001thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign call the meeting to order roll call please chairman McClendon here last year Robinson Mrs Hill here Mrs Jones here Mr Perez here Mr Smith here Mrs sermon here Mr Walker here here okay we have the uh following request to amend the agenda um the under bids and contracts removed the mou incarcerated youth policy uh Silverdale um under uh board policies um High School athletics coaches you'll see the changes there um under board matters remove item discussion for request of funding for facilities
002and then under appearances add Aaron Falls and Rosie Fitzgerald to have a motion to approve the agenda second Mrs Hill yes Mrs Jones yes Mr Perez yes Mr Smith yes Mrs Smith yes Mr Walker yes yes Urban Planet yes that will bring us down to our pledge to the flag and meditation from Miss Jill Hall principal of Daisy Elementary good evening my name is Jill Hall from Daisy and I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today in the light of the recent events I would like to take a moment to both thank and encourage all Educators as we prepare to begin a new school year working with children each day is both rewarding and exhausting but I often remind myself how many other career paths have the daily opportunity to
003positively impact the course of a child's life that you see is the power of great teachers the impact of their kindness devotion and dedication to improve the future of our society through youth knows no bounds even throughout a global crisis teachers demonstrated their Devotion to their students going above and beyond their educator roles to accommodate for the chaos happening in our world we were reminded that the influence of these silent Heroes has always extended beyond the classroom stirring memories of our own special moments with our favorite educators during Eisenhower's presidency James Michener author of numerous bestsellers and winner of Pulitzer PR of a Pulitzer Prize was invited to sell a celebrity dinner at the White House in a letter Mitchner declined to attend um it stated Dear Mr President I received your invitation three days
004after I had to agree had agreed to speak a few words at a dinner honoring the wonderful High School school teacher who taught me to write I know you will not miss me at your dinner but she might at hers a week later Michener received a handwritten reply from the understanding president in his lifetime a man lives under 15 or 16 presidents but a really fine teacher comes into his life but rarely go and speak to your teacher at your teacher's dinner to all of the amazing teachers out there thank you for all you do our world is a much brighter and more hopeful place with you leading our growth as we look forward to the first day of the 20 2022-23 school year I leave you with words by Jenny Hahn I've always loved
005the first day of school better than the last day first our best because they are beginnings because I believe in collaboration I wanted to invite my assistant principal Jennifer Rogers she's going to lead us with the pledge please stand and join me for the pledge to our flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you Jill I hear you have two of the smartest kids in Hamilton County at your school to say it thank you for that uh next we'll move on to our exemplars of Excellence uh with Brandon Allen good evening chairman McClendon members of the board Dr Robertson I want to introduce you to someone you may already know but if you don't I want to
006introduce you to Paul Mashburn and his wife Miss Betty Paul has driven the bus in Hamilton County this will be his 50th year going on to start his 50th year in Hamilton County thank you [Applause] while Mr McClendon's coming over I want to I want to say something real quick about Paul he Paul has driven in the tiftonia area for many years and everybody knows Paul even when I was a kid when Paul's buses would show up to pick you up on a field trip and still to this day they look like they've just rolled off the showroom floor his his buses are shiny they've got the latest and greatest LED lights on them Paul called me a couple weeks ago and says Brandon I got a new light on my bus so I had
007to get in the car and go drive to Tiff Tony and see Paul's Light Paul congratulations we appreciate you [Applause] foreign you're not going to say anything after 50 years [Laughter] Mr master and drove for us a lot when I was principal at Lookout Valley Elementary and just was uh you know not not only a great driver but just a good good person and truly cared about kids and this is the first time I've ever seen him not willing to talk so all right [Laughter] thank you for uh your years of service to our students next we have our uh own colleague that we are going to recognize Miss Hill um I'll say a couple words and then Dr Robertson and anyone else on the board this is her last meeting next uh meeting in
008August she will be going taking your daughter to college so she will not be here with us um I'll say I've enjoyed working with you we came into this board together I remember us sitting in a board room with uh Dr Johnson and his team and Mimi are getting mounds and mounds of binders thrown at us um it's been it's been a roller coaster and I've enjoyed working uh with you and um The Journey we've been on uh Dr Robertson has um I guess a gift for you and a plaque it's a gift from all of us but we do have a plaque for you I just want to say thank you for supporting kids in District six but also for being in tune with what the needs of Hamilton County are you have held
009us accountable you've asked tough questions and you have added so much value to this board in this community so the plaque says to Jenny Hill appreciation for your commitment and service the Hamilton County Board of Education September of 2018 through August of 2022 so like to present this to you do I go up there [Applause] thank you foreign [Applause] y'all have never had a plaque before and I've never had a standing ovation that's amazing I I've been nervous um thinking about um going um I've been shaky all day in fact I wrote some notes if they're illegible that's why but yeah chairman McLendon was kind enough to let me um say a few words you know me I always want to say a few words so um I actually wrote some things down because it
010was important um so five years ago because I am a planner five years ago I sat with my family and discussed the possibility of running for office how could I make a difference would I ruin my daughter's high school years if I was serving on school board those four years would I be away a lot though Joe Smith we never did question if I'd be able to balance it all we felt we felt confident I'd be able to do that but we did have did we have the stomach for politics and for being public so running for office is difficult but I think my colleagues here would tell you that serving is even harder I am humbled by the people of District Six and tonight I want to say thank you thank you for trusting
