it it didn't matter you could talk to a sixth grader seventh grader eighth grader someone in this program someone in that program teacher staff admin parents first impression when they walk in the feel is is totally different it is and that was before all the fancy stuff I'm not even talking about the new stuff I'm talking about the old original building and just the I mean my own children were like okay it's totally different in there what's the deal and I'm like you know how the old light bulbs and the new light bulbs and how if you do this and you open the light this way this is where people are learning and it is transformational and it seems so simple and basic but I do believe that it has such a significant just

047if you're going to be there all day do you want to be in an environment that you feel a little more warm a little more welcoming and a little more open and Airy and um I think that something so subtle really does have a major impact and when we've invested even in other schools outside of Houston Middle School in the past on this same thing it really is remarkable people's people are thinking about fancy stuff but sometimes I go y'all do ask around and people say this is one of the projects that we look to do and it has the bigest impact for the most people and I just I'm thrilled that um it's on it's on the list it's been on the list it's something we've talked about for a long time we've talked

048about it as part of the master plan and I know we talked about do we do it separate and there's a lot of thoughts about that and everybody's answered all those questions and we know then what happens next to um I believe board member Curry's point we know what the next things are but this is something we can do and we'll have immediate impact that will improve instructional environment of our single high school I think you're right on it's not part of it's not brand standard based on where we are everywhere else and to do that here it is just going to be a game Cher um so I really appreciate it being part of this discussion and there's a lot of work that went into this I was really excited to hear about bids

049and um I'm looking forward to when I see construction summer 20125 as a possibility depending on how this goes down that is huge so thank you so how do we pay for it Mr you have questions that maybe get to it I was just going to say uh as far as the Houston ey master plan had there been continued discussions funding discussions with the city and you have any update um the last conversation that we had with the city the essence of it was basically you know we had a lot of meetings and provided a lot of information but the last message was that was delivered to us was was we have done our part they have everything they need from gmsd now they have got to get with their bonding consultant they've got to

050get with the fac and they've got to formulate a plan so I guess that's a long way to say the ball is really kind of in their court at this point but we have given everything that's requested and if we need to do anything else we we will do that so as I started this out these are the projects and like I said we we didn't just pull them out of anywhere this was on The Five-Year Master facility plan the only one we moved up was Riverdale based on the need um for us but we have uh rolled just over 8.3 million just in the past two years into our reserve and so um the goal here is to take $5 million from Reserve to help pay for these we're also expecting money from the

051County commission for this fiscal year over $2 million from County Commission U that we should be receiving and we've a on average we've got received uh about 2 million to 2 .5 million from the County Commission every year for Capital funding and um because these projects would straddle fiscal years we would also want to use that next uh $2 million from the County Commission to complete this um if not once again we have money from um our Reserve additional money we're only right now proposing that five million uh after we complete this year's projects then we will come back to you in the next year and say okay we're ready to move down the list and then the other things we want to T tackle obviously are H Woods uh modular classrooms finishing the ceiling

052Tow and grid um at Houston High School but we'll have you can go back to the project list looking in future years to see how we want to accomplish these but I want to give the board an update um once again yall don't have to approve anything for this I just wanted to see whether we're heading in the right general direction of how to accomplish this we will be bringing each of these to you for approval um once we go out to bed and and move forward Mr G and I want to point out we're also getting unexpected I know it's not mentioned here we are getting a million dollars from the state from being a high performing District um coming in before the guess before the end of the fisc year that that's what

053our Representatives said that they were going to so assuming that that assuming that check is delivered as promised I think it even opens us up because that was money we had no idea was coming didn't budget for um and I I certainly would not ever want to budget for that bonus money uh but I think there are some things that we can even look at possibly doing I would encourage us to try to to put that money in you know whether it's doing some extra parking with the you know doing something with the skate park you know doing some things behind school I think I think anything that we can do with that money just plow it straight into Houston because again it's unexpected no no budget item is just take congratulations which again that's

054a testament to the work our teachers and students are doing but I would like to see us uh I guess I'll go on record say for the board for my fellow board members I'd like to see us take that money and and plow it into to that project um because again we know that we're not gonna you know City's not going to do everything and so the things lwh hanging fruit items I think those are things that we can do exact the parking comes to mind for that is that is a complaint there's there's a lot that we can do so I I would I would encourage us and hope that we would look at like that with that body we will is there any further discussion on the capital Improvement project presentation here this

055is a great book as part of the update thank you that gets us to agenda item number two miscellaneous fiscal year 2425 budget amendments miss good evening I'm presenting budget amendment number 19 which is our final allocation for fy2 Consolidated funding application for our title funding and we receive estimates in the spring and then we receive um our actual estimated allocation in the in the early fall and then the final allocation will come anywhere from December to May and so this one we received in February thankfully there was not a big change which they had already told us that they were not expecting a big change this time um so for title two we can see that we have um an additional $858 that we would like to place in our inservice staff development account

056and then also for title four excuse me for title three we received an additional $33 that we would like to place with instructional supplies and materials so I'm happy to answer any questions if no discussion on 19 or questions uh amendment number 20 all right likewise budget amendment number 20 is the final allocation for idea funding for Part B and preschool and for Part B we received $2,159 to close out our final allocation and we are requesting that to add to our contracts with private agencies for speech therapy you know different um vision therapy everything in that with those contracts and then also for preschool we received an additional $370 and we are putting that into indirect cost so I'm happy to attempt to answer questions any questions on budget amendment number 20 303 370

057and we're making magic with it the best we can that's right thank you very much agenda item number three approval of special course application for honors Humanities so our special course application just to give you some background knowledge on where this came from um the State Board of Education Rule and special course policy allows local education agencies the ability to apply to offer special courses not listed in the state board's approved High School course policy and the Department of Education um annually reviews these courses and so they can approve them for one year or three years or six years dependent upon typically the next standards revision cycle for that particular course that the special course aligns to mostly and the one that we are bringing to you today is for honors Humanities which we have

058had at Houston High School since before we could remember Mr Emanuel and I were talking it was there when I started in 95 so this is a formal process we go through every time it comes up for renewal and it is one of our more popular elective courses this is an elective offering that students can choose to take and the gist of it you can see in the application itself um we have a very thorough application with um the rationale behind how this benefits our students and I just want to read the introductory part to you on honors Humanities it offers students a unique and enriching opportunity to explore the foundations of human culture creativity and intellectual thought this course goes beyond traditional history and literature classes by weaving together art philosophy religion and political

059thought into a comprehensive study of human civilization so we love the cross-curricular component and if you had a chance to look through the standards that it's aligned to it's all the way from American history world history Fine Arts English psychology sociology um so it runs the gamut and is an an awesome opportunity for our students to experience some critical thinking while diving into multiple content areas so I'm happy to answer any questions that you have on our honors Humanities application any questions discussion I appreciate I've read through the application I was trying to think so do you think would this be grade level wise we think this would be more of an upper class um course or underclass so we make it available to any grade level 9th through 12th grade but we do tend

060to have more 10th 11th grade students even seniors also we don't have very many fresh obviously I guess you're always going to have some some synergies I feel like from reading through at least they some components of AP human like I think some of the things in there so I I didn't know so this isn't necessarily this would be maybe so if you took apum this would be it wouldn't be redundant necessarily it would be maybe more of a suppl class exactly yeah there could be some connection for sure but is it um definitely is a lot different than apum so is the plan to offer this uh in the up I guess next week they're going to start with the catalog the plan to offer this tenant or pending approval by the state we

