11.30.21 B.O.E. Business Meeting and December Work Session

001[Music] do [Music] happy uh [Music] my [Music] it's 501 the november or actually the december work session end in november for the germantown board of education is now in order number one on our agenda is provision of policies after one reading mr manuel good afternoon this policy 6.313 the discipline policy this revision is driven by new tca that goes into effect january 1. the biggest changes in the policy are that teachers can request that students be removed from the classroom and with that request that the principals must follow up with the teacher with approval or denial if the request is denied the teacher the principal has to let the teacher know in writing why the request was denied after they've had a chance to talk to the student and the teacher to gather information also

002when students are referred to the office it's always been our practice to um it's our recommendation that is to the principles that when students are referred to the office that they follow up with the teacher with the consequences now that's in this new policy that they'll follow up with teachers with consequences for students that are referred to the office there are other some minor changes in there there are some changes in there about training annual training so we've put all of that in policy so that we can be in compliance with the new law january 1st and i will be happy to answer any questions any questions uh mr bland how many students um i guess and i don't just an approximate number would be fine would be impacted by this policy kind of based

003on historical trends um historically well i think the challenge here is it's never been allowed tsb had real issues with this policy in the past and they opposed it when it came through the legislative session we educate all students regardless of what their needs and disability are and at no time in history was their teacher who said i really don't want to educate that child because their disruption because it doesn't remove the burden of the district to educate that student so we are still going to have to either place them in another or her in another student's classroom um so it poses a problem now one of the things that we have done is we've made sure that we're educating our staff it's not as simple as just saying i don't want to educate that

004student in my classroom there's a documentation process that we have to go through but i do think it poses real problems for the district as the law was written and i think their intent was for teachers just to say if there's a student that they don't feel that they can educate who's disruptive they can remove them now they tried to carve out students with disabilities 504s they try to take those pieces out but it's a real problem and i will add that the remove the removal is not necessarily always permanent um it can be for an hour it can be for a day a week a month or it could be a permanent removal so that's at the discretion of the principle i guess the only other question i had was dealing with the teacher

005appeals so i guess that would be what page line 16. so when i read the state law on this it did allow for either the director of schools or designee so in this case the way the policy is written is that we have you being the um i guess the final arbiter of that i just want to i guess given that we're a pretty small district i don't know since we're a little different obviously we're smaller than most um is this something that you would potentially want to have more hands-on when it deals with teacher appeal or we find i'm personally fine with mr bland i just want to make sure that if you if it's appropriate for you to be in the process that you're included no i think it's appropriate for student services

006because if we think about their role and responsibility i think that's the the place because they're going to be dealing with the documentation that has to the process i don't know if it's really appropriate for the superintendent per se to make sure that the process was that process was accomplished and all the documents were filed so they can make sure that all those things have taken place what kind of training will teachers have on this process um are we just how are we moving with this in terms of informing our teachers that this state change in state laws happen so during our last principles meeting we discussed this policy principles have then or will before we get out for winter break during the faculty meeting go through this policy and procedures i'm in the process

007of making the referral form for the teachers and the appeal for the principles so i'll i'll give them some of the documentation but they will inform their staff about these changes when i read through this i'm i'm i share your concern i don't see how this can be appropriately and implemented when we're supposed to educate all students no matter no matter what um and as a as i think as a former teacher it disturbs me as well we all have kids that we struggle with whether it's a personality thing or behavior thing or or something but but that is something that as as a professional educator you you go to your resources your as much as you can to do what you can for that child and i i guess the implementation and i understand

008the frustration i do understand it that can happen in a year with a difficult student but at the same time where does where do we go with that student that's fair to the student the parents the family and the teacher i i'm this is going to be the implementation of this is going to be something to agree to hold and i think for our legislators we are always taking a misstep if we are not talking it's the same way that you view all of your decisions we should be talking about students providing supports benefits for students this has this policy has nothing to do with students it's about providing consequences and removing them from teachers classrooms so that's a problem i i agree with other guys i see it is potentially problematic just a couple

009of footnote references and some of the older language that needs to be deleted just for consistency i just didn't want to make a change without the public being aware questions um i'll ask my ques if i may make a comment first this particular legislation uh came up in a conversation two weeks ago with the legislature on our trip to nashville and he was very proud of his participation and not only sponsoring it but getting it passed um and so when he looked me in my eye and said those kids that are disruptive will be will be able to be removed from the classroom i was like oh you mean me i'm just kidding but but i'm saying that to say that what everybody else has just expressed i find as mr manuel said you know

010all the people all the students and there's a big difference i think it's interesting that they make a point to carve out and and yet still be so determined to include other things that you could be removed for and so as we go into this the next semester it there's supposed to be a report i guess at the end in july by july or whatnot and so i'll be very curious and i'd like to maybe understand after this first semester that it's implemented what um what the teacher's thoughts are on it and i mean i feel like that's always a last resort and now if it's promoted as like this option i don't want it to be certainly an opportunity i would hope that it would be a last resort and in the best interest

011of the student um so if this is wherever we end up with with a particular instance or occurrence but i will be curious to see after the first you know several months kind of what it looks like as far as how it's been utilized or um and then i think back to the training uh comments from chairman oaf um i mean that's something that i feel like you know the educators are already really mindful of um disciplinary actions in the classroom and and so i just feel like this whole thing is kind of taking it to another place um and you know i think about it from kindergarten to 12th grade too you know what that may look like in different age groups and settings but right now it is certainly of concern but here

012we all are and it is in tca and i just want to make sure that we're doing everything possible on our end um to spread yes make sure that that it's it's as buttoned up as possible i guess the only other thing that i might add and i agree to a point but the steps outline that the teachers has to go through in order to do anything it's extensive it's a through f and so it's a teacher's not going to just be able to look at a student and say i want you gone i mean there has to be documentation i'm reading so they have to take action provide consequence conduct a parent conference provide an opportunity for counseling develop a do an implement or uh yeah an implementation plan and then and then go

013to the principal after that so i i don't i've got faith in our uh and our staff that i think you know this will be because for them to go through this process there it's got to be a really bad situation i just can't see our teachers taking the time to go through each of these steps um to have a student removed unless it's of us you know an urgent need or a situation where it warrants it so um i do i do share the concerns to a point but i the process here uh there's a lot of steps and i i i i'm gonna be interested like uh miss griffith to see you know the numbers you know because next july to see really what we're dealing with here i share everybody's concerns so

014i won't repeat all of them but i did have a few other um just questions or comments on the policy not related to the newer part um and i've looked at this policy before also i've kind of wondered and i assume it's just how it is in the zero tolerance law for example but is aggravated assault on a fellow student not a zero tolerance offense i think the policy just speaks to two percent okay and then i noticed kind of similar with our i guess category b misbehavior we've got um assault or battery on at least we don't list assault or battery on a fellow student as a category b misbehavior now i know you would pick that up in other parts of it so i don't know that it really has to be set

015out right there i just didn't know if there was a particular reason for that or it was just um and then i think there there were a couple additions in category c and d where we are as far as threatening bodily harm to any student or school personnel and i think in each of those if you look at page 3 line 19. i think i'll just add also um or any student or something in that line there page 3 line 19 so it's threatening bodily harm to any student or school personnel and then uh including transmitting by electronic device any communication containing a credible threat to cause bodily injury or death to a school employee i think i would just add or any student after that just to make it consistent with that and that

016would be the same in category d line 29 i think and then just for me in the uh disciplinary options and uh in category c and a couple others we've got out of school suspension for one to ten days and expulsion and then um for zero tolerance offenses etc it's suspension for 180 days is really any legal difference between expulsion and suspension for 108 days is that for the remainder of the year or maybe you could speak to that it has to do with whether we're providing services or not so if they are expelled from school our alternative school is not an expulsion that's a change of their education setting we are still educating that student it doesn't count as an expulsion a student who is not attending our schools at all you can't come