011me to elevate our voices on the school board and for further trusting me now to help lead our city Services left me with a lot of fond memories sharing stories with the students at Lookout Valley Elementary School and brown Academy kindergartners celebrating field day at Lookout Mountain Elementary and Banned Book Week at Center for Creative Arts spraying hair with layers of color and glitter at normalpalooza and building marshmallow straw Towers on stem day at dawn Academy or Dawn program fine-tuning resumes at Lookout Valley Middle High and cheering on the Band of Gold during their halftime show and getting to know my school board colleagues at tsba conferences even if I never did win a door prize took her he really pretty much promised me that everybody won a door prize but I'd never win anything
012um and testifying in Nashville to advocate for better on behalf of Hamilton County students so our family I've said it many times we share these ideals that that every person is made in the image of God and therefore is due dignity and respect that you have to work hard for your goals and to speak the truth even if your knees are knocking and each of these has fortified me as I've served Hamilton County that plus Lexapro and a good therapist I was elected with a mandate to elevate education over four years we've seen a disciplined approach to teaching students our Tennessee standards and that work is like compound interest year after year it will deliver gains for our students I've worked often with knocking knees to forward the cause of equity in Hamilton County schools
013and led the policy committee as we developed and unanimously passed an equity policy which sets the tone for all future work in our schools district 6 is also home to some of the most dilapidated school facilities in the county I pressed for a third party facility study and stood calm almost in the Whirlwind as they pulled back the veil on the predicament that Decades of neglect had put us in and considered how our community can be good stewards of the money that we have to invest in facilities choosing not to run for a second term was difficult I believe that education is the pathway out of poverty and that lifelong learning is the heart of civil dialogue that said I am a woman committed to impact these four years of service have allowed me to
014be a small part of Major Impact for our students and for the future students I'm proud to have been a part of this body and I'm energized that the work I'm doing now is focused on increasing access to early childhood education to protecting housing affordability and to be a voice for neighbors across our community who want to ensure that Chattanooga and Hamilton County are a place where everyone belongs I will miss all of you I won't miss meetings until nine but I will miss all of you um and I trust that you will strive to lead with fidelity always moving toward academic excellence and access to opportunity regardless of the way that the political winds blow thank you so much chairman McClendon for giving me a few minutes to share my heart with you and
015thank you Dr Robertson and your whole team your leadership and commitment to Excellence I'm just a phone call away if ever anybody needs me thanks guys Miss Jones I just want to say that Jenny when I found out you were going to run for office I was like Jenny Kellogg because Jenny and I were schoolmates at csas um but I would I would like to say this has been a journey and um I I too will miss you being on the on the days with us although you do have lots of Post-it notes and questions um they are valid and they come from you just wanting to know so you can Advocate better I think um I would like to say on behalf of um our csas I believe that our teachers our administrators and
016our peers are very proud of you and the work that you have done I am proud to have known you before you were Jenny Hill um and to continue to keep up the good work Miss Thurman yes Jenny I'm going to miss you I'm going to miss some of the back and forth even though we didn't agree on very much [Laughter] at all but that's okay that's okay uh you represent your District I represent mine that's fine but anyway I will miss you and I wish you well Mr Wingate Gene thank you for your passion it's when you when you said impact that resonates with me um I appreciate folks that are seeking impact people do things for lots of reasons and it's not always to leave something better than the way they found it
017so thank you for that Mr Prez uh Johnny Oswald thank you I met you're the first of the board members I'm probably about close to eight to ten years ago probably 10 years ago when you were serving on Metropolitan Ministries that's where I first met you on their board um CNE on their board multiple places where you have just played a role of service I've told you I'm upset I told you when I got on this board and I think the next week you announced that you were stepping away I'm like what that's the effect I have on people um and uh but I I can't wait to see how else you continue serving the communities thank you so much you really do pour yourself out and and I'm honored to have served with you
018for a couple years so thank you Mr Smith Genie I remember about four years ago you bought me a donut do you remember that well we're going to miss you and it's been a pleasure serving with you you know what I look forward to is watching your young daughter that kid is impressive so I look forward to watching her grow up Mr Walker Miss Hill and it was a short time my first memory I came in I tried to make a statement and you said that's not correct because I write things down I went back and watched the video and you were correct so uh but as a as a father of four daughters your ability to articulate and carry room and to live your message I hope that my daughters are outspoken and speak
019that way the way that you do whether we agree on things or not and if your knees are ever knocking anytime around me I've never seen it I'm always amazed at how you articulate I would I hope I could be more like you whenever I do things and Lead things but it's been an honor to serve and I've learned some things from you know whether like say we budgeted heads or not it was a honor to serve with you thank you all I am genuinely touched never have I had an experience like this so thank you very very much it means a lot I thought Monday you probably stance or something like that [Laughter] Wingate I just have to say when I say it's hard to serve on a board it's hard to serve on
020a board and Joe Wingate and his presence Joe you have talked to me off more than one ledge when we have called and I've I've got I got Post-it notes all over the place with Joe wingate's wisdom so thank you thank you uh that will move us on to uh presentations we'll have our Ed connect presentation uh thanks chairman McClendon I'm going to go ahead and ask Deb social with the Enterprise Center and Evan Freeman with EPB to go ahead and come up as I start this presentation so this is a end of the year uh the end of year two update for HCS at connect if you'll remember it's a community effort private public partnership to ensure that kids across Hamilton County had access to high-speed internet it obviously started with the onset of
021the pandemic and the immediate need there but what we've learned and we'll share with you tonight is that it has a bigger impact than just that response so 16 000 students uh today are connected to high-speed internet uh through this family or through this partnership and and that's more than one-third of our families in in Hamilton County schools which is a pretty staggering number you've got a map in front of you that that shows some uh specific numbers for your District but on screen right now uh are numbers in terms of the left just total numbers and then on the right the percentage of students that were eligible or families that were eligible for connection that actually accessed it I think the the importance of this map is to show the impact that it has