061already we already offered this program so this is this is a renewal oh oh oh sorry okay guess I this is new so we're gonna offer it assuming that we're gonna yes so we've been submitting it like Mr Manel we think since before 1995 and they've never denied this application it was new sorry the only question question is basically how long like one time I think in 20181 19 they only approved it for one year the last time they approved it for six years so it it kind of depends on the cycle of the standards that come up so for example when social studies comes under standards revision again if it's coming up in two years they might only approve this for two years okay never mind I guess that's my fault for overlooking it

062in the course cat okay but so but assume we're going to operate on the Assumption yes and we always have the disclaimer with any elect of course that it's it's dependent upon how many students requested and Staffing question with it being an honest course are there any prerequisites that have to be taken before that is a very good question and this is one of the few courses where you do not have to have a prerequisite um so any student could sign up to take it um it's it's a wonderful opportunity for students to who have never taken an honors class that that would be a good way to to dip their toes into that I appreciate you pointing that out because anything social studies related in there is something coming up we've recently I know

063there's been um the department put out last year I guess um the questionnaire you know trying to get feedback from people about as they are moving to look at those standards again for reevaluation um my first thing was okay no prerequisite one credit year long maybe a way to just sort of expose when I read it through I was like oh my God this is like my dream class like where was this um it was a combination of a few things across town back in the mid 90s but I do think that um as I mean if it continues to be based currently that's what I was going to ask you how many sections do we currently have this year we have two sections typically have about two two to three sections demand and the

064interest is is very reasonable okay have somebody that's you know about to be going to the to the high school and um this might be a great suggestion um I appreciate you going over that I know we've been through these a couple of times and sometimes there are ones that we a little more like uh oh what do what does everybody think about this at the state department what does everybody think about this from a standpoint of hand on the pulse of community type things but this one's been around for so long and it's been so popular for so long I'm hopeful they'll just keep it going thank you for the information all right thank you that takes us to I cannot wait agenda item number four new club fee duck cluck Goose poultry hatching

065Club so they have student interest in a sponsor at the high school to offer a new club as you said the name it is a poultry hatching Club and so they want to charge $10 uh a $10 fee for students to join this club so they ask us for to ask for board approval is there an opportunity for us to uh use the eggs and help pay for some of the Capital Improvements so so there will actually be birds at the school and they've had birds in the past I know Miss P for a long time was did hatchings in her classroom too because parents would say don't send that chicken home to my house uh because it seems nice at first but then you may get a Pablo who's very loud in the community

066so there are limits on what poultry you can have in Germantown but yes they they have had chicks in the past that we hatch and I believe that's the plan but I can't say for sure what would the club fee be $10 I think is the club fee and like we said they might turn some of that into $30 in a hurry it'll be it'll be on on the market um okay and we will just approve that and it'll add to the list like always um for any club fees and we will update it assuming it's approved thank you agenda item number five here we go resolution to meet requirement for Teacher bonuses under education Freedom Act I'm going to is there anyone I know there's a few um versions out there if I may

067may I if board okay with it if we start with um Miss pman and kind of on her guidance based off of what we originally published I think we have a couple of other things to consider to discuss and everybody has had that those made available to them I think it's important to kind of begin and then let's massage if that's okay with everybody um I know we all had some internal struggles about how the language should read here um and um at the end of the day I I did speak with um Nolan comes at um tsba um about their version uh or their initial version let me just say that and um I asked him if other boards would have alternative versions and he said that you know he suspected that they would

068um one of the biggest um putting aside my personal views and and concerns I uh tried to make it relatively vanilla for um lots of reasons but um one of the things I felt strongly about was is that we specifically add a section in there U that gives um people an idea of who will get the bonus to the extent we know at this point and so we lifted the language straight from the statue um and again as obtuse as it is uh right now from the from the position of the state and everyone what we were trying to do is to Telegraph to people that not everyone typically falls into the teacher definition would get this because we've already started having calls Fielding calls uh from people saying when am I going to get

069my money and um making sure they're going to get their money and that sort of thing and so um at the commencement of this um journey I guess we'll say um some people thought that for example preschool the pre the preschool teachers would not receive it and now some thought that they would receive it again if anybody's listening don't put that in stone but uh and that was to be illustrative of you know where we're going with this thing of things that we don't know and things that we're trying to still learn about who this is going to apply to so anyway that I felt strongly about um that we should include is is the um the idea that not everybody's going to get this and in particular the statute is clear that it will

070only apply to those School based individuals or people who uh provide Direct Services at schools and so um you know in Tennessee code uh the term teacher in different sections is defined differently and so uh in a lot of the sections teacher is defined so broadly that it applies to people in the district office um you know who are certificated uh it applies to counselors it applies to this person and that person and so um this is something different than that so that's why I feel so strongly about including that language or whatever you prefer that speaks to that point in there um so I I guess I can answer any questions that you have U about my methodology uh of drafting it but as you see it specifically um refers back to the statute

071without any kind of emotional or opinion in there and even though I understand the reason and respected and had the inclination to do that myself so that all makes sense I appreciate you taking the time to walk through that I think it's important you know we learned uh one of the first things I learned getting on the Schoolboard is okay first of every year the governor whoever it is doesn't have to be the current governor um there's this joke amongst the industry that they're going to come out and pres their budget and they're always going to talk about teacher raises and it's all cute because everybody says this this and this and that doesn't apply to all the people but people know what they heard on the you know on the news everybody's getting rais

072everybody's getting raised everybody's getting this much rais and that doesn't always exactly play out in this case however this is not just about this is about saying somehow I I I don't know you've been doing this a lot longer than me has there ever been another time when in order to receive funds uh to your knowledge and your recollection that school boards had to actually make this type of uh an approved resolution in order to receive compensation well I think that there's always that um veiled um piece in in lots of legislation that requires us to do certain things before we get the money but I can't think of anything that smacks of I'm trying to choose my words carefully quid proquo really hard time and I'm not trying to put you on the spot

073I genuinely I'm like it's just real life um I think I think that it it's this is probably the example of the most distasteful would be the kindest word I would have of effort to make us do something before people get their money thank you um this I was just gonna point out I couldn't really stomach listening to much of the discussion of the bill when it was in the general assembly Mr Curry you may have made yourself slog through some of that but my understanding and this goes back to our general assembly's distrust of public school boards and public school districts is that representative Seiki required this because their understanding is they give money to school districts and he didn't want it to just sit in the general fund like it wasn't going to

074be spent for the purpose that they want it to be on teachers now I think a lot of that goes back to even when we were under BP funding where they say we're gonna give uh a 2% raise to teachers well the problem is that just funded the number of teachers that were essentially allocated to a district not of course the number of teachers that a district actually needed or wanted to have so yes a teacher would not end up getting a 2% raise because we have more teachers than the state funded and so you're spreading at along a larger pot um so I think that's at least from Reading articles is where this has come from I I think there probably is some ulterior motive of wanting to be able to say look you

075know we had 100% of school districts in the state say they want to participate in this uh without know you know probably filling in the fact that we're making them do this I I think that's dead on and and I think to butress your point is the fact that it wasn't in the original bill which took months upon months upon months to craft to begin with so if it was such a concern it does call into question why it wouldn't if if it if it were for the reason that is purported to be the reason why it wouldn't have made it to the first you know draft it's it's a little confounding to be frank and of course the months and months spent working on it were behind the scenes without involvement of anyone but