017back for 180 days that's an expulsion assuming and i think that's a misnomer mis understanding a lot of times people think oh i'm expelled i have to go to alternative school no if we are providing services for you then you are attending our schools it's not an expulsion and then last just page seven line seven um i'm not gonna lie i had to google deportment let's see should we just say deportment or citizenship should we change that to conduct or something like that or is that illegal is deportment and citizenship a legal requirement okay all right well then i guess let's keep it if it's instead right right yeah that's all i had okay we'll make those uh adjustments so i've got those so the new language repeals the safe relocation of student policy that's

018what that section replaces that's why we're repealing policy 6.4081 moving on to number two oh do you have go ahead again is it going somewhere else oh sorry is it is it when we're talking about relocating students that's all into this section about on page seven we have relocation of students that whole section is pulls in anything that was included in this previous policy so all that's just being taken out yep okay so on to number two on the agenda purchase of interactive flat panel bundles for houston middle school yes yes thank you okay so on the approval of the flat panels this has already been approved by the board when we did the budget for the esser funds but we have to wait till we receive those title phones where it was titled carryover

019i believe that we have to wait till we receive that then we will approve the purchase um the board is having to approve this purchase because it's over my purchasing authority um so just so you can be aware of what the use is um it's purchased through title one carryover funds for 35 classrooms at houston middle school they're interactive mobile panels and they're instructive so you know their touch screen where you can do lots of different activities on those panels and we were have to approve the budget amendment 16 first and then you you approve this or is that vice versa budget amendment first when we come to the actual meeting itself so the board will approve the budget amendment recognizing that we're receiving those funds then they approve the purchase because it's over month

020threshold any questions okay moving on to number three you do have a question i'm sorry i just wanted to make sure are these are these something that we already have that we're adding to or are these we already we already have some of these in classrooms um at houston middle school for example they're on carts they're on movable carts um and so it's an instructional tool that they use but it's like it looks like a flat panel tv but it's an interactive tv that they use yeah i was like 75 inches but okay so i was just trying to place it if it was something i had seen before um mr robinson always has one in his classroom that he uses frequently when we've been in there in the past i don't know if you've

021seen that it may be in the picture too that he's actually using one of those in the district update yes um just so you can see but it looks it looks like a flat panel tv on a rolling cart that they they move around and they they can use for instruction okay that was just one of my questions i was going to ask you today like are we trying to get it to the quantity that so that we feel like we're completed yes this one okay this should complete that yes no that's that's actually his permit yeah but it's right behind him hitting that picture nice thank you so this was a request if you remembered our last work session by mr curry to to discuss we have two sources of information that may be

022of use once we start looking at our numbers one is the cost analysis in front of you so you can see the numbers the second was in your on page 21 in your district update there's really that last page that you can see other breakdowns too what you can see are the number of residents and non-residents at each of our schools and you can see the total enrollment now as you know these numbers are always changing so we we try to use um the most current but know that it's always a moving target so this is really close to those total enrollments but you can see for example at houston high school we have 1572 resident students 324 are non-residents 1929 is total houston middle school only has 25 non-residents 825 total is 8.68 our

023goal academy was just for our resident students 83. you can see riverdale has just over a thousand 1064 resident students 49 non-residents a total of 1136. dogwood has 601 residents for non-residents you can see the total at 616. farmington has 565 residents five non-residents for a total of 586 and forest hill has 577 residents 35 non-residents for a total of 634. you can see that according to tca there's a limit to what we can charge for tuition it's essentially the city's contribution um financially taken by uh divided by the student enrollment so if we use our enrollment of 5933 and you can see that the contribution from the city has gone up because property values have gone up so we're just over a three million dollar contribution from the city that would come out to

024519 would be the maximum amount that we could charge per year for tuition for our non-residents so you could see that it's a potential based on if we have the similar breakdown in the future would be 229 398. now we've left off employees children because i think you'll hear me say you know we don't pay our employees enough to live in germantown um that's a challenge uh so this is a benefit for them that i think is very important for a child to be able to go to school where their parent or guardian works i think that's something we want to protect and make sure that we have a benefit so they were excluded from those numbers but if you want to see the total numbers that's why i was saying in the district update

025it has all the categories that you can see the breakdown of what it would cost if there are any other questions we can i'll be glad to answer those or we can get data for you as we embark on the discussion just real quick also in the numbers does that also not include city employees or our city employee employees included do we it does include the city employees in this blue chart that you have on your page this is only not our employee's guide so this is just not our employees okay thank you okay but we could if we look at the district update we could figure that out very quickly there are only nine that i see in the district update so i was just curious so okay well first off mr maynard thank

026you for uh compiling this this is great information um and thank you for indulging me in the discussion here um i guess i i want to make sure i'm crystal clear i am not against transfers in any way shape form or fashion i don't want that to be misstated that you know that any of us are anti-transfer that's just simply not the case again as i stated in our last meeting i think there's a variety of reasons why i think it's now appropriate for us to pursue these first again is we're looking to the city for additional funding there's a lot of projects that we have on the agenda and i want us to go in good faith to the city to show that we're maximizing every possible revenue stream that we can that's first

027second again um i i feel as a resident and i've heard from many residents over the years um that i think the residents feel like there's a fairness issue there's a lot of people who would love to get into houston high school the only guaranteed way to get in is to purchase a house in the city and you know with the home prices being what they are you know that's you know that's a big lift for many and so i i i think you know looking at what we have to offer i just pulled it up just to verify so i would look at our our competition who were who you know the private schools that we i guess compete with briarcrest right now tuition fees is 17 100 per year st george's is 22

028990 per year and ecs is 16 800 per year and i would put our product up against any of them from an academic standpoint i feel like in athletics i feel like we have a superior product and so to me i don't think asking um a transfer into pay 519 and compared to what what they could be paying elsewhere i don't i just don't think that's an unreasonable ask and again i know i know that this has been debated in the past and i understand the reasons um that it hasn't gone into place in the pa in the past um collierville has implemented this and carterville actually now is they're charging where if if we were to implement this as is we're not charging our employees at all where collierville if you're a new hire

029you're you're depending on where you live you're paying tuition even as an employee so i think from a uh an employee competition standpoint i think that that's an advantage that we have over collierville i guess the question i would have the the enrollment number uh so we've got it pegged here in this example of what what enrollment number and when would we have because we we would want to get down to the dollar amount when when and what enrollment number would we use to determine this each year if this is implemented i'll have to clarify the exact date that they want my guess is it it'll probably be like how we do with our ada you know we even change our enrollment in the funding that we receive throughout the year based on our 20-day

030reports you know we have 20-day reports that get submitted and they capture that so i would have to get clarification but my guess is one of the 20-day reports or the average of those or it could be the last 20 day reports but i didn't see it spelled out in law when i went and looked at the statute i didn't see it spelled out i just didn't know how we because at some point we would have to let people know during the open enrollment period that hey you know it's going to be 519 and if that was number that we did at the start of the year or at you know whatever the semester i'm good with whatever i just didn't know what what the process would be and how we would go about it

031we can get we could get clarity on that um i guess my concern is particularly with the high school we're very dependent on the 324 transfers that we do have any significant loss for what we would gain would materially affect what we could do at houston high school and i you know the reasoning i've always gotten is well who could not afford 519 there are a lot of people that can't but there are a lot of people that are willing to drive their child to one of our schools to ensure that they get the very best education possible and i'm very sensitive to that because just like every one of you said a few minutes ago we're in the business of educating every child in my opinion that includes even those that don't live within