022across Hamilton County that it's not just one area it's not just the urban core but it's other parts we have many rural areas that EPB doesn't serve service that we were able to provide hot spots that allowed for high-speed internet connection for families so um again this is another statistic that's pretty staggering out of the 34 000 families that were eligible only 13 opted out right there are many reasons why families might opt out but to have 87 percent that were willing to participate uh shows a great need in our community and what's exciting about this is that it doesn't just stop you know today that this is going to continue through year 10 at least to provide these services to our families uh through Deb's leadership uh the Enterprise Center has is incentivized this
023this takes a lot of work on our schools apart from our leaders to our teachers to encourage families to participate to really get them to fill out the paperwork to submit it and so I've given out several staff Awards some awards to schools that they can use for equipment they can use for incentives they can use to uh you know provide some some gifts for the students so Debs uh came out with her team a couple months ago and presented these checks to schools that won these Awards and I believe there's maybe some incentives in the future as we continue this program so I'm going to turn it over to Deb to talk a little bit about the partnership and some research that's going on so I'm not sure how many of you know this
024but I spent 30 just as a teacher and a principal this is work that is really close to my heart it is the best work I have done in my life it is so exciting to be a part of this and I thank you for your support because of our shared dedication to the children and because we have established and collaborative Partnerships already built we were able to quickly and successfully stand up the program we talked to each other at least once a week we work together to solve problems that might come up and we're improving edconnect every single day this is a public-private partnership that not only works well but it leads to results many cities that I talk to across the country are purchasing low-speed connections from local internet service providers projects that
025require a recurring high cost investment we aren't making payments we are investing so our investment includes private dollars private philanthropy local County state and federal dollars our speed also exceeds every other project I've seen with most families getting an average of 300 megabits download 300 megabits upload and we all know from the pandemic how important those upload speeds are if you're going to be on a shared meeting if you're going to be a student watching a teacher presentation you've got to have those High upload speeds as well there we go because our project is so unique oh I went one too many sorry because our project is so unique we included a research component as a way to learn what's going on and what is working and what is not working and and any changes
026we maybe should make along the way we're looking at the outcomes as of the program as a whole we're looking at the summary of the changes we've seen because of Ed connect and our two main researchers are Dr Damian beeble he is a internationally known edtech researcher from Boston College and our own Dr Jennifer Ellis from UTC on the right side of the slide you can see the organizations that are represented on our community advisory committee that group provides guidance and insight on our to our community and help structure the topics of importance for research you can see we're utilizing several research methods we've completed 450 household survey surveys and we've had interviews with teachers students and school leaders and we've been out analyzing that data as we receive it however a quick survey cannot
027dig deeply enough to really understand the impact on a student and their family so we've also engaged in household interviews reaching a wide array of grades schools ages backgrounds and geography and this group has multiple extended conversations with Dr Ellis and this work is ongoing we see this work as more than an emergency response lack of home access was problematic before the pandemic and we're going to close the homework Gap in Hamilton County I have not seen that anywhere else as a goal so here are a few early findings from the research parents are feeling more positive about educational technology the families are using their access to support education and other opportunities to grow and improve and the final finding listed here is really interesting to me as a former educator we all know that
028parent engagement in schools is associated with improved outcomes for students for those not participating in Ed connect we see a significantly lower number of parents engaging with their schools and those numbers typically differ based on race and ethnicity with white English-speaking parents engaging the most what's so interesting about this for me is that for those who do participate in edconnect there is almost no difference we have narrowed that Gap to almost nothing and that really has an impact on the culture in our school the opportunity for Learning and the outcomes we will achieve I'm going to hand it off to Evan right here thank you very much and thank you board for allowing us to be able to present and for the partnership uh I'm Evan Freeman with with EPB and we're so happy to
029be a part of this program and that at a time our community was able to come together and partner and really serve our students and families throughout I just wanted to touch real quickly on the long-term focus of our project uh again this is a 10-year program that is something that we see going beyond that currently our because of our infrastructure that's already built out and the work that we've been doing with the Housing Authority making sure that those buildings are connected and those families are connected we see our our financial financially we're sustainable for for the next uh 10 years and and we thank you again for your contributions to that another part that we we've been really working hard on is breaking down the the multi-dwelling unit barriers and apartment complexes a lot
030of those have different agreements with different carriers that have prevented us from getting in there but we've been able to reduce that number I know we were in the 40s and now we're less than five um that we we can't get into right now and most of our families we're the vast majority were able to connect those families within two weeks of them signing up for for the program so again we're really excited at this this research is coming out and just going forward all the possibilities of having families connected and internet not being a barrier to those families thank you so our next steps as I said when we said all we meant all we have changed the way that we are recruiting people and the way people can sign up so we've included