076a select few number of general assembly members I've thought a little bit about this I know I sent y'all a draft version early on it was pretty simple I think it was like two two statements um you I guess the department is the one that's going to read this right so this goes to the to the State Department well I'd like to know who I guess I'd like to know who's ultimately reading this because that would I think determine my feelings on Crafting it one way or another well that was what was um the impression that was left was that it would be filed under some e plan eat plan that's the where we upload all of our documents that would give you the Imp that you know it's just you know proor and nobody's

077really going to look at it but then today when we received an email from tsba saying Senate leadership asked that for that ask tsba to rewrite their first resolution recommendation by extracting certain language it makes you kind of Wonder you know well if it's just Pro why would they be that involved to have gone to tspa even as late as today to say we recommend that it not have certain language in it so I wish I could know the answer to your question so I think the reason I ask that is because depends on who's reading it I'd like to you know depending on the audience I'd like to have aware as that I think it's unconscionable that they're giving uh wealthy families money when they're not funding their uh Early Childhood special education obligations

078and I think it needs to be pointed out and thrown in their face but if it's not really going anywhere then it's not that's not you know so I I don't know I'm a little torn you know part of me wants to um just go simpler as better and just keep it just simple and do it and then part of me wants to make a statement now I do think it's critical that we have in there and I think from an HR standpoint I think they have I think there's a challenge here because I know not everyone's going to meet the definition and so I think the the Department of Education said that they're going to be providing guidance um to all the Departments and a list of those people who are covered through this

079um so I think as we get ready to roll this out we are going to attach that guidance to and say we're not defining what a teacher is correct this the Department of Education is here's who gets this um because I I know there's going to be there's an HR challenge there because I think there's going to be maybe think they're going to get it not and we don't have any control of this we're not again I don't agree with it but what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to withhold money from our people and so this is one of those things that I will hold my nose and do it but under no circumstances am I going to deny our employees the money that the state is giving them so so

080I think I think we'll have Universal that's going to be the thing is that I can't imagine a district not wanting to do the right thing for their people so but then again do so do we craft the hey whereas you know the passage of this resolution in no way affirms that germant town is in favor of this legislation and we find it you know despicable that you would even consider it but we're not you know I mean we we could go all sorts of different directions there I think a lot of it would be ultimately who who is the who's going to re because if it's just going to e plan and no one looks at it then let's just do the bare minimum because it doesn't do any good to pour a lot

081of feeling to if it's not going any and let me finish answering your question since I um is that um I was I had conversations with some of my U school board attorney colleagues across the state and so it we all kind of went down that rabbit hole about well who sees it and is that a double-edged sword if nobody looks at it should it have this in it but if somebody's going to look at it when we want anyway the bottom line is is that the consensus among my peers is that what people are really going to be looking at meaning those members of The General are really going to be looking at is the news articles that come at the conclusion of all these meetings where they're passed and what Splash all that

082has that's justers my group had I just wanted to share that and I no I was just say I think that's accurate I mean I think I think members of general assembly were upset that school boards came out against this uh last year and I think they are going to be looking at that so for my fellow board members question I have is how much do we want to poke the bear with this uh resolution statement my my thought because he go back to audience and I think who is our audience here and our audience to me first and foremost is our public here in Germantown and I think we need to make it clear to our community members you know what this is why we're doing it and that our stance overall has not

083changed yes we are going to hold our nose and say we you participate paid in it for this purpose but I think we need to make it clear to uh our community what is happening and why we disagree with it overall I got a I got a different slant on this that y'all may also like what if we pass both what if we pass the simple tsba version and then we just have that in our back pocket and we could pass the other version that you crafted that says hey we oppose this this isn't right we upload one into e plan if they come back and say nope we're not going to get your funding to do this say oh well we also passed this one here we'll just upload this document um and how

084would you uh not give the funds if you did that so I don't know what the board's appetite is to to have both and in case um the one thing I am the one thing I am scared of is I don't want to jeopardize um our staff not getting a bonus that could be provided by the state that's that's the only thing I'm wanting to hedge the bed on so do we want to poke the bear yeah I want to poke the bear but not if it's going to fight me really hard and our staff don't get um a bonus so that's my key I'm trying to look for a solution um to this problem I I honestly don't see how um if I don't see how the general assembly for the state could deny

085us the the bonus for our employees if irrespective of what the resolution looks like as long as in the end it says we're g yeah we want to we want our people to get it now having said that again and speaking with my colleagues is the concern is not even so much that we might not get that money but that there might be something else that we don't get do get in a bad way if we if we do it but that that you know I'm sorry off lots of green over here my primary concern I would much rather I think in a let's do the simplest resolution get it through and our public discussion be on record that exactly the way we feel about it but I don't want to Ender that also I

086understand that but honestly everything I mean yeah I'm the one who added the added the flavor I guess to the to the vanilla but I mean we've we've already passed similar resolutions that have essentially said most of this and what I've done is just for the most part added language that comes directly from the fiscal memo on the bill I mean I suppose it's expressing our still disapproval of it but I mean none of this is a should be a surprise to any legislator that that reviews it uh what I am as I guess more worried about is someone from the community seeing it and not understanding what we're doing and again I'm not you know I'm not tied it doesn't have to be you can cut we can cut stuff I've put in here

087but I think we need to make it clear that our affirming is only for this one reason and make it clear that we do still oppose the ACT generally I think we're obligated to have something in there that says that I don't know that I personally feel like for the reasons board member Hendrick and board member Ellis I know who we're dealing with I agree 100% Vice chairman I know who our audience is and I also know who we're submitting this to and they're not the same um I think personally I would like to have something even if it's just a line or two that I'm okay with like Hey we're not this is not equate to support you know I I can't in good faith get behind anything that doesn't at least have that

088sentence in it or something to that effect I'll just say that like I I feel like all we've done since 2019 to to fight this if we don't put that on this somehow without you know jeopardizing um I what was it all for you know um I'm very much in favor of and I I think we are based on the board member Curry continues to talk about the HR challenges listen like you said we're already having people call and they're like oh when's it coming yeah yeah yeah I mean great uh oh I'm not on the list if we don't spell that out who what it is you know who's who's applicable and that basically they don't know and they're going to give some guidance later after we pass this resolution I sure would like

089that guidance on the front end but that's not how this works so that'd be great um so I think it's really important to me that we have that in there something that says specifies basically the real vagueness of what we're dealing with and then also have a strong I'm gonna say strong statement that hey not for it weren't for it still not for it not going to be for it but understand what we've been told we have to do by the general assembly in order to make it happen where I have paused with the the statement as is is um the fact that we are starting with the opposition first versus the affirmation uh which I believe the affirmation should come first in the statement in the resolution uh since we want to keep those

090teachers first and uh the bonuses that they're available that should be uh in my opinion the first thing that someone reads there because that is what the statement is about just gonna make one more statement I'll try to be quiet um all right so as Miss Speakman mentioned we got an email this morning from tsba where Senate leadership is asking us or you know tsba to remove from their uh draft memo one whereas clause which all it said was whereas the ten Tennessee General Assembly passed the education Freedom Act of 2025 during the first extraordinary session of the 114th General Assembly now one why does that matter to them I'm not entirely sure I think part of it is maybe they don't want to focus on the fact that since this passed dur an extraordinary

091session why is that important one it it compressed all kinds of time for discussion an amendment of this act into a couple of days that ordinarily would have gone for months and why was that done in my view it was to push this through without there being discussion without people in the state being able to express their concern about it or to learn about it and as we as you know we all went and visited with our legislators over um a couple of weeks ago and we heard from a couple of different people that I said well well why why did this particular uh voucher Bill not include you know all of the sort of carrots for public schools that were involved last year and they said well the call for the special in session