032the city of germantown if they can get here and we have room for them in my mind it's our duty to educate them but i look at the numbers and i look at and just so you know 324 students brings in 3.2 million dollars a year to houston high school that's a lot of honors classes ap programs dual enrollment a lot of extras that we might not have if we lose a significant number of students now it might not affect any of the other schools and that's why in the past we've talked about considering if we charge tuition that we exclude the high school because of the academies and because of the fact that we are not overcrowded we need those students i talked to one of collierville's board members they do charge tuition but

033particularly the high school they're overcrowded they don't have the issue that we have with needing the students that we have to be able to maintain the program level that we offer so that's just one of my concerns but i think if we're going to look at it from a purely monetary point of view we're gaining under 300 000 dollars with the potential of losing much more than that if a child leaves because they can't pay 519 dollars to our school system they take with them 900 i mean 9 214 so you have to consider that when you're talking about the number of children you could conceivably you lose mr man do you have a number and again it can be an approximate so sorry for hitting you with this kind of impromptu do we know

034how many students that we get open enrollment requests for that we deny it was less than 200 that i think we um pulled today i think at the high school we only had 64 denials um four still had more denials i think forest hill was around 78 denials of people who applied who did not get in so that that's a consideration there is not a long line of people lining up at the high school if you look in the update you can see for example that we still haven't uh maximized and there's a lot of promotion that we need to do with our fine arts academy for example we're we're not denying people who want to come in through the fine arts we're just not seeing the applicant so that's a promotion piece that we

035need to focus on so those are rough numbers around 68 at the high school where our number of denials i guess the reason i ask there's the neighborhood that's adjacent to houston high which is actually in collierville so i just pulled up it's a depending on the traffic it's at least a 20-minute drive from there to collierville high school um again i don't know well i do know because i have talked to people that live in that neighborhood that they would absolutely jump through hoops and jump for joy to pay 500 dollars to not have to drive down to collierville high school each day because that's that's 40 minutes of driving back and forth from that neighborhood and you have almond dale farms so there's a lot of neighborhoods there not that i'm saying that

036we need to go poach collierville kids but i do think if if there was an opportunity there that maybe today isn't there i understand and respect where miss landers is coming from i do i i tend to think that we have a product that is in demand and that i just don't feel like we will have a mass exodus of people and i think if people that living in edes or you know or in the i guess the cordova woodland hills in that area if they knew that they had an opportunity to attend houston high school where maybe they they don't have that opportunity today i just don't think that we'll have any shortage of people looking to attend particularly looking at if they're looking at houston versus private school and your options are five

037hundred dollars or seven you know sixteen thousand eight hundred up to twenty two thousand nine ninety and that's before they hit you for the annual fund and all the other things that you have to contribute at private school i i just don't see where um you know from a cost perspective that that would be a burden overcome again i do i do appreciate miss laner's perspective i understand um again i look at it as that we would have people jumping at the opportunity because we do have such a great product being one of the top high schools in the state which i agree the top property but if we don't have people waiting now where the people who you speak of could come now they could apply now we don't have a line of people

038waiting to get in i guess the only thing i would say is maybe do people even know it's an option i mean i don't know because i'm not in the high school circle so and and i'm like if today does someone living in the neighborhood adjacent to houston high school do they know that they could apply and get in i don't know that that's common knowledge and so or to someone living in woodland hills who's maybe zoned for i don't know which if is that germantown high or quarter i don't know whichever high school do they know that it's even an option that that's what i that's where i am and i don't you know anecdotally i'd have to ask but i i just don't think that we really marketed it because we well i

039think we do so that's what i do think i think we do a good job on it when i look at what dr simone does at the high school she works tirelessly tirelessly to promote our honors academy and have students come she attends the charter school fair she goes to the indian festival she attends chinese school to and sets up a booth um i know that miss crowder works a lot to push promotional material so so we are pushing and promoting those we have done flyers um so that may be a different conversation from tuition um but i do think that we have a lot of people working really hard to promote um the academies okay well so yeah that's the honors academy but let's let's just say i'm just a normal student and i'm

040you know maybe i'm not honors you know i'm just i'm just a normal student you know not you know just average student and and which uh that was me uh and so when you look at that like i i would think that those students wouldn't necessarily apply for the honors academy because maybe maybe in their mind you know they don't qualify or they don't think they qualify and so i i you know if i'm just you know a student that's just wants to attend houston that you know i just want to attend and you know participate in the ap courses that we offer i i understand the marketing for the specific academies i guess i'm just looking at just general enrollment not not necessarily associated with an academy what what are we looking at or

041what would we be looking at i think the challenge there is because we have denied i think was 64 was the number i'd have to look back mr blaine you can help me with it um we haven't done that type of promotion just to anybody who wants to come because we are having to deny some so that's been part of the challenge too so that's really why we promote the academies but i think that's where we operate like a private school i don't think it's just about opening the doors i think it's about making sure that students are prepared when they come to to our school because we do have a rigorous curriculum we are tracking our graduation rate so we got to be careful it's not just an open door hey anybody who wants

042to come to to houston you should come i think one of the things that we like to promote too is we think that our elementary and middle schools are really strong in preparing our students to be successful at houston high school so there is a gamble and a challenge for the district 2 when you are opening up to non-residents because you know there are students who come and they struggle it's a rigorous academic environment at houston high school and that may be a challenge for some of them so um i don't know if that's so that's why we have the targeted approach um with with students in the academies that we have any additional discussion specific to the people that apply and are denied is there any like specific criteria that has to be met

043i mean there's a whole different thing just open enrollment transfer in versus coming to a leadership or honors or a arts academy i want to make sure i'm saying you know i've been asking a lot of questions about the academies and just trying to understand that process not for tuition purposes more for how are we building the enrollment at our high school and when i hear that we're not at capacity at the high school but we're denying people i'm trying to understand like is there an opportunity well i i don't think we said that we are in that capacity i think we are at the number that we want to be i don't think our goal is to push that number higher than we want it to be at the high school we always want

044to be between 1900 and 2 000 students that's always our target number that we look at when we decide whether we're granting or denying transfers we go down the priority list that we have if you're not through one of the academies that's how we decide and so we can look at categories of number oh that's going to push us over that where we feel comfortable we're also looking at our enrollment by grade level in our courses so we can you could for example grant a grade level if that's a smaller grade band but we go down that priority list in the policy as far as getting into the academies themselves and that's in the district update too there's a rubric for each of those and a cut score that they try to limit for those

045students coming in through those academies um it's stronger used in the honors academy like we said we haven't really filled up leadership or the fine arts um academies that we we've denied so so i don't want to say we're not pushing his high school's numbers we're right where we want to be but those two academies that maybe aren't as active with people coming in that's the opportunity that already exists yeah so we have yeah for the three academies yes so one one last point um when we formed the district the city really didn't encourage us to charge tuition i do want to keep in mind the city employees because i do think if we start talking about this not only should we exclude our own employees children i think we need to be sensitive to

046the city employees children as well we would be open to that also but we didn't want to be preemptive or presumptive excuse me i agree with um vice chair landers as far as her comments on the city employees i personally feel like we see the benefit of a lot of those folks and having whatever departments they work in but what they do to support our schools and our community i find that to be valuable we talk about our own employees and that bringing that from an hr standpoint i do see that and if and if we were to ever talk about this from a financial standpoint moving forward uh kind of looking at it objectively i certainly wouldn't be opposed to having these conversations for the future and then it wouldn't affect any loss it

047would be something people would know well down the road um but i also see these numbers and there's really not a lot of people left once once we shake out employees and gmsd employees and city employees and then look through so if some i guess my question would be if we were to consider this and the honors academy is firing in full on all cylinders would those students be part of this or would they would that be considered an alternative path for enrollment um i don't know the answer to that and that's pretty awful that's for y'all to decide i guess so if we keep talking because we've talked about a lot of things that don't have anything to do with tuition but they have a lot to do with enrollment which has to do