031sustainable enrollment Port placed on the school Portal so Empower School parents can now opt in also we're going to do more awards for schools and staff as a former principal I understand the competitiveness between our schools and so what we can do to help bring that barrier down is helpful um we are going to continue our partnership with Boston College and UTC and that ongoing research will help us with our strategy moving forward and future ready we are eliminating that homework Gap and we have increased access to post-secondary Opportunities and and as Dr Robert says sorry said uh earlier it's really important that we're looking at ways that families are using this resource to improve their quality of life and any questions clear y'all's thing just so I can Mr Perez so first of all
032thank you very much full disclosure I have the privilege of having my daughter work with you as an internship this summer and um but we're going to talk about her or how it went or anything I hope it went well um but I told her before she did uh just many of the impressive things that you all are doing among this being one of them right I think this position says once again in many ways as a leader nationally in really some of this we've been getting a lot of feedback in the last week from some parents who now are seeing the other side of this which is a concern of their kids on technology all the time in our schools involved in technology and it didn't occur to me until you were up here
033that we actually have a resource of expertise that's really huge with the Enterprise Center and understanding where the balance just because we can't doesn't mean we should sort of thing like where where is that balance what's our philosophy with technology how do we ensure that we are managing it well uh there's a program I won't speak about here publicly that every parent who's had a kid who has to practice math at home hates deeply in their heart like is that the best way you know all these things that um that uh are part of our our reality and so I'm just putting it out there one thank you again because this is a huge partnership is incredibly impactful and um and I'd love to see because I I know you I know you're you think
034in the ethic of things too right so I love to see that balance of okay this is great because it can be done but what what is actually truly the best service to our community overall on how do we Implement that so you know I think that there are a lot of parents concerned about the amount of time children are spending on their screens and what we encourage them to do through our techno's home program is to write a contract who's going to use it from five to six or you know trying to share the use but then we tell them the computer goes in your room at night the children don't take it right and so balancing their need for communication and the social experience with the homework need and then making sure they
035have plenty of time outside of the screen I think it's a really important process I'd be happy to run a workshop for parents any other if I I'm just going to take a moment I think um this is probably one of my favorite things as a school board that we've invested in um I think we all have these things that show our impact in our district in my district alone three thousand seven and seventy six family members have been impacted and that's about 10 percent of my district which is huge on what it does for not just our students but for the for the um I guess the bigger impact of of the community um and I would challenge future boards um to be proactive and and how do we continue to fund this how
036do we look to go past that year 10 that year 15 year how do we do that um and one thing I don't know if this would be an EPB but I remember talking about the apartment complexes usually they're tied to Comcast or what other one if that's something that we can work with like the County Planning Commission like to say hey if we have students that are in this program like that needs to be into building codes or whatever else and interfering there and not having to go back so you know we have five apartment complexes that aren't you know allowing it but getting that on the front end just kind of thinking outside the box on on how we ensure our students get that but I I the whole team that's worked on
037this has been amazing and it's something that a lot of the things that we do on this board outside of operational stuff we don't see the impact for years and years and this is something that came you know together in the middle of a pandemic and two years later we're seeing strides that really people thought couldn't be broken I mean the homework Gap you know all that kind of stuff I I last year I was on a call with the the uh Apple's Chief education officer and she had heard about this program um it just shows what this community kind of is about and coming together to make sure our students get what they need in a really Innovative way so thank y'all thank you despite the fact that I mispronounced two names we don't
038know his name either so you're fine okay that will move us on to our next presentation Future Ready 2023. okay thank you for um the opportunity this past spring I did come before you and discuss the need for advocacy framework and um okay yeah I was gonna say we haven't here okay no worries uh and so uh tonight I would like to share um this framework with you the responsive supports in the area of advocacy the purpose of this framework we acknowledge that there are some times when families have a difficulty navigating through the system and when they come to a impasse over something that has happened a student-related incident that has taken place at the school and there's an impasse where it cannot be resolved at the school that we bring in a neutral
039person an advocate to assist in resolving that and our desired outcome is that when families um bring in this Advocate when needed that they are successfully restored back to their home school ing and so the structures that we have here we have um four Advocates that we are bringing in to work with with this program and these are four actually folks that are retired individuals and they are going to serve our community as advocates they are independent people who are neutral folks that will come in and families feel as though they are not being heard or taken seriously or their rights are being violated they can call these advocates The Advocates that we have met with that are going to serve is are listed here these are retired administrators some recent retired uh some that
040have retired but have come back and worked with us in various positions within the district you all should probably know Karen Glenn who was actually our Guru in the area of bullying and um uh conflict resolution has agreed to come back and work with us here I am providing the flow chart because one of the main issues that we have seen when dealing with incidents that parents have brought to the schools is that we they don't really know the process and we haven't clearly communicated that as well as we don't always Circle back around and provide closure and so here this can this parent flow chart wants a parent goes to the school and they register a complaint at the school the school administrators will provide them with this flowchart okay and if they do