092wasn't broad enough for that they literally could not try to include those things in this language in in the bill okay so what we have now is we have a general assembly who a lot of members have said they want to try to do uh right by public schools and and make some changes to to what we have to do to make things easier on us but what they've done is they've passed this without having that included in the bill we heard from multiple legislators that that's going to be an uphill climb in the Senate because the Senate isn't isn't is open to changing requirements on public schools um we've also heard we don't know if there's going to be money in the budget for uh pre school special education funding that was that was

093Again part of the discussion of you know if if this is going to happen these other things for public schools should happen so I understand the you know not wanting to get the legislature mad at us or anything like that but I don't know at the end of the day I better stop I better stop it's just uh again I'm okay making changes these you know these were some of my uh just thoughts again some of the things in here even if they happen I don't know that I necessarily would support it but it's just I'm not gonna fight you know deleting things out of here if we want to change it up or I mean I don't know if we have to pass it this month if we want to pass it to to

094March and then give some time to think about it that's fine too um but I think I'm done maybe I'll think of something else I think what I'm hearing consensus wise I would like to keep the first whereas in there just leave it in there sen doesn't like T I think that states a fact not saying just because they don't like whatever but I do yeah so my previous remarks I was a little concerned about you know which direction you go I think if we added one whereas I think I don't think we're ready to vote on this so I think think theate to table until March but I'd like to see the where somewhere there that just says Hey by you know to Madam chair's point to say hey we don't agree with this

095we're not you know aware as it states eloquently that we're not in favor we're doing this for our teachers take you know by no means does this mean that we endorse or in favor whatever I think that I think some as to that effect whoever dra that think keep Simple that way we riskk I think we're on record saying hey you know what we don't agree with this I think that would be probably kind of the best of Worlds it's innocuous but it's also stating rather I don't think you'll be the only that expresses opposition you do so based thank you and um I want to thank everybody for the really good discussion and and work on the resolution itself a lot of time um has gone into this in general for previous boards and

096the current board um I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of board member Hendrick um and the suggestion to you know lead with the good news lead with the people who deserve being being the front of the line that's our teachers so thank you for that um I think if if I heard I want to gauge the interest here I personally would also like to to table this until March I think this discussion opened up a lot of things we want to see I'm not going to hold my breath and say we get a lot of uh guidance um between now and then but it'll buy us some time to ask some more questions based on some of the ones that were posed here tonight and I think that if we're okay with the timeline considering that

097we're not up against some super deadline right now I would really appreciate that and I think that is in the best interest of uh not only our audience the community um but for us on this CH agenda we we do we'll have to table this item because it was under the consent agenda so as you approve the agenda we'll have to say we are removing we motion that's easy for us point of clarification is the passage of the resolution dependent excuse me does that the teachers bonuses to them earlier or is there time frame associated with the bonus in the statute it says that we have to give the our affirmation by June so that leads me to believe they're not even gonna do any I it wouldn't make sense to me that there would

098be abnormal if they'd give it to some right now and some later it seems like June is the number and we're we're still waiting on guidance from the Department of of Education to say who is who are they counting as a teacher in this so once we start seeing that information come out we'll probably know that they're not I wanted to make sure our delay and discussion was not going to prevent them from we don't believe so but if we see this the information start coming then we could come back in March and take care of this soon say hopefully we can get it wrapped up by then if they tell us that that it's causing everybody a delay we might that'd be some that'd be one of the few few things that I might

099get with a special special call but um at this point is there any uh further business that is to be brought forth this evening by anyone um Miss Speakman or Mr Manuel would you just touch on the uh Charter School bill that's been filed I I believe it's um Senate bill or House Bill 1162 let me look up at the exact House Bill 1162 yeah House Bill 1162 I know the Senate sponsor is I think the chairman of the Senate da white um this would be a big concern uh for all municipalities what it allows a charter school to do is open up a school in a municipality um as long as the County government or the County School System County Ela in that um area is approving them which means that you could have

100any of strip malls here charter schools that are opening up to serve children in Germantown uh it looks like it has made it through um several of the subcommittees and uh we have not heard about this I think Miss pman was the one who first saw this one coming through so none of the larger groups tsba toss ases uh had seen this where it wasn't on their radar but it would be have a huge impact for Municipal School Districts across and special school districts across the state because you could have Mom and uh charter schools opening up in your backyard and for uh the municipalities at least it has the County School Board as the chartering organization but the actual charter school could be located outside of in our case Memphis Shelby County Schools Lea

101boundaries in Germantown or Bartlet or Millington that's correct which which is also contradictory to the way the charter school process has been happening I know there have been changes in the past with the the state level or State uh level of approval for Charter Schools but is historically has been uh the local school board in that area that is the one approving or denying those charter schools and they factors that you can't approve them for and deny them for so this would be a dramatic change for that because we would essentially have no control or authority over a school that's operating within our um boundaries essentially undes the 3G law that just passed because the 3G law was passed to keep you couldn't operate guess UND yes and that was based on an I think

102it was attorney general yeah that was based on an attorney general opinion that was actually in the charter school anyway yeah I know I've certainly raised concerns about the legislation of chairman white and both both Bill sponsors are from Rutherford County so this is attempting to solve an issue in Rutherford County probably between Murphysboro city which is a k and ruford County school so I'm assuming there's some Dynamic at play ruford County you know Murphysboro City being a Ka it's probably a little different anyway but it's one of those things that I don't know that they're intending to impact us um so it's going to included that bill in my legislative recap that one's going to the floor in the Senate um but we can hope that in in the house that chairman white can

103make some amendments to to somehow keep it from applying maybe they can say this doesn't apply to you know whatever C before certain date or whatever just to keep just to protect our interest because again otherwise all they did with the 3G legislation and and then then we get to a point where you know does SCS if this does yes decide you know what I we had an agreement but now we're going to give to a charter school it could be it could be the absolute worst case scenario for us here in ger so I think our people need to be really aware of that this UND everything we just work so hard and I think the challenge for the city too would be the millions that they have paid Shelby County schools for those

104properties um in that settlement agreement so that that would be a huge issue in that case this is going to be the first of many of situations where we have to maybe specify which chairman white chairman because the other chairman white is the one that's running this bill just just super quick though um a lot there have been more Charter bills this session that I've seen than I've seen in a really long time and I was there Charter Schools General coun forel count started so that says a lot that now all of a sudden this many years later we're seeing this flurry so you got to it's connected to I think something more than just some Rift in some you know extrinsic location but U also I want to point out that we had a

105discussion just now about that the County School District would need to sponsor that as the authorizer and that is in that that is the cas in that particular but then there's a separate bill that talks about taking um Authority away from the county schools and just having that new Charter commission be the sole author authorizer so there are lots of Dynamics here that Maylay have that actually speaks more to what might really be going on thank you for that well and as the board member Curry said he's going to speak to that a little bit but I'm glad that it got brought to our attention because it is absolutely something that um is impactful especially to people in like we said those the types of District Municipal District special district um so that's the fact

106that they're seeing more than ever and that tells me a lot because a few years ago we saw a little spike in this as well when the commission was really getting more Authority and that's not coincidence so I will leave that there if we're done with further business the work session is adjourned at 5:59 p.m. we are going to take about a five five minute uh break in between since we doubled up back to back today there's anybody that needs a little more time please let me know e e e good evening and welcome to the Germantown Municipal School District Board of Education business meeting February 27th 2025 this meeting is now called to order at 6:07 p.m. at this time would you please join us in a moment of silence thank you agenda item