048with tuition and i think it's important to consider all those factors um if we get down to once we start taking all the folks out and we're down to just a few a few students and then all of a sudden that figure doesn't look quite like that and i'm mindful of that um the potential revenue that is and so i just want to make sure i understand i've also heard from a lot of folks in the community over the past several years so just like oh you all needed and i think a lot of times those the people that tell me that they think that we're going to charge st george's tuition i'm like no no we can only do what is the percentage that's not you know brought to the family i mean through

049the family but to the city and so when we look at that um amount i know that i've spoken about it in the past and and i do feel like a lot of folks who are already providing their own independent transportation for their students as opposed to renting an apartment in germantown i think five hundred dollars for two semesters and the big scheme of things is not a lot um you know i know what apartments are renting for around here and it's more than my house no so i'm a little amazed by that all the time um i'm just trying to get it all out there because i see so many sides of this but i think where we are right now it helps me better understand the enrollment and then we keep getting back

050to that high school we don't have any really room um even for this tuition which would be out of district students really at the elementary middle school level anyway so we get back to that high school and i know that the i guess the concern about having the program impact if we lost even just a little bit a small scale of people as a result of this but i also see the benefit and hey what's another 40 students that come through an academy that may really benefit what we're able to do further so i see both sides of that i just wanted to since we're having the discussion i wanted to make sure that you know based on different things i've heard in the room tonight i certainly do see a lot of perspectives here

051and it gets back to me what are we gaining i guess and if us telling the community you know that we were able to to get some revenue that's that's good because they want to know how we're going to spend money and they want to know where the money's going to come from that's one of the biggest questions we get asked and i think that that's being a good steward but also don't want to to ms lander's point i do see a lot of and it's not with existing students i'm looking long-term frankly that's the way i see this conversation is very long term and so i look at that and i just i don't i don't see the tuition as a deterrent but also i'm not sure that it's tr it's ultimately going to

052get us the amount of revenue that we describe here on this paper if we take all the people out that we really want to protect in these existing employees children i think it's a really interesting discussion and i think as griffith really pointed out kind of pros and cons from both sides but um fundamentally though i don't see the school district as and and i understand that revenue is always important student and enrollment has played a large role in that but fundamentally i don't see the district as a money-making i guess instrument and i mean we provide an amazing product an amazing service and that's teaching our children and and and i think that's that's what gives me a lot of pause on looking at just additional revenue and losses we might see from actions

053in that regard but i think we just need to always kind of keep that focus in mind also i just did the math so 512 or 519 dollars if you take that out over a year we're looking at nine dollars and 84 cents per week is what we would be charging someone to attend houston high school nine dollars and 84 cents a 985 i guess i didn't take it out number so 9.85 cents i just don't think that that's anywhere near an unreasonable ask because again if you're looking at fairness to our residents that someone's going to come in right now and pay 500 000 or 400 000 for a house just to get in and we have people that there's bidding wars for houses in germantown because they're so desperate to get into germantown

054and get into our school system i just when i when i look at the fairness i see our residents doing that and you know so you know spending 400 000 500 000 you know more to get into the city again i i just to me it's not unreasonable to ask someone in here on a transfer to pay 9.85 cents a week to attend the school and when they attend they're getting a superior product and they're getting a number of ap classes and they're getting a great educational experience and more than likely they're going to be set up to get a scholarship in college and so a lot of things like that that investment pays off exponentially in the back end but you know again i i i can and i've long felt like again going

055back to miss landers perspective yes our our obligation is is to children but i'm looking at it as a germantown board of education member at the end of the day my obligation is to the residents of germantown that's i mean at the end of the day that's that's who voted all of us in again i'm i'm welcoming of transfers i encourage it but at the end of the day who my obligation to is to the city limits of germantown as far as you know looking out for planning and and all of that again but no make no mistake i'm i'm not anti-transfer i just think from a fairness standpoint the 519 a year is not a show stopper or any kind of deal breaker any additional comments i'm just going to make a few comments

056i think i've made myself clear in previous discussions in previous years about where i stand on on tuition and and that has not changed um oak ridge charges tuition kingsport charges tuition maryville city schools charge tuition um karivos charges tuition if you look at oak ridge and maryville and kingsport the amount that they charge is substantially more than we charge or would charge and that's another discussion we can have another time because they have to follow the same rules that we do um i did i did not do the math down to a week i did it down to a month 10 months of the school year because that's easy it's 51 51.90 a month i do not see that as a deterrent i honestly do not see it as a deterrent however i do

057agree that we do need to be mindful that we do depend on transfers in the high school at the same time the students that come to our school high school are most of the time very highly motivated very intelligent very talented young men and women who want to have a successful high school experience and and they are they are going to be and their families are are going to do what they need to do in order to be in our school i i just i think it's a i think it's kind of a straw man to to set it up and say that there that the is going to be a deterrent but that that again is is my opinion um we haven't seen they did not see decline in collierville yes they are full

058at their high school um but they did not see a decline or a hit in their enrollment or their desire to be there as a matter of fact i've been told by people who are out of district that they'd be happy to pay at the time it was 400 and something dollars now we have a little bit of a bump um happy to pay that to get their kids in high schoo in our high school or to have continue to have their kids in our high school these same families are paying hundreds of dollars to participate in other activities in our high school including band and choir and cheer and all of those activities so this is this is to get an education this is to get a german town houston high school forest hill

059dogwood riverdale houston middle school education and and and it is the caliber of which 519 doesn't even scratch the surface um so that's you know it's something we need to continue to to think about if if we want to review that in the business meeting and have a a motion to do that that's something that also needs to be discussed is that something that the board has an appetite to address in the next business meeting and i'll wrap it up by saying if it's something we want to address then i think we're a long way from coming up with emotion because we have a lot of things to discuss about who is included and who is excluded and so i would caution us for just making i think we need to take the right steps

060as ms griffith said and look down the road and make sure we're making a politic a policy and a decision that will benefit the district for years to come and it's not one we have to go back and revisit because we rushed into it i won't belabor the point you all know how i feel um it's an educator's heart and it's hard to turn that part of me off so but i know we have other business to conduct before our meeting starts in six minutes so do we want to discuss discuss this again in a future work session and then bring bring emotion forward in a future board meeting or how what how would you like to proceed i for one have plenty of additional questions that i'd like to have answered first i mean

061when i say and a lot of it has to do with enrollment but in particular that might impact this decision or what it would look like even in the next not the school year but in the following school year and things like that that i just don't readily have i want to better understand i mean i don't see how we would make any change before 22 23 a year anyways so i think you know we've got several months to look at it if we if we wanted to do that so i don't know we have to rush into decision give us time to get answers questions questions answered i am mindful of open enrollment and i don't know exactly what that timetable looks like for next year but i know it'll be here in a

062minute so i do appreciate that time frame as well um while i was to to chairman o's point i did some i have the oak ridge tuition application current application here that was kind of interesting um and then they don't determine the what they're going to charge until august which i thought was even more interesting in my little research but i do at least if um i don't know if we know the dates for open enrollment right now if that were yeah we would have to know by january for us to start pushing that out because i know that we have our honors academy for example dead applications um that come soon so if it was going to be for this next year our ask would be to do it in january could it not

063be stated in the uh information that tuition may may be charged pending a decision by the school board you could do that i think i think that that might be something we could consider yeah i'm fine with discussing this more in january i'm not in favor of kicking this another year down the road again i understand because when we look at the i guess really to the who it's going to impact i think we're pretty clear on that it's not going to impact the children of employees or city employees so and i think everyone else would be subject to it i'm in favor of not voting on it in december but i i would suggest when we get to our january work session when we're back to a time where we have more time to