041not have it here they'll actually provided electronically they'll provide them with the flow chart which indicates now that you have registered the complaint it tells them exactly what's going to happen next and that within a reasonable amount of time that they're going to begin an investigation and uh that they will contact all of the parties that are involved they will Implement a interim safety plan and that is very important to inter uh interim safety plan will be uh it will be implemented well developed and implemented at the school they will then gather that information and Gathering written statements from all parties that are involved and determine that if their the behavior took place then there's the steps here are very clearly outlined what will happen and if it is um that and if it didn't
042they could not confirm it then what will actually happen parents at any time along this process can reach out to a family Advocate and they can call my office or they will have access to that QR code and they will bring up a digital form they will fill it out and then it will come to my office and then an advocate will be assigned to them at any time along the process moving forward with initiating this advocacy framework we anticipate that we will successfully restore 90 percent of our students back to their home uh their school of origin their home school that is our goal that we will successfully do that and how we will measure that we will measure that by students being enrolled in their school and attending on a regular basis that
043they are fully um taking advantage of the opportunities that this school provides such as the clubs the activities and any extracurriculars as well as we will provide the parents with a family satisfaction survey as well and that they will provide us feedback on how we can continue to improve this advocacy framework as well are there any questions that you may have for me at this particular time thank you chair um Marcia thank you for this that 90 percent restored and thriving is a bold goal um so I'm excited and I'll be keeping keeping an eye on that over time a question that I do have is I think when when we consider a child that's been bullied we see them often I I would say they have the archetype of the um the victim slash
044hero like we want their life to be better right and we don't want the child that's bullying to do that anymore and we want consequences for a person that is a bully right so what I don't see in here is any discussion of discipline for the person who had the bullying behavior is that just unspoken within this or how like it happens and therefore we eventually have a result of this 90 percent right so determining that corrective that corrective action there and so I provided you today with that actual flow chart for uh parents but that is a part of the actions that take place on that administrative flow chart okay so so what is heartbreaking is when a child who has been bullied feels as though they cannot go back to their own school
045when they're the ones I mean they're Ukraine right they sat around and didn't do anything wrong and some big Russian bully comes and pushes them around like Ukraine shouldn't have to move right Russia should get the heck out political or not don't put politics in that like I'm just using it as an example okay so long as like that's part of the plan yes yes okay we just want to put a finer Point yes corrective action will will be um will be a part of okay the plan when yes it has been determined um that that it took place and that is a part of the solution okay okay I love the advocacy case managers and those folks are people that I can really imagine having a great calming effect on everybody involved so great
046idea on that thank you thank you Thurman uh yes I just want to know is this going to be or put up on the website so parents can see it I just want to be sure all parents know this at the beginning of the school year yes it will be this is going to be here okay it will be there as well as um in the code of acceptable behavior right this uh advocacy framework is going to be there as well so there it's going to be a combined document okay and I'll let this finisher but I'll have another question for you after they finish talking about this I just wanted to know if this let this email that I got from you about that changing these two things and are we going to discuss
047that at any point is the changes to this I think it's important yeah the two things that we discussed about um the um cell phones and things cell phones is that going to be discussed at a different time because it's going to be changing the code of acceptable behavior of what are we going to do yeah yes it will I think it's I mean it's a good time to yeah I just I think it's I think we need to get it out there as well because a lot of times this is where the bullion comes from the cell phone cell phone piece do you want to tell them what we're looking at changing in the code of acceptable behavior sure I um I don't have them right but one of the um with the code
048of acceptable behavior and secondary in speaking with the principles there um the biggest thing that kind of gives them heartburn are the use of cell phones throughout the school day and that causes a lot of disruptive behaviors and so one of the things that they would like to for us to happen that we have actually put in the code of acceptable behavior is that once the students are violating that that upon violation as they continue to violate those and they and the consequences increase I mean the yeah the consequences increase as the violations increase so um at the one uh incident there's a certain consequence but as you continue to be disruptive and having that cell phone out during instruction in those types of times throughout the school day then the there's an increase so
049such as maybe and I don't have them right in front of me and so I know upon like the third and Beyond then there's the possibility of in-school suspension and then as it increases there is the possibility the fifth consequence and Beyond uh there could be the possibility of an out of school suspension aware of that I really want to be sure we hone in on that with parents and also are the teachers going to be given the autonomy to be able I know some teachers make their kids yeah put the father cell phones up in a basket or something as they come into the class is that going to be after the teachers that up to the principals is that up to us it's a school level decision School level decision okay and but
050all parents need to be made aware of that and very clear of what the rules are I think that's one thing we need to make sure they understand okay thank you Mr Walker um yes during the past school year anything when some would come about bullying or or any of these types of issues and I don't think we solve it tonight but so frustrating for parents when they're speaking with a principal and the principal says well I can't tell you what happened to the other child or what their consequences are that is the silliest thing I've ever heard of uh we're in a public building public facility if anybody needs to know what's happened so that we can tell the students that have been bullied hey you know the young girl the young man is