107number three is the Pledge of Allegiance I'd like to invite new board member Mr Scotty Hendricks to lead uses it is an honor for the next item on the agenda to be able to say that agenda item number four the swearing in of new board member Scotty Hendrick Jr I'd like to thank judge Cliff who is always so gracious to come here and help swearing our board members as you know before they get started uh this is a huge sacrifice so we're thankful to Mr Hendricks Jr's family um because we know that there's time away from your family and friends and it is a thankless job but you're giving back to your community and we're so thank for you to be here to swear them in and also for your commitment to serve the city

108of ger Scotty toar to swear that I will supporty theti of the United States of America of the state of Tennessee of City ofon andarge the DU of munip school district [Applause] a lot of for you're really in it's official um thank you all for being here I know we're about to get into uh recognition and Awards as superintendent Manuel just stated it is special to have um a newly appointed board board member officially sworn in at the meeting with his entire family here and uh as the superintendent mentioned everybody up here knows um I point this out a lot this is a perfect opportunity um school board in Germantown is made up of all actively engaged parents of our district that is not common across the state so any chance I get to point

109that out I think that it really is worth noting our superintendent is also an actively engaged parent in our district so um I would be remiss in pointing that out but not also welcoming the Hendrick family um and just saying welcome welcome board member Hendrick now on to to our recognition and awards um we oh I'm sorry we're approving the agenda first first we have to approve the agenda we're going to make a little we're going to make a little adjustment potentially um agenda item number five is the approval of the agenda from the conversations that were had uh just a few moments ago at the table um we have a couple of ways we can go about removing something from um an actual action item and just now suggested that if we act by

110acclamation by board acclamation that we can agree that um we're okay with taking it off we're just G to take it off if from a motion standpoint then we'll just go with that route is there a motion to REM move agenda item number 10A from tonight's agenda so moved second the motion has been made to remove the agenda item 10A resolution to meet requirement for Teacher bonuses under education Freedom Act due to the discussion um at the work session that we would like to continue that at another time discussion further at another time um board member Curry has made a motion to remove from the agenda and board member Hendrick has seconded is there any discussion I just I think just to be clear for everyone we're removing it for uh purposes of discussing the

111language there's no intent to not affirm participation in to rece those funds for Teacher bonuses is just to address the language and we'll take that up at our next meeting thank you I think that's important for everyone to uh understand that may be listening or here this evening there's this does not require a roll call vote but since we typically do that I would like to stay consistent if possible um drillinger would you please call the role Mr hendri Jr yes Mr Curry yes Mr Ellis yes Mr Str yes J gri yes the motion is um approved which now takes us to the actual approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda to approve the agenda second move to approve the agenda as amended since we've taken that action previously um

112motion made by board member Curry seconded by board member strain Miss Jinger if there's no discussion would you please call the role Mr Curry yes Mr Ellis yes Mr strain yes Mr hendri Jr yes G yes the motion to approve the agenda has been been approved therefore the agenda will stand as amended now on to agenda item number six recognition and awards superintendent Manuel in Tennessee the most competitive audition for band and choir students is all West where the finest young musicians in the region compete for a coveted spot in Elite ensembles from all West the very best of the best are selected to represent their region at all state a pinnacle achievement akin to competing in a state championship for athletes this year gmsd achieved an unprecedented Milestone placing a record number of band

113and choir students in all West previously we've recognized the all West uh Orchestra members but they set a new standard for excellence in our district because of the number Who had who reached this achievement so miss Healey could not be here tonight but Mr Carpenter graciously enough has come here so if you would come up and join us we know that there have been hours and hours of practice with these students not just at the school but at home and y'all have heard them practice and audition but if you could help us also tonight and stand in for the pictures we're thankful for your support for these students so as I call you up we're going to come up one at a time but don't go all the way back because stay up here because

114we're going to get a big group picture at the end after we've called each student individually so first for the choir Abigail Connell is Abigail here we got picture hold on come over next Angley Burgess is Angley here [Applause] next up is Savannah kpco Savannah she is not here one to sign and I'm sorry if I mispronounce your name Mana tiaga or tiagi Ben Kathy who could not be here tonight I think he is playing at his first freshman soccer game at the high school Walt summi is Walt here and last but not least of the choir students Caleb Ellis is Caleb here Caleb is not okay great so let's we're gonna get one picture with the choir and the band at the end so y'all are still you got stand here for the band

115too so a few students to get through so if you'll join us for all these pictures first for the band is Bailey limb is Bailey here Bailey okay okay Justin Hicks Justin Hicks stay over here Andrew Camile is it Andrew Anna tamura Anna is Anna here Lucy mccarrons is Lucy here okay kishma jvon is kishma here Thomas Humphrey nope Thomas Wesley limb is Wesley here Kaden Ross and then Harry Ferguson is Harry here yes now we need one picture with all of our All State winners coming in yall may have to do two Rose that concludes recognition and Awards as always you're welcome to stay but if not feel free to leave e e fantastic thank you for those of you that are here this evening um wow all state like that's next level that's

116a really big deal that's quite an accomplishment an achievement and uh I'm really really proud of the fine folks in in our programs in general um the choir and band but it was really special to uh get to recognize the students that really really worked hard and earned those achievements thank you all next item on the agenda is agenda item number seven which consists of all of our reports first on the list is agenda item 7A the tenness excuse me Tennessee legislative update or what we call I'm sorry the TN Tennessee legislative leison board Curry excuse me God Bless America board member Curry take it home for us with the legislative liaison report would you please thank you madam chair on Tuesday February 11th the board along with superintendent manual visited with legislators in Nashville

117advocating for legislation that would positively benefit gmsd and public education in Tennessee we visited with the following members of the education committees in the House and Senate representative Chris Hurt representative Kirk haston House Education chair Mark White representative Kevin Raper representative Renee Jones Senate education care Senate education chair Don White Senate education second Vice chair rames abury Senator Rusty Crow Senator Adam low in addition we met with Representatives Kevin vaugh and Mark Cochran specifically we advocated for Early Childhood special education allowing high school students to use the act for testing instead of the TCAP and for reduction of administrative requirements for our students to be better served I want to express my personal appreciation to the board and the superintendent for their participating in a marathon of meetings it was a great day on the

118hill and a great experience for our two newest board members I am proud that our board sets the standard for legis advocacy in Tennessee over the next few weeks legislation will be moving through the education committees a few of the bills that are deep into the process that will impact education are the following House Bill 932 Senate Bill 897 by Alexander and Hal as introduced requires local Boards of education and Public Charter School governing bodies to adopt a policy to prohibit students from using wiress communication devices during instructional time except in certain circumstances this pass the house education committee 16 to1 and pass the Senate education committee 9 to Z and is headed to the Full House on Monday and will be scheduled for the Senate next week barring something completely unforeseen this bill will

119pass and become law on July one house bill 1162 Senate Bill 1020 by Stevens and white as introduced allows public charter schools to operate outside the geographic boundaries of the local Education Agency in which the public charter school is authorized to locate in its Charter agreement in certain circumstances and under certain conditions specifically this would allow Memphis Shelby County Schools to authorize a charter school to operate in any of the municipalities in Shelby County this bill has passed the Senate education committee and will be headed to the senate floor it is scheduled to be heard in the house K12 subcommittee next week we did discuss this one specifically in our work session House Bill 85 Senate Bill 158 by and Hensley as introduced increases from 130 minutes per full school week to 60 minutes per