064discuss this i would i would like to bring this back up for discussion in our january work session and to move for emotion shortly thereafter all right let's move let's do that let's discuss it in the january work session and in our open enrollment information if we could include some statement that it's a may there's no will but a may regarding tuition dependent upon the decision of the school board does that sound good to everyone all right moving forward to further business slanders you said you had some further business um i did i don't know that we have time um i wanted us to have a brief discussion on our mask mandate and how we as a board wish to move forward i think our constituency would very much appreciate us having a public discussion

065but i don't think we can do so in two minutes if everyone is comfortable with this um i am comfortable delaying the start of our meeting for 15 minutes to 6 15. are we okay with that yes i think it's something we need to talk about so i'm all for it always let's do it i know we have a lot of guests here let's give it 15 minutes and but at 15 minutes it's a hard stop and if we could please inform our guests that we are delayed slightly please thank you and i'll give my apologies to whomever can kate could you let them know where 15 minutes okay and apollo did you apologize thank you all right miss landers why don't you um laura i just think with everything that has taken place um

066in the course of the last few months particularly the last few weeks i i thought it would behoove us to take a moment to discuss it as a board i don't know based and i did not have the chance thank you mr strain for sending the article i did not have a chance to really read it i don't know and i'd like to know from ms estes if we're in the same position we were in with respect to the federal judge's order and with that in mind i would like for us to have a discussion about where we want to go for our kids yes keep in mind we only have 15 minutes since y'all discussed this like at our last work session there's really been very little change in the law the sixth as

067far as the shelby county litigation which if you'll recall dealt primarily with governor lee's executive order but that was the enforcement mechanism that the shelby county board of education is using the sixth circuit did not alter judge lipman's opinion the sixth circuit did say though that it's likely moot but it very definitely recognized that masks were an effective mechanism that can be utilized the main case i think that that we're dealing with and there has not been any change in the ruling since the last time this measure was before the board is the nashville litigation now i keep looking at my phone and i'm not playing solitaire over here that order is imminent and i think you know it when i was driving out here today there was another order issue dealing with federal contractors

068there was one issued yesterday dealing with nursing homes all of these uncovered mandates and vaccines and so they're just they're constant but but as of right now judge crenshaw has not issued his ruling now depending on what he does he could uh he has said in a in a prior case in the case that dealt just with the executive order that he didn't think a federal judge ought to be running the school that it ought to be left up to the local boards of education to the local lea okay and he's very he was very strong on that in the litigation which is the parents versus the new legislation if you will the plaintiffs are adopting that that approach because i know it's one that judge crenshaw has liked in the past but the issue

069then of course is going to be what step two are they are those same group of plaintiffs gonna look at the schools but we'll cross that bridge when we are when we get there but where we are right now is there has not been any change in any of the case law although i do think we will know something a whole lot we'll know a whole lot more this week at some point than we know right now um if judge crenshaw holds that only the ada provisions of the new statute are invalid then that's going to take away the authority of the shelby county health department to be to be telling the schools what to do because then the law says shelby county health department you can't do that anymore so that puts you in

070one position if judge crenshaw says the whole thing goes away the whole law goes away then shelby county still as you all know have has a mass mandate they reinforce their position friday they have now i have heard i haven't seen them but i have heard they have issued citations to all the other municipal schools except germantown that have that lifted their mass mandate but i have not seen those but that is what i have heard okay um we don't so a lot of of where you will be in a position to go is dependent on how judge crenshaw rules there some of the municipal and municipal schools are not in the same position that germantown is in you are named in the nashville litigation you are named in the shelby county litigation a parent

071was in the show in the shelby county litigation a different parent is in the nashville litigation okay that puts you in a different situation than a school that has no child requesting any kind of accommodation okay so that that does make you different i do know there is one school that was named that has decided to go or one district that was named that is still uh decided to lift their mass mandate that's certainly the decision that you know that they want to make in deciding that they would rather face the consequences of potential legal action out of that decision than going against a large number of parents who are very unhappy with masks i know most people don't want the mask and don't like the mask i gleefully throw mine off the second i'm

072free to do so but um germantown is in a little bit different situation because you have been even though not technically a named party you are a mentioned party in both lawsuits i am hopeful that we will have a a much clearer route on how to safely proceed without jeopardizing school funds in litigation this week it could be that that you would chairman you would think it appropriate to call a special meeting to re reassess the policies where we are when we know a little bit more about where it's going assuming you decide you don't want to do anything different today but again you know technically from where we stood uh when we addressed this the last time really there's not been any significant change we're just waiting for the ruling my challenge uh and

073really struggle that we have with this is first we're not a party to either lawsuit i don't want to be a party to either lawsuit but we are not um at this time and when we look at the scope of each of the cases when i look at littmann's that was focusing around the legality around the governor's executive order which has now expired so um it's my expectation mr and you can weigh in on this one too that at some point that's going to be declared moot because that that's what that was focusing around it was not focusing on the new legislation when i look at other districts that are named in this process and i think about the article that was shared franklin special school district has dropped their mass mandate williamson county schools

074has dropped their mass mandate collarville schools has dropped their mass mandate those people are also mentioned and that's my struggle but then also what provides me some focus too it is always the school's lea this elected school board to determine how we are meeting the ada needs of students it is not a health department it is not a federal judge to determine that that is the role of our elected officials here that is what schools do so we have to look at that student's disability we have to determine whether masking is appropriate i'm not promoting having masks not having masks there may be cases when cases are spiking and we're seeing spread in our schools that having a mask mandate for this board may be a really important thing for us to have the challenge

075i have right now is i feel like we haven't had a decision that it keeps getting taken out of our hands to decide this and then um two i think they've the plaintiffs in the nashville case have put in for a summary judgment i think i think they were asking for an early decision mr stern you can weigh in on that is that what they they submitted or their post preliminary injunction hearing brief so it's still related to the motion for preliminary injunction and there was some language in that that really spoke to me they were talking about the relief that was sought so this is straight from that submittal to the extent that the defendants argue plaintiffs are requesting a statewide universal mass mandate the plaintiffs are saying that is incorrect they are asking

076to enjoin the state legislature's obstruction of the local educational agency's use of reasonable accommodations pursuant to ada section 504 and arpa so for us it's about the ability for you to decide and that's what i'm hoping that at some point we will as a board get to decide if you determine that that uh you do wish to make a change as you all are aware you do not uh and i've been with this board long enough to know that things are always very well considered and and they're not arbitrary and capricious that you have sound reasoning for the actions that you have taken and what we would want to do is perhaps get a current count or or our cases down i went to the shelby county website today and assuming i read it correctly

077it looks like there are now only and this is all shelby county only to act 299 active pediatric with 10 new pediatric cases i could not get the exact time frame but i understand it's updated weekly but so you know franklin based heavily their decision that they made last night on the fact that they have i think it's less than one percent cases and so they felt that that weighed heavily and so uh you know there there is something to consider as far as as everything that takes into account any decision that you make is knowing that it is a statistically sound decision and so you know yeah i think y'all i'll get reports daily on on the numbers so you're all aware of that but i think maybe everyone needs to be reminded that

078part of your thought process is that you're not just responding to emails or this is not on a whim that this is based on on consideration of everything that's involved okay board members anyone like to share their thoughts i'd like to point out what i think both ms estes and mr manuel indirectly each just mentioned and that's that this body has not one time this school year made a decision we have followed the guidance that we were instructed by law and statute to follow at the time we have stayed consistent within that we have now gotten caught into a situation that has to do with things that are outside of the state government the local government whether they have the authority or not at this point is a total question mark and i want to