051going to be out of school for 10 days I think that's absolutely a parent's right to know that and for a principal to say well due to privacy I can't tell you that came up so many times and I don't know what the correct legal way is to say it or do it but a parent or student that has been bullied or assaulted or harassed anyway needs to know what happened to that other student so they're not looking around the corner when they get back to school they need to know what happened I think that's only fair so there's some backup I mean this this is a an overview there's a lot of backup documentation behind this presentation for example when the investigation one of the things that we kept hearing from parents is just
052a lack of documentation so there is one Student Response form that everyone in the county will use so when you go to interview a kid or a kid gives a statement there's one forum for that we're working on exactly what you're asking there there are some privacy concerns there that we've got to work around but we consistently heard from parents they don't have to know the students saying they don't have to know exactly but they do want some documentation of the consequence that was given to kids involved and so we're working on the backup documentation that will address those concerns thank you if I can I guess had some additional information Mr Walker federal law actually protects the privacy of any information that a school system uses to discipline a student so this is this
053is simply Hamilton County school board question this is something where the federal government has said kids are going to make mistakes in school and they have the right to move past those mistakes and so to a great extent evidence of those mistakes remains in-house with the administration now that said Tennessee does allow the administrators under certain situations to share as part of a safety plan for a kid who has been victimized information on a need to know basis and so there is a very fine line there's not a bright line to say you can all you're always entitled to this or you're never entitled to that and so on a case-by-case basis what administrators try to do is to provide Assurance of what's going to happen moving forward recognizing that they can't really go into
054detail about what happened to the to the student who's responsible it's a it's a fine line and it's difficult but you're trying to balance the legitimate needs of a student and their parents who want to know that the student's going to be safe against the legitimate needs of the student who hopefully has learned from his misbehavior and can move past it it's a balancing act any other questions thank you okay that will uh bring us down to the board member disclaimer statement we'll start with Mr Thurman and work our way down okay I declare that I have a relative who works for the school system and the boards vote on the budget or policies may have an effect on my relative employment even so I hereby certify that I will cast my vote in the
055best interest of the school system I declare that I have a relative who works for the school system and that the board's vote on budget policies Etc may have an effect on my relative's employment even so I hereby certify that I will cast my vote in the best interest of the school system I declare that I have a relative who works for the school system and at the boards vote on budget policies Etc may have an effect on my relative's employment even so I hereby certify that I will cast my vote in the best interest of the school system also on today's agenda I will be recusing myself from voting for line item D 1C 22-23 the mou for Head Start I declare that I have relatives who work for the school system and that
056the boards vote on budget policies Etc may have an effect on my relative's employment even so I hereby certify that I will cast my vote in the best interest of the school system I declare I have a spouse who works for the school system I guess this first time I've been with it yeah who works for the school system and that the boards vote on budget policies etc etc may have an effect on my relative's employment even so I hereby certify that I'll cast my vote in the best interest of the school system that ends that okay we will go down to delegations we have Taylor Lyons uh Angela favrelo I always mess up your last name Heather modro Aaron fowles and Rosie Fitzgerald and Miss Hill will read uh the delegate statement all right
057here we go thank you for your interest in addressing the Hamilton County Board of Education during your presentation please address the board as a whole not individual board members or administrators also please do not present complaints or concerns you have about an individual employee of the school system if you wish to voice those complaints and concerns you should contact the central office and ask for a meeting with the superintendent since the superintendent is responsible for individual employees please limit your remarks to five minutes we have a timer and when it's done it's done come on up Taylor lions members of the board Dr Robertson thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you this evening I'm Taylor Lyons I am the proud mother of two Hamilton County students I'm also with moms for social
058justice as many of you know by now to be honest guys we plan to give you the summer off leave you alone for a while but you've made that difficult of late so here I am and many of you know why I am not going to belabor points of policy that we feel was broken as we have expressed that to you numerous times at this point with insufficient response on your part which explains my presence here tonight suffice it to say we are deeply disturbed by the unprecedented access you have granted to a highly partisan special interest extremist group on our public school property to host a partisan event opening the door to whatever Fringe extremist groups would like to host events on our public school grounds so long as they cross their finger wink
059at you tell them they're non-partisan for the afternoon and fill out the proper paperwork the KKK I mean they are a legitimate 501c3 I hope you would find it within you to tell them no or how about the proud boys I mean we're just asking here right because that's that's what's happened here or will you have a friendly School Board member show them to find the proper paperwork online and answer any questions they might have filling it out so you can and you did dance around the policy all you want but ultimately you all had the power to determine whether or not this was in the best interest of our schools and you chose the path of least resistance you chose to do and say nothing which is a loud statement which has reverberated throughout
060our state for which this was a test to be replicated a couple of days ago our district leadership released a nice statement about standing with our teachers supporting and respecting our teachers to which we would wholeheartedly agree even though not all of you could agree with that statement but we would argue that part of respecting and standing with our teachers would be paying them more for one secondly denying access to an organization which has made a repeated practice of attacking our teachers our Librarians and our counselors with outrageous offensive unfounded accusations we have distributed to you a collection of statements from Hamilton County educators most of whom pleaded pleaded with us to remain anonymous we had to give them our word that they would remain anonymous not for fear of their jobs but for fear