120school day the minimum amount of physical activity required for elementary school students establishes additional requirements for the minimum amount of physical activity required for elementary students this is scheduled for the house education Administration subcommittee on Tuesday and the Senate education committee on Wednesday although it is likely to be rolled a week in the Senate just due to the nature of their schedule there are now co-sponsored in the house so there does seem to be some momentum there going from 130 minutes per week of physical activity to 300 minutes per week will impact our elementary schools so this will be a bill to watch and finally House Bill 1323 Senate Bill 1311 by Lamberth and Johnston or Johnson is introduced makes various changes to certain teacher lure requirements there are several significant changes that should allow

121for some flexibility in filling teacher vacancies and me one notable change would be conditions around limited occupational teach teaching lure which would give us maximum flexibility and Staffing CTE courses this is something that we have advocated for and would put us on par with private schools regarding CTE this bill is being carried by the House and Senate majority leaders so this is a good indication that this has in support of the governor's office this will be heard in the House Education Administration subcommittee on Wednesday that concludes my report thank you board member Curry I would also like to excuse me thank you for um your very astute um keeping up with not only taking a lot of extra time meeting with legislators on your own uh on our behalf and and Reporting back to us

122um and to the community on a stellar basis but also as you noted in your report um what we five of us we had a newly elected newly appointed board member all five of us along with the superintendent participated in what we annually do where we go and meet with legislators and it is a marathon session but it's impactful it's impactful because people who don't know anything about Germantown Tennessee or gmsd hear from us as um people that are advocates for public education in our community and one of the biggest um compliments we receive while we're there is not only the U I guess the effort that we put into that but we had a very newly elected um Senator Renee Jones U made a point to tell us that we were um you know

123one of the few folks that have reached out to her since she was newly elected understanding the shifts that occur in the election cycles and how important it is to stay in tune with the new folks but also we had um meetings where we had people um representatives and Senators alike that told us that outside of their own local school district uh board members that we were the only board that they had ever heard from again that's a testament to the strategy that we applied to our legislative advocacy and I think that it was worthy of noting the compliments that we received just in our action our um our just participation in the process and I have to say that was the first time that the five of us sitting up here tonight had been

124together in that way and having U participated in that with multiple boards it's always been something that gmsd school boards have really um taken seriously and been strong in and it was evident that that um that momentum continues so thank you all for that time that we invested there but thank you board member Curry um especially for the coordination of that and just to after this fast and furious special session and then we hit the ground running in real time to keeping us informed and the community informed of everything going on that's impacting us on an ongoing every day literally this morning this afternoon since we sat down bases um so for that I I really do appreciate it and thank you Chairman's report I'm going to start with the Ard member activities um I

125hit on one of them just now all five gmsd board members attended the following top workplace celebration where gmsd was again recognized as a top workplace and our very own superintendent Manuel was the recipient of their annual leadership award this board traveled to Nashville for the tsba legislative and legal Institute and visited with Tennessee legislators to discuss items on our gboe 2025 legislative agenda and advocating additionally for public education in general we all participated in a wonderful exercise um just last week with our strategic planning session I have to tell you that that was one of um one of the better times that I've had in my capacity on this board and I'm really hopeful for the future plans that we enlist the community and and the people in all stakeholder roles because as we

126began that process I know that we are very student centered and I'm thankful for that Vice chair strain and I attended the board of mar and Alderman meeting during which Scotty H Hendricks Jr was appointed as the new member of our board board members Ellis and I attended the Houston middle and Houston High cheer preview event before our teams went very successfully to their annual trip to Nationals this year congratulations to them board members Curry Griffith and Hendricks attended the Bartlett versus Houston boys and girls basketball games recently board members Curry and griffith attended let a little light in a play produced and directed by our very own HHS senior Carter Jurgen we also attended board member Curry and I the kerville versus Houston boys and girls basketball games board members strain and Ellis attended

127gmd's recent H HS career Summit lunch and learn wow the more feedback I have received from that has been just amazing from the um professional community that participated board members Ellis Griffith Hendricks and strain attended the annual HHS Mustang baseball team's Mustang Madness fundraiser board member Curry attended the tmsaa sectional final girls basketball game featuring Houston Middle versus Elmore Park he met with representative Kevin Bon to discuss the impending special session and attended Houston High School prospective student night he also attended the Shelby County GOP reorganization meeting met with Shelby County GOP chairman worth Morgan and visited Dogwood Elementary School for board Appreciation Week board member Ellis attended the Houston lacrosse fundraiser first of many to come attended the middle school basketball sectional finals and attended lacrosse scrimmage against Christian Brothers board member Hendrick chaperon

128the Houston Middle School's winter formal I cannot wait to hear about that um Vice chair strain greatly enjoyed visiting Riverdale as part of the Schoolboard Appreciation Week participated in gmsd science textbook preview event I met with mayor palazolo for our monthly um Gathering and enjoyed being hosted by Houston Middle School for school board appreciation week as well again I want to thank board member Curry for his work uh planning and getting our agenda U prepared for our trip to Nashville to meet with legislators and I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the GMC PTO for their um sweet and generous gift of the logoed pillows that they provided to us last month at the board meeting for school board Appreciation Week once again I'm pulling up my chairman report via telephone do have

129my new glasses on as I mentioned last month and I do find it very interesting that this happens time and time again where the superintendent's report and my report have a lot of crossover and we don't even know it until we get here I think that's a lot about we're talking about what's important at the time in our district February is National CTE month CTE stands for Career Technical education CTE courses are designed to expose students to real life coursework that focuses on a particular field of study or career path back in my day the local high schools in Germantown offered courses like shop I think that's a term that would would refer to a variety of um things may be like woodworking these types of offerings um have historically been referred to as the

130trades while true trades are part of CTE in Tennessee there have also been many clusters or tracks that involve experiences and even the ability to gain industry credentials and certifications as I also say uh back in my parents generation everybody took homech and um now we talk about that and I think it's interesting when people in the community bring it up because that's still kind of actually a thing we just call it something different and I think CTE is is an acronym that we use here a lot but I want to kind of normalize everybody in the community understanding what that really means and so I have a feeling we're about to learn a lot about that tonight um gmds oh I am very grateful for the state of Tennessee that has put a who

131has put a strong emphasis on and invested heavily in the further development of CTE programs gmd's primary goal is to get students College and Career ready to prepare them for what's next once they leave our district the district often talks about what a ready graduate looks like I know this it looks different for each individual student and opportunities are vast and pathways are plenty that's the beauty of CTE the district often talks oh there we just did that I apologize teachers and administrators from elementary you heard it Elementary Middle all the way up to high school play a part in the immersion of innovative learning models to enhance the traditional Core Curriculum our middle schools have both recently expanded their Television Studios increasing the availability that the technical program to that technical program to more

132students gmsd Works to identify interest of students at a young age and promotes courses that are engaging and interactive as early as Middle School our board advocates for further funding as mentioned in the legislative report as early as oh in support of CTE in general especially regarding the requirements the professionals to be able to teach certain classes we believe that someone who has industry experience in a CTE related field brings value that having to comp complete Education certification should not be a deterrent from any school district's ability to get the best person in place to teach certain disciplines and many of our conversations with families we hear a demand for more CTE offerings Houston High School offers I just counted on thank goodness the course catalog just came out so for parents listening check your