079make sure that the community understands that the current state of masking in our district is not as a result of the shelby county health department's recent change back to you know requiring that it is indeed as our communication described it is because of the nashville-based federal case that takes several students from across the state and their ada accommodations into consideration that is not lost on me and what mr manuel said that that is our responsibility i look forward to being given the authority hopefully i'm hopeful that this um order it was very surprising to me i called board member strain today i said i opened it twice when i was like it seems like there's some language in here that's actually talking about something that we might appreciate taking place and if judge crenshaw sees

080it that way you made a great point that they knew enough to know that he might go yeah that's how i felt previously on something so that's interesting to me too but we're watching it closely is really the point and we have been you know analyzing i joked with a lawyer friend over the weekend i said i've never been so in tune to multiple federal cases in my life but i really think that it has not been in our discretion and that is where it has been difficult and there has been a lot of confusion and a lot of misconception and i'm not sure at this point maybe ms estes as she just kind of laid out some of the things that we would consider if we were to all get together and try to

081make a decision at a later time that that's kind of where we are but that's the reason and that's it's it's very important to me that as we talk to people and people ask questions that they understand that this is not arbitrary on from this board especially from our leadership at the district this is very thoughtful consideration and it's very thorough and it has been from the get-go since the end of july and that doesn't mean that it's what everybody wants and i certainly won't speak for the people in this room but i think we are at a point where we're looking around and we're in a situation where we may be doing something and we're trying to do the right thing um because of the federal judge's comments and we have continued to do

082that but i also think that this week we are hopeful that we get some more information that'll help us better to be doing something that maybe we could actually get together and make a decision for the students in our community and in our charge mr curry i just we're in limbo here and i don't know do we know when judge crenshaw is going to make a ruling because i i could see this dragging out for weeks and again our district is suffering harm as a result of this i'm looking at the cdc's statistics williamson county is still high they have 123.32 cases per 100 000 8.9 percent positivity rate shelby county per the cdc is substantial 74 cases per 100 000 2.6 so williamson dropped it and their cases are through the roof compared to

083what ours are here so from a safety standpoint i have no concerns whatsoever but i do uh i've felt strongly that this the masking it's almost you know students can wear them here but they don't have to bring them over here i mean we've we've really reached levels of absurdity um i i i would request if it is our decision we act sooner rather than later i don't want to drag this out through through christmas because again i do think our district suffers harm the longer that this drags out because students across the area are not our students are being singled out basically student in collierville or lakeland or arlington they're able to attend mass optional that they're able to attend and our students right now are not given that benefit and we've had issues

084with quarantines with shelby county was holding us to a different standard in the state i just don't want our students to be treated differently than elsewhere in the state we're now at 6 15. thank you for your patience our meeting will begin in just a couple of minutes this would be a good time if you are here to speak at citizens to be heard there is a form out on the table back there please complete that and submit it to the young woman who will be back in just a minute uh that computer right there and we will be able to hear your comments at the time for citizens to be heard thank you it's 6 20 this business meeting of the germantown board of education is called to order we will start with a

085moment of silence miss griffith if you would lead us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all next on the agenda is the approval of the agenda the chair will entertain a motion i move to approve the agenda as presented is there a second second the motion was made by miss landers and seconded by mr strain ms subramani if you would call roll mr stream yes miss landers yes mr curry yes miss griffith yes masoof yes thank you next is recognition and awards mr manuel we will start with our student recognitions so for those of you who are not familiar with all west my children participated in

086choir they participated with band instruments i cannot imagine a more stressful competition the preparation that goes into it for me it's like the super bowl of high school fine arts it is a way to really prove yourself your accomplishments and get recognized by individuals outside of our school setting and for us it's special because you're representing germantown schools you are showing yourselves to be the best and the brightest and we're thankful for your accomplishments so at this time tonight we are recognizing those students who have been recognized as all west for choir so when i call your name if you would come up and get a certificate and then stay up here in front of the banner we're going to get everybody's picture together so first we'd like to recognize grace mitchell that's great savannah

087chandler kennedy tinsley may sistrunk kyra v garde kate imfinger we have a winner [Applause] i'm sorry i was going too quick that was kate jacob rosier [Applause] declan story colby corkin andrew grooms josiah story ellie mitta there's ellie mania tiagi [Applause] congratulations jasmine nesbitt abigail heatherington grace calvert grace applebaum eliza danila emily woolkey on anne-marie durfee [Applause] helena edwards michaela de cranier or decree muir [Applause] congratulations anna enyx owen walsh amelia summe amelia caitlin shogun colin brooks [Applause] thomas peters michael loftus is there anybody else that i failed to miss or that we didn't get our names on congratulations all of you before we do one more picture did y'all have did y'all have prepared pieces or did you also have sight reading too where you didn't have pieces that you got to see ahead

088of time were you all prepared or do you all have unknown pieces that you walked into it was prepared congratulations foreign diapers [Applause] we have one more recognition tonight and then all recipients you are all welcome to leave once we have called you please feel free you're welcome to stay for the meetings but you're not required to so as you're aware this year our focus has been on student connections and so we have october's employee that empowers is laura beth lyddon and so i'd like to read a little bit about laura beth and you can come on up and stand here while we talk about you each month students and educators will focus on a character trait for the month of october miss lidden has taught her students on a lesson about courage using the

089new character strong curriculum in her riverdale classroom ms lyndon gage and second graders and question answer sessions captivating posters and fun games she not only acts as a teacher to young children but also a role model they in truly encapsulating the essence of our new curriculum miss linden influences her students in building strong character traits and creates a safe environment within her classroom we're thankful for the connections that you're making with your students so october's teacher making connections for students anyone coming up [Applause] congratulations [Applause] that concludes our recognitions and awards please feel free to go at this time next on the agenda is reports mr strain you would take the tln report please last month the tennessee general assembly held its third special session third special legislative session of the year several laws related

090to education the coveted 19 pandemic were passed including the following all of which are new sections of the tennessee code section 14-2-101 which prohibits the school or district from mandating that a person receive a covet-19 vaccine or requiring proof of vaccination as a condition of access to the school the school's premises or in order to receive services section 142-102 which prohibits a school or district from compelling or taking an adverse action against a person to compel proof of vaccination if the person objects to receiving covet 19 vaccine for any reason section 14-2-104 which sets forth the only method that may be used to mandate face coverings in schools section 14-4-101 which provides the commissioner of health has a sole authority to determine quarantine guidelines for schools and for persons who test positive for coven 19

091and also provides that a school does not have authority to quarantine a person for purposes of covet 19. just prior to in following governor lee signing the new code legislation legal actions were instituted in federal courts in memphis and nashville seeking clarification the shelby county health department's authority to continue enforcing its orders and the legality of the new state law's mass provisions legislature also passed a law permitting partisan school board elections legislation is permissive with a decision to be made by county political party primary boards school board candidates may campaign as the nominee or representative of political party if at least one county primary board decides to conduct partisan school board elections the reasons stated in last month's tln report and which will be explained in more detail a letter posted to the board's legislative

092advocacy page on the gmst website the board opposes partisan school board elections board also encourages community members to contact shelby county political parties with opposition to partisan school board races as well in other general assembly news senator brian kelsey has temporarily stepped down as chair of the senate education committee following his indictment on charges of violating federal campaign finance law senator john lundberg of bristol was named interim chair in tennessee department of education news the department has adopted emergency rules governing enforcement of recent legislation regarding prohibited concepts in public schools the emergency rules will be in effect until may 7 2022 when the department expects to adopt final rules in illegal news civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit in nashville challenging the recently enacted state law requiring that a student's gender for purposes of

093participation enter interscholastic athletics must be determined by the student's sex at the time of the student's birth as indicated on the student's original birth certificate that concludes my report thank you mr strain now for the chairman's report mr strain reports he attended the tsba webinars regarding teacher tenure collaborative conferencing and special session legislation he participated in two attorney roundtables regarding special session legislation he also attended tsba leadership conference convention and delegate assembly the tennessee department of education town hall regarding public school funding the dogwood pto meeting and he co-co-hosted a joint meeting between the germantown board of education and the board of marin alderman regarding the gmsd master facilities plan ms landers reports that she co-hosted the joint bma boe dinner meeting she attended the houston high school theater performance of emma the musical the