061of their safety and their family's safety and I wish I was being hyperbolic but just last week we had a beloved veteran Hamilton County teacher publicly personally viciously attacked for daring to express an opinion that disagrees with their ideological perspective you see this organization is receiving marching orders from their parent National Organization which unapologetically cavorts with violent white nationalist groups and those National marching orders are to Target our teachers and that is what they are doing so you can sit there and you can leave the room and you can do nothing and you can wait until somebody who believes one of those accusations prompts them to dangerous action we have also included statements from Faith leaders and Hamilton County students and how they feel about you allowing this organization into our schools when they have
062publicly targeted our queer students calling our queer students gsas and after school Social Club where they can feel safe and accepted for who they are sex clubs you sat there and said and did nothing when that happened in this room and none of you have rebuked it none of you so you want to talk about bullying let's do it and let's talk about the grown adults bullying our queer youth am I overtime I am I'm so sorry you failed those students and you continue to with your your silence and legitimizing those organizations that bullies those students and you know we get it we get what is within the confines of your position we get what is safe for you politically and then we get what is basic human decency and the right thing to do
063and that is to stand up and speak out for your teachers who are being targeted by this organization that is to stand up and speak up for the queer youth who are being bullied by this hateful rhetoric right now your silence is your statement and it is deafening because what you permit you promote what you allow you encourage and what you condone you own so we are asking you United as a community of parents of teachers of students of Faith leaders and Community leaders who love and support our schools who love and believe in our kids all of them is this what you want to own because we don't Angela good evening chairman McClendon and the rest of the board um I'm here to talk on policy that's on our agenda this evening so my
064tone will be a little bit different um I want to start by saying thank you to all of our outgoing members for your service on this board I've appreciated the debate and discourse that has challenged me and many others to be more engaged in our school communities and add to the collective interest in preserving public education um this brings me to the final draft of our 4.402 and 4.403 of the policy this is a little dense I don't know if anybody can pull that up for the board members I have emailed you a copy of all of my bullets because I may move fast and if you have any questions they should be there and also the attorney too so thank you starting at line 29 on the selection of instructional materials policy 4.402 we'd
065like to clarify if the word offensive is being used in the legal sense of criminal offense or if this is in a subjective sense and what quantifiable percentage of population is needed to be deemed public opinion and wouldn't that potentially perpetually harm the already marginalized populations protected by law lines 57 58 and 60. again this references offensive and who ultimately decides what is offensive since there's no standard unless found criminally offensive line 67-69 on here we're added but they're not highlighted to notate their addition I my question to you all would be to discuss whether that was the language from the state age-appropriate materials act added in but not noted and it doesn't clarify whether this applies to purchased items or how or personal collections nor does this address the fiscal impact that inventorying hundreds
066of thousands of Articles of material will have on Educators and support staff that are already in a labor deficit and overloaded what is the time frame in which this has to be executed to avoid State penalties and what are those penalties if they have been defined I'll move on over to some notes for 4.403 the reconsideration of materials line two omits the library of Bill of Rights lots of discussion about this but it also included language including protections to the right of privacy and identifying information that most of us find important for readers amongst their peers review committees and the public line five also blurs that line against purchase versus personal items um and unclear um I think you all discuss in the agenda on line 37 about adding Guardian instead of citizens so that
067we can Encompass an inclusive family unit instead of just parents line 45 I'm actually going to come back to that but I do want to address a line I know I'm going fast you all five minutes moves fast line 58 mentions the time frame it mentions 20 days for a Review Committee and I would like to recommend that this be a priority window for a review for any materials that are currently associated with an active assignment and a longer window and a limit of one item within 45 days for requests without active assignment time constraints giving the committee ample time to conduct thorough reviews without being inundated and [Music] with material that's not actively relevant to students current learning targets or course materials in line 100 I would suggest omitting at a particular school and
068replace with in different learning communities to uphold the sentiment from earlier in the policy or in the criteria of selection that communities have different needs and one community's repeated request should not dictate the access of the whole District so those are a few things there I would like to discuss let's see line 45 discusses the procedure and timeline in which we will address this with the board and I would like to share I would like you all to share how the board will instill confidence and Trust in the public to uphold this policy you write when this whole lengthy process is ensued because of bypassing the district's ability to exhaust their own operations and policies put forth by the state and this board's policy moving on to confidence being in some of the topics discussed
069earlier about our use of facilities and the policies and applications we already have in place that the district handles why we're bypassing the policy that you write you should know this policy and I call you to task to honor it and educate the public on the policy that you created before we bypass it would you want a boss who doesn't let you do your job and he gets mad at you for it thank you Miss madrow yeah I can't see that clock oh sorry okay um thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak we as you know we are in a teacher shortage teachers are leaving the profession higher numbers than ever before this crisis will only get worse if we do not take actions now but take a deep breath because none of