133email um Miss Abel just sent me a great screenshot of all of the CTE offerings that are currently being offered at Houston High School and so I really want to encourage everyone to take a look at that I'm going to promote that particular um graphic in the community because I think it's important like I said to understand that CTE while maybe of a different name than some people perceive those type of courses and the understanding of the why behind them is um the offerings that are available I want to make sure everybody understands what they are and what they mean so I in the room tonight who my next little paragraph and snippet was um a couple years ago I attended one of the parent events at Houston High School I believe it was 20122

134I elected to attend the session being offered by supervisor constant he made a point which really resonated with me to take a CTE course does not mean that you have to stay with that thing for the rest of ever what it really does is help offer a critical thinking and bring applications to maybe improve a student ability to work in other situations and other cour workk so that really really stuck with me and I think it's important and exciting time that we are every year this time of year when our students are having the opportunity to change and make selections for how they are going to plan their schedules moving forward and for that I am happy to celebrate the end of February CTE month a good evening you have your financial reports for the

135month ending January 31st 2025 our reporting on the balance sheet our total assets liabilities and fund balance by fund are as follows and the general purpose or School operating fund 25 million in the federal projects fund $800 in School nutrition or cafeteria fund 1.7 million and the capital projects fund 3.1 million opep trust six million and our fixed assets fund 138.4 million and and the health insurance fund 463,000 couple comments on the statement of revenues and expenses or expenditures School operating or general fund uh during the month the district received $5.7 million in property tax revenues which represents 33% of the total budgeted and the health insurance fund health insurance claims total $538,000 for the month versus $458,000 budget in the cafeteria fund s reported a net income of 12,000 for the month and finally

136in the opep trust fund net realized and unrealized gains on investments total 322,000 year today and that concludes my thank you Mr Jones agenda item 70 is a superintendent report Mr Manuel before we jump into yours uh as we get up to agenda item number eight I just wanted to make everyone aware that if there's anyone here that wishes to speak tonight uh to the board at the public comments portion of the board meeting we have um forms out front there on the table just outside the doors and if you do wish to do that please bring those up to Mr Jinger would you raise your hand make sure that board uh secretary is up here at the end of the table and you those up to her then we will be looking for you

137when the time comes at the next agenda item thank you Mr Manel for your patience tonight we are gonna have some guest speakers we're gonna have assistant superintendent Missy Abel and our director of CTE and also instructional supervisor for secondary math and science Mr Ethan constant I think they're going to help tell us about career Readiness and uh CCT thank you all it's up this is a real joy for me to get to share about CTE a lot of you know how that's uh really shaped my life and is extremely important to me so um this is this is great I I was at the uh uh room the other day with Mr Ellis and Mr strain and with all the Community Partners there with all the people from our district that were there I

138made a similar comment that this is as good as it gets for a CT director to get to talk about CT and to get to advocate for it so appreciative for all the things that you've guys done on the legislative side to try to help out and uh yeah we'll get into this here um so first off in terms of us being career ready we know that it's more than just a collection of classes that they may take at the high school so we really do uh put an emphasis on making sure they get into classes that are appropriate for them um and and really serve them and try to maximize their experience at the high school so we have a a legitimate 5 through 12th grade on paper scope and sequence of uh of

139touch zones and Milestones that they're going to hit um every single year in terms of their College and Career guidance so that might include a a career interest test in sixth grade uh fifth grade is actually a big event at the end of the year that we do with bis toown um once they transition from eth and nth that's a big one so we'll get them on campus frequently we just did that this week with our eighth graders um they'll have an extra test in that eighth grade to really kind of help uh navigate that experience um and then once they get to the high school even when they're in our programs of study our College and Career counselors will help them do things like resume building they'll take some more tests about aptitude uh

140we use the same program that we started with in in navian that helps students submit their applications to college that's the same program that we use in the Middle School uh to help do some of that career awareness and uh exporation as well um but outside of that Define process we also have uh just a lot of other great things that are going on that I think make us stand out um so you mentioned all the parents in the room uh so that first picture that is my daughter when she was in prek and so what's happening there she's dressed up like her mom who works uh at Baptist Carville uh and her mom was actually a guest speaker so all the way in prek we have an emphasis on being a professional being in

141a career um she's got a great teacher there supporting the red wolf so you know Dad was extremely happy there um at the high school we have two dedicated College and Career counselors some schools don't even have one so the fact that we have two that allows them to they split so they'll have like a ninth and 11th grade year or a a 10th and a 12th grade year but they'll stay with that cohort as soon as they step on campus as freshman and so that really lets them know the kids so when we have opportunities like the Ace Program with Southwest where they take you know five to 10 of our kids and go through a machining uh class they actually paid those kids we can go to those College and Career and say

142hey do you think we have anybody interested in something like this and they start naming kids immediately because they truly know those kids in their interest um so I think that really makes it stand out and again this is a districtwide approach so when we add things to the Middle School um especially in stem they may call them separate things uh they may run a stem class for a year long and they may do that a little bit differently at the middle school at Houston middle and only do it for a semester but the foundational pieces uh with drones and and Robotics and 3D printing all those are consistent and we do that to make sure that they're ready for going into that same type of program at the high school um not only that

143um Miss Miss Stratton let us uh come in and talk to elementary teachers about soft skills and let me tell you there's nobody more excited to talk about soft skills we found out this year than elementary teachers so we really have a a a districtwide approach with this and it's not just all at the high school um so that's a great thing our programs just to make sure everybody cool and on the same page with this most of our programs are either three courses or or four courses so uh those are defined by the years what happens at the very beginning of a program is that's a very foundational very broad course to all aspects of Industry so you may have classes uh in two different programs of the study that actually have the same

144first level class because it's the most broad so an example would be we have coding and cyber security but that first level class is going to be foundations of computer science and they share that um because they're going to talk about safety all kinds of careers in in there and what's going to happen as they go through year one year two year three year four year four is going to be the most specific most specialized and they're going to kind of track that way again some of our programs only have three um of those courses some have all four that depends on Staffing uh depends on the student level of interest uh depends on what that third level course is so for computer or not computer but criminal justice uh the dual enrollment course is

145actually the third level so that kind of uh puts us in a spot where we got to make some decisions and we think that's the best decision for our kids there um health science is a great one to kind of walk through this they start with Health Science Education they move on to anatomy and physiology uh in year three that's where they start Medical Therapeutics um so sometimes what we have happen is we have those industry credentials that we like to stack we offer OSHA 10 in year three because they need that OSHA 10 card to be able to to go on to clinicals and so we have 15 kids that will apply and get selected to go into that year four program so while they're doing the clinicals they also get their certified medical

146assistant um a couple other terms on there if any of our students take two courses within that same program that's where we get the term concentrator so a little bit different than what Miss ael's going to talk about in terms of ready graduate data when they evaluate just CTE students and how they're doing compared to non-ct students they're looking students that concentrated in at least two or took two of those classes um we do have requirements for elective Focus so a completer and elective focus is very synonymous there's there's a slight subtle difference but uh you can think of that very similarly it's going to be three or more more courses uh We've grouped our programs of study into kind of three major hubs that's to help us uh just communicate them we'll talk about

147more about uh our challenges with uh visibility later but did do that intentionally um in our Applied Technologies that's you're going to have uh Advanced stem applications coding cyber security mechatronics in the health human and Life Sciences we have criminal justice uh diet nutrition Horticulture human studies Medical Therapeutics uh and then in our business marketing Communications AV production business management uh digital art marketing management one thing that we've uh really been successful at to is they don't all have necessarily the same components and in a weird way that's a good thing because having a diversity of early postsecondary opportunities really benefits our students so if we only went dual enrollment we would exclude a population of kids who didn't have a 19 on the act so when we do other things like the industry credentials