094tennessee department of education town hall regarding public school funding and the tsba leadership conference convention and delegate assembly mr curry reports he attended the houston high houston high school trunk or treat houston high school choir fall fest the houston high school production of emma the musical tsba leadership conference convention and delegate assembly he co-hosted a joint meeting between the germantown board of education and the board of marin alderman he attended forest hills movie family movie night and their veterans day celebration four houston middle school basketball games and mr frisell's eighth grade social studies class at riverdale ms griffith reports she attended the tennessee department of education funding town hall at the national civil rights museum and the tsba webinar legislative update from the third special session she co-hosted the joint meeting between the germantown board

095of education and the board of marin alderman she virtually attended and enjoyed riverdale's annual i love america program and houston high school theater's performance of emma the musical she also attended the tsba leadership conference convention and delegate assembly ms oaf reports she attended the tennessee department of education funding town hall the houston high school theater production of emma the musical houston mustang football's final regular season game and the houston band's last marching competition of their season she co-hosted the joint meeting between the germantown board of education and the board of marine aldermen coordinated and met with municipal board chairman twice and attended the tsba board chairman roundtable leadership conference convention and delegate assembly the weekend before thanksgiving your school board attended as you've heard several times over the tsba's leadership conference convention and delegate assembly

096through this conference we were able to network with school boards from across the state speak directly to legislators and war attorneys gain insight into best practices happening in other districts and hear from speakers who encouraged and pushed us to continue the hard work of doing what is right for our students it was a busy and fruitful event and from my perspective could not have come at a better time to our families this holiday season happy hanukkah [Music] may peace and light be part of all of our families this season and that concludes the chairman's report mr jones the financial report okay you have your financial reports for the month ending october 31 2021 and the school operating fund total assets liabilities and fund balance amounted to 16.9 million in the federal projects fund we had

097a receivable from the tennessee department of education at 1.4 million assets liabilities and fund balance and the remaining funds are in the cafeteria fund 468 000 capital projects 1.6 million health insurance 1.7 million opec trust 4.3 million and in our fixed assets 120.5 million a couple things on the statement of revenues and expenses and the school operating fund 355 000 was paid to shelby county schools for our op liability and federal projects 2.3 million and esther 2.0 funding was spent a year to date representing 50 of the total in budget health insurance fund 91 000 was received and stop-loss reimbursements for health insurance claims in the cafeteria fund sfe reported a net income of 88 000 for the month and finally in the opec trust i realized unrealized gains on investments totaled 98 000 and

098that concludes my report thank you mr jones now for the superintendent's report mr manuel okay we'll move through two different topics um we're going to talk about character strong a new sel curriculum that we are rolling out in the district that we've been talking about for a while it's also included in your district update and we're going to talk about our esser funding updates we have finally got received our final approval for our sr3 funding and we'll be moving forward with those funds being spent so let's talk a little bit about our esser funding plan one of the components is that we need to regularly share with our community how we're spending this money there are not major changes to what we've seen and what we've previously discussed with our sr funding but you know

099that there are some focuses that we have to to look at based on the federal government's guidance and the plan that was submitted by the state of tennessee to the tennessee department of education or excuse me to the federal department of education so really they're focusing on learning loss that's one of our key components they're talking about how we're dealing with covet situations that's our focus and i'll read through the numbers and hopefully they'll come back up uh as we proceed so our total esser grant was 11 million 307 497 dollars and 65 cents uh i think we had about i want to say 40 revisions there were a lot of submissions that they got turned in and then returned it was like writing a term paper you can see our plan uh either using

100that code there or going to our website when we look at how it's allocated and we'll see if this catches up there's our total lesser plan funding and that you can talk about the expenses we are supposed to look at our student subgroups and underrepresented student subgroups and how we're spending that money so it can look like regular school learning loss programs summer learning extended days extended school year programs but we're going to talk about some of those categories that you see here one of those is we have signed up for the tennessee all-core tutoring program and it's really a framework for the state to provide tutoring services for our students based on how they're performing on benchmark assessments and how they performed on the previous year's tennessee ready with that program they provide additional

101funding to the district besides the sr 3.0 funding to provide for those programs you can see their con contracts for substitute teachers we know that due to this coveted world we are having increased rates of people being out and so that funding was approved and the board had previously previously improved those amounts and you can see it's a for each of the six schools it's about 150 000 dollars instructional supplies and materials we have nine thousand dollars software 73 000 regular instruction equipment 1.8 million you can see there and it includes all those technology pieces we did pay for a homebound teacher to provide support for students we have stipends for teachers paraprofessionals and therapists to do additional work outside of their school day to help students with learning loss with health services we did

102add a whole child director and part-time coordinator you can see it 226 thousand with contract services paying for gaggle therapy when we talk about whole child needs for students we spend 110 000 other student support was 344 000 that included additional guidance teachers at our schools and our let's talk platform when we talk about support services you can see we have 486 000 there that included instructional coaches and that's two years worth of instructional coaches our spadig grant that we have stipends to pay for people working through that grant our professional development through tennessee all core two technology interns part-time you can see their salary and wages there we did add new psychologists when we talk about providing needs for students not just the assessment that psychologists historically have done they're actually providing support for

103for students our help desk technician salary and then uh stipends for assistant principals beyond their contract today so because we're adding these summer learning camps and times for our administrators to be at those schools that's additional work and we've provided a stipend for them to do that fiscal services we did add additional account slash bookkeeper human resources we added a coveted bonus for our employees for all the struggles and challenges they're facing here and our staff are excited that this money has now been approved and we can appropriate that and send that out before the holiday is something special for all of our staff members we did add six day porters to help with additional cleaning uh in our schools and we know that that has been a a big impact on the district they're

104actually district employees they're not working for an outside corporation and then we do have increased costs with our janitorial contract and then our our biggest part of this program is our regular capital outlay with houston middle you see 4.1 million there included for that houston middle school edition now the changes that really happened were not substantial as far as the board is concerned as far as what you wanted to accomplish the real challenge we faced was that the department said that could be done out of sr2 funds versus out of sr3 funds so a lot of times we saw funding going between the two projects in order to get them all approved in the right buckets so you can see this is just a review of our sr2 funding total was uh 4.6 million you

105can see regular instruction program has 637 our virtual school got moved to that they said that the sr-3 would not accommodate virtual any type of virtual school or program so that had to be moved to s or two and we've previously talked about that office of the principal the gold principle you can see salary there and french benefits human resources personnel and regular capital outlay there's another big chunk towards houston middle school that was left in that s or two but all in all it's everything that the board approved just moved between the two buckets the last um financial component that we're talking about we've talked about tennessee all core so when you hear that that's going to continue beyond the esser time this is something that's required by that retention bill we have to

106provide tutoring services for our students who are jeopardy of being retained so you can see that there is a state match of 700 per student that we have in the district for that funding and we have 800 included in our sr-3 allocations so that provides additional time for summer learning camps that provides tutoring programs you're going to see how we're going to really make up for that learning loss with students so changing gears one of the ways that we have really focused and when we talked about our board strategic planning goals was looking at the whole child component one of those components is having a comprehensive social emotional learning program and we've had these programs that our counselors have done at different schools but we've never had that unifying program that we've done that's been

107done in all the schools and it didn't have the vertical alignment going from the elementary schools to the middle to the high school so we're happy that we're rolling out this character strong and it is being paid for out of those uh sr funds but i want to show you some examples of the things that they're doing in our character strong programs so these are the topics they're they're covering and i know we've heard some concerns about oh is character strong bringing in critical race theory or is there something you know what's in this character strong program these are the topics courage respect perseverance gratitude honesty kindness empathy responsibility cooperation and creativity and you can see an example of the high quality products that they have with this program um you can see this was

108a about being kind uh and their posters that come with it they're coloring pages that come with it and the teachers and also guidance counselors can incorporate this into their guidance lessons that they have during the maps schedules or glam schedules if you include the guidance in there but it can also be used by the teachers in their classroom if they're wanting to do something that's bonding for students and making sure that we're fostering the student-to-student and adult-to-student connections when we look at our middle school they're really talking about relational activities so here are some real examples and they're almost like icebreakers that they'll do and the goal is to just start that um really discussion among students and talk about how foster those friendships those bonds that they're going to form so one example

109would be either or so you may have a question that and they all have to choose it would you rather high-five every person you walk past or skip everywhere you go and that's going to be really an interesting conversation for a middle school student nothing controversial in those types of topics or what is one thing that you miss about elementary school and talk about why and so they can use these in that classroom setting during that guidance setting to really learn about their students the students can learn about each other or here's an example that maybe for the people who have that art slant which of these speaks to you so you may see four images and really represents how you're feeling at this moment and talk to us why why did you choose that

110picture so these are real examples out of that includes 35 sessions centered around uh those character traits that we we've talked about and they're going to deliver those at the middle school level during the mustang or the raider time and you heard from miss so miss linden get her recognition tonight she's an example of somebody who's already jumped in two feet and really engaging in this content and it's coming so we'll move to the high school level so in the high school level it's taking more of an academic approach so you know high school or maybe what i got to choose between a high five and skipping through the halls the middle schoolers may find that more funny but here's an example where they're given a definition of a romanian word that translates to at

111home and how romanian you learn about the culture a lot of them who are living in other countries will use that term to talk about that feeling of home and then that will foster that discussion in your classroom what does it mean um to be at home and so they're they're looking at how they're incorporating this into a zero hour at the high school so that we can make sure that even at the high school level um where we have students who aren't really bonding with each other with adults that they're having that time and that opportunity to really engage in something um that's relational so that they can help make connections so they're like i said there are 25 age appropriate lessons that that's an example of one of them here are some other

112examples that you can see i think this one's called the deck of destiny that you have to look at you would have to answer a question so you could see that picture there one may be an image how does this image make you feel what do you think of what's one word that may describe this image or it may be a poster you can see their perseverance what does perseverance mean to you so they may have a little deeper topic that they're talking about at the high school level but once again the overarching goal is to make sure that students are fostering those connections with each other and with adults and so that concludes uh my super intense report we're excited for the kickoff that is is coming for character strong uh there's a letter

113going out to families showing them some of this material too but hopefully you can look for this with your students to see that this is coming home and really the goal here is to foster those relationships that are coming so you can see the sample letter it's also included in your district update and that is all for the superintendent's report thank you mr manuel it's time for citizens to be heard do you have any one more just the one okay before we get started i have something i need to read and then i'll call you up to the i'll call you up gmsd by its policy allows persons to address the board during the citizens to be heard section of its agenda but only within certain guidelines tennessee law makes no specific provisions for the

114participation of the public at school board meetings thus there is no inherent or legal right of citizens to make comments during a school board meeting prior to making your remarks you must state your name your address and the subject of your presentation the chair would remind you that if there are several persons who are intending to express the same sentiment gmsd board rules require that you designate one spokesperson to speak to your position if you do not do so and the chair determines that comments are made are cumulative the chair will direct the speaker to cease their remarks individuals addressing the board shall address their remarks to the chair speakers will not be permitted to engage in gossip make defamatory comments or use abusive or vulgar language in accordance with gmsd policy school board 1.404

115remarks will be limited to three minutes unless time is extended by the board or otherwise reduced by the chairman to reflect the number of citizens to be heard tca 39-17-306 provides that it is a class b misdemeanor to intentionally prevent or disrupt a school board meeting please be advised that any individual who is disruptive or does not adhere to the aforementioned rules will not be permitted to continue to make their remarks at this meeting this evening one individual has indicated their desire to speak to address the board you will have three minutes dr kelsey come on up if you would state your full name your address and your subject and at that time i will start the timer so i won't start until after you've finished those three things it'll stay you just yes it

116stays on okay so my name is carl crane calci i'm a physician i'm an er physician at saint francis bartlett emergency room my address is 2300 elderly in germantown and i'm going to give an update on some covet 19 clinical data that we are seeing locally and also in a in another state okay so for the last 14 weeks actually at the end of this week it'll be 14 weeks my colleagues and i at saint francis bartlett and also colleagues that i know in texas are surveying every patient that we see regardless of their chief complaint a person could come in for a cut on their hand they could come in for a cough they could come in for chest pain regardless we asked two questions number one have you had coronavirus the illness number

117two have you been vaccinated what we are seeing is that up to this point and if that changes and when it changes i will i will change that and let you know in the last 14 weeks zero zero patients who have had coronavirus the illness have checked into our emergency room or other emergency rooms in texas with coronavirus symptoms zero so that says that natural immunity is superior and it is doing what it's supposed to be doing secondly people who have been vaccinated but don't know if they've had coronavirus or not some of them are showing up with coveted symptoms typically mild the people who have not had coronavirus nor have been vaccinated are the ones who are showing up with more severe illness but fortunately those numbers are still declining i know have probably

118one more minute masks masks are essentially useless and i'm hoping that maybe in the next month or two at least the mandates will go away if somebody wants to wear a mask for all by all means wear a mask you know if you feel more comfortable the last time i spoke actually the time before i mentioned a study in bangladesh that essentially showed there was no uh decrease in the transmit transmissibility of coronavirus two more studies one from denmark and one from sweden have now added credence to that finally omicron is the new variant one of the researchers in south africa states that its transmissibility is high but at this point the symptoms are very very mild and that's all i have to say you all have my email address please contact me if you

119have any questions about this and i'll be more than happy to be uh you know candid and upfront about it and thanks for giving me the time thank you very much dr kelsey next on the agenda is the consent agenda included in the consent agenda is the approval of the minutes the review and revision of policy's second reading the review and revision of policy's first reading and the miscellaneous fiscal year 2122 budget amendments 15 16 17 18 and 19. the chair will entertain a motion i move to approve all the items in the consent agenda is there a second i'll make a second the motion was weighed by miss landers and seconded by miss griffith ms super money if you would call roll please the slanders yes mr curry yes miss griffith yes mr strange

120yes masoof yes thank you moving on to board action items there is one action item a purchase of interactive flat panel panel bundles for houston middle school is there a motion i move to approve the purchase of interactive flat panel bundles for houston middle school from central technologies in the amount of one hundred twenty seven thousand five excuse me fifty seven dollars through our purchasing cooperative contract with sevier county contract number zero one zero four one nine scs second motion was made by ms griffith and seconded by ms landers is there discussion seeing none miss super money if you would call roll mr curry yes ms griffith yes mr stream yes slanders yes ms yes thank you motion passes we'll move on to announcements first and foremost mr curry passed this to me and it's

121very important the houston middle and riverdale basketball game is monday at riverdale it's the battle of germantown boys and girls teams are playing be there be square some additional announcements germantown holiday germantown's holiday parade is december 11th at 2 p.m we have multiple groups participating from all of our schools and we always have an amazing float ms crowder i know her team is hard at work making that happen um the houston band holiday concert is december 13th at 7 p.m in the houston high school auditorium the houston choir holiday concert is december 14th at 7 pm at germantown methodist church the next board meeting will be december 14th at 5 pm this is a business meeting we had the work session for december earlier this evening seeing no other announcements or business this meeting is

122adjourned laughs