070these ideas I will present will add to the budget they're free number one respect we need to be respected as the professionals that we are we need to be respected by students parents admin you the board and the general public including politicians by changing the climate of one of respect and support teachers will choose Hamilton County students students need to be held accountable for their behavior while we have a code of acceptable behavior it's not followed I've written up a student for slapping an assistant so hard her glasses fell off she was told there would be no consequences since the child didn't know any better hands are tied since admin is told not to suspend so many students behaviors must be followed up with consequences not always suspension but let's be creative in having consequences
071match the offense parents also need to be held accountable for their children while they're at school maybe if a parent was inconvenienced by having to go to the school when their child had a major offense and took an active role in creating a plan to prevent future offenses we would see the suspension rate go down some students like to be suspended because it gets them away from the place they don't want to be in the first place research shows students who are suspended are less likely to graduate they also lose valuable instruction time parents should be allowed in their child's classroom I had a parent of a kindergartner who wanted to be in my classroom for the entire week of her vacation from her job as a corrections officer okay on the second day she
072told me she fully trusted me and my staff she was ready to go home and enjoy her vacation she said my job was more stressful than being a guard for the State Penitentiary imagine that parents need to trust and respect teachers I welcome parents in my classroom teachers and parents need to be partners not adversaries Advent from building admin to central office and UL the single most important greatest gift you can give us is time our planning time is so short already and every single one is filled with meetings many meetings can be done by email please respect us on that professional development should be relative and options given many of the PDS I've done are sorry repetitive I've done them before or they don't apply to my physician what a waste of my time
073principles if we send you a student to the office for Behavior please do not give them candy and send them back school board and central office we need you to visit the schools more I'm not talking about the walk around dog and pony show see this classroom but not this one come visit pop in talk to the kids talk to the teachers they will let you know what's happening listen to the students I bet they've got some amazing out of the box ideas that we have not heard yet trust our judgment and our expertise support us if we do come to you and for the general public I believe some people have a distorted reality of what's actually happened they hear one negative story and apply it to all schools or all teachers I invite
074you to come see for yourself my classroom's open sign up to be a substitute if you are not available during the day partner with a school and ask what you can do from home we've had volunteers make coffee laminate cut prepare materials for teachers again you're giving us that gift of time and finally for all stakeholders The Bullying really needs to end students are bullied staff is bullied it's not okay students and staff need to feel safe at school we need a hotline for anyone to report bullying that will be taken seriously a dedicated number and email that is checked several times a day by someone at central office we need actions and consequences for bullies a school should be a safe place to learn again teachers are leaving education for lack of respect and
075support they don't feel safe they don't feel their voice matters go listen to teachers ask the ones who retired or left they'll tell you honestly because they won't fear retribution apparently I don't either there are more teachers leaving that are joining our profession you know this you you have the power to change the climate around our schools and change what needs to happen soon or there will be nobody left to teach than what [Applause] Mr Foust good evening my name is Aaron fowles I'm the new Tennessee Education Association uniserve representative for this area so it's good to meet everyone I'm here tonight to talk about the the Hillsdale resolution I'm going to try to be very brief about it because this shouldn't really occupy too much of our time right the reason it's important to
076me is that what was said was not just an attack on teachers but also an attack on public education right if there's one thing that everyone in this room can agree on is that public education is transformational it's powerful it's important it's valuable and it's difficult it takes knowledge and wisdom and wherewithal to move those kids from one to two to two to three to three to four and that anyone who would take who would distort the truth who would lie to push a contrary narrative is really just plain wrong and I think that the board has no responsibility to respond to every headline that's out there but since this one has come up and it's been raised I'm just going to urge you and encourage you to push something out the door to push
077a resolution if not the one that's there push something out the door so that Educators support professionals administrators everyone feels like the board is behind them on this issue that is just really Germaine and and ripe right now so thank you for your time and I got it done in less than two minutes foreign [Applause] thank you uh Miss Fitzgerald my name is Rosie Fitzgerald and I'm a mom of a second grader at West View Elementary we know already that teachers are the heart of our schools recently community members met with teachers to see how we could best Aid them for this upcoming school year we heard how their workload and the number of hats that they wear has only increased since the beginning of the pandemic anxiety depression and other mental health problems are
078affecting our students more than ever and we've unfortunately passed the burden of dealing with these challenges onto our teachers the heart of our schools our teachers are feeling burned out unsupported and unheard I know funds are limited and resources are scarce but there must be tools and ideas that we could be utilizing to help our teachers we heard some great ideas just now um I was just made during this listening session to discover that many teachers do not have the ability to regularly submit Anonymous feedback to their administrators and principals how can we address problems our teachers are facing if we're not asking them where we can do better targeted mental health support for staff is crucial to a thriving School environment I'm asking for the board to put together a committee or a task
079force just as quickly as we put together a book review committee to see how we can support our teachers with the goal of evaluating current needs researching the resources and tools available to us and submitting recommendations to the district with the hopes that these resources will be equitably distributed throughout here are some suggestions I submit which I hope will just serve as a starting place as a actionable steps Implement regular Anonymous surveys to our teachers so that the feedback can fuel positive change throughout the year I want to highlight