148or some other type of credit uh bearing opportunity like SDC uh that helps students who wouldn't traditionally get into that dual enrollment so uh it's kind of impossible we we want the same equity to be there in all of our programs but they do look a little bit different just based on what's available all right so there's a lot that you can see on this slide here um all of this is about providing intentional opportunities for students and while we're doing so we also have to track multiple metrics for accountability purposes and so we're going to talk to you more about our progress then getting into all of the data around this but we wanted you to understand while we're talking about CTE courses and how we're designing programs for students we do keep these

149things in mind so the First Column that you see there is our federal accountability model which we hear of quite often as ready graduate and so as board chair Griffith you you reference ready graduate in your comments and I love how you reference that it's not just a metric it is about making sure that our students are ready for their next steps to be successful and on paper the federal accountability model says that involves which you can see there the score of 21 or higher on the ACT and so forth there are a lot of acronyms within this gets real technical um but I do want to make sure everybody is aware that when we say epos we are talking about early post-secondary opportunities for our students where they are actually earning Credit in high

150school for postsecondary college industry while they're in high school and also when you see the acronym ASVAB ASF QT that's a mouthful um that is our armed services vocational aptitude battery for armed forces qualifying test and if students don't have the 21 on the ACT then we can administer this assessment um not only to provide them valuable feedback about their strengths and aptitudes but also to see if they if they could make that 31 on the ASVAB and then become considered one of the credentials for a ready graduate um so there are three different ways we're tracking I mentioned the federal model the one in the middle that we see there is our state model that was developed a few years ago called College and Career Readiness so it's our CCR model has similarities but

151a few differences it still maintains that you need 21 or your act or higher and so forth um and all of these revolve around having some sort of combination of os um and Industry certification industry credentials so the final column that you see there is more of a a goal around Tisa funding and so we track um where our students are in that model so that we can determine we can budget we can estimate what we should be receiving from the state so that we can make sure that what we are receiving from Tisa is actually accurate based on our document ation and this one is interesting because it will also um consider a student for a bonus being ready graduate CC ready by having a um fourpoint increase on their act or a student

152only um has to earn the two episodes um or earn three earn three episodes so it has a few little easier ways to get around having to have a 19 or a 21 on the ACT to earn dual enrollment courses or to earn the automatic ready graduate status so that is a lot that we are tracking and we want you to be aware of that so that you know that when we're deciding where to play students in courses we're also being intentional around what would be best for them to also meet some of these credentials at the same time so along those lines though we have made a lot of progress in how we're tracking that so I'm going to turn it back over to Mr constant to let him elaborate on how we're tracking

153yes so in in just this year alone uh couple points to just brag on a lot of people here um we did develop a ready graduate task force uh just kind of comparing those three different numbers looking for ways that we could improve um specifically students uh that weren't meeting that 21 metric what what other opportunities are we providing uh to make sure that they have uh a chance to get there as well um so that included uh hiring a new early postsecondary counselor uh position and so just like the two that are dedicated strictly for College and Career uh Miss Brenda Kenny at the high school she works exclusive on those EPO experiences um and she's been invaluable because there is a lot of paperwork there's a lot of organization um that goes into

154this to make sure that we're getting credit for the things that we are doing Sor uh in addition to that adding uh Megan Jackson to our tlaa department as an instructional Supervisor over Ela she's really gone in uh and renewed a schoolwide focus on act at the high school and so that's going to reap tremendous benefits in terms of our ready graduate scool we've already seen those numbers start to grow as a direct result of that uh and some other outcomes we've we've been able to maximize duel enrollment course codes so again not necessarily having to make huge changes to the programming in order to see that benefit us on our our uh monitoring and our our rates uh so if we had classes like dual enrollment English 12 uh our students are actually in

155two different college courses one in that first semester one in the second semester um but there was a period there where the state kind of turned over and said that uh we had to use two different course codes in order to get those two different credits so we've been working a lot to clean that up again having somebody like Miss Kenny to help with that has been huge we've added new industry credentials this year U that come from us winning a a competitive Perkins Reserve Grant um the CPR first aid that we offer to all of our students in ninth grade and 11th grade uh shout out again to Mr Andy Martin and coordinat school he and our partners with Methodist who help us get that done that was approved to count as an industry

156credential so something that we were already doing for all of our kids now is going to be added to uh that list that helps us meet our goals there uh and again just increased community and Industry partnership in the last two weeks alone we've had our collaborative with Bartlett and Carville through the West Tennessee Workforce collaborative uh where we had industry Partners there to support our programs and our teachers and again at the Mustang career Summit uh just an awesome opportunity for our seniors and where we're headed um we do get a lot of feedback about CTE and and a lot of questions about it and one of the things that we're noticing is there's a lot of questions being asked about things that we are currently doing um but we've challenged ourselves with if

157we're getting that information it's it's kind of on us to share it so if you're not in those programs of study how would you know it uh so we've got a lot of plans to try to help tackle that uh help inform our community about what we've got going on uh continue to move the needle we do have that investment opportunity with our ISM to make some changes um for example the the traditional U you said earlier homech lab that we had that's now diet nutrition uh it's it's needing some improvement so is this a good time for us to transition then into culinary when we do update it um and in doing that does that help us get students who want to go straight into the workforce more of an opportunity than diet and

158nutrition would uh so things like that are on the horizon uh and then the last initiative uh is more from the state and a national level they have embedded stem into all programs of study um so like M Griffith talked about that uh in our programs of study there's a technical aspect to what they're learning but there's also these employability skills leadership skills and academic skills so they've been intentional to add standards to every single course in every program of study that addresses stem uh and so we've got to uh do a lot of professional development and and build some meaningful projects not just check in a box there um that also allow our students to build portfolio so not just the credentials and credits but to have something that they can take with them

159to show hey this is what I've been able to do and accomplish with our programs that's that's the superintendance report thank you Mr constant Miss Abel for telling us about CT want to tell y'all I have no idea that's what they were talking about um how fitting that gets us to agenda item number eight citizens to be heard do we currently have anyone in the audience or in the building Lobby see any seeing none um anyone like to speak tonight anyone turned anything in missinger okay well thank you for being here and um us to agenda item number nine the consent agenda do we have an motion to approve the consent agenda the consent agenda I will list what is included in uh item 9A approval of the minutes 9B revision of policy second reading

160N9 C miscellaneous fiscal year 202 2425 budget amendments 19 and 20 um agenda item number 9d approval of special course application for honors Humanities and agenda item number ninee the new club fee move to approve all items on the consent agenda motion by board member strain is there a second motion seconded by board member Ellis are there any questions or is there any discussion Mr would you please call the RO Mr Ellis yes Mr yes HRI J yes Mr Curry yes yes the motion is approved agenda item number nine announcements I'm G to keep it short and sweet as I said last month tremendous amount of activities in our district I encourage everyone to check their school level communication and the gmsd website social media and the like to keep up with those I will

161say that there are a few Productions um in our community this week one actually rescheduled a little bit from last week's snow into this week a little um adjustment there but that's what they do in that World The Show Must Go On as they say the Falcon foot theater presents high school High School Musical junor the Raider theater is uh performing Madagascar a musical Junior and coming up at our Houston High theater uh Mustang theater program they will be featuring in the next few weeks Ming girls please enjoy a um production near You by talented gmsd students and um mostly by parents and wonderful staff members for our students exposure to the Arts I hope you can enjoy a show this time the meeting is adjourned at 7:05 pm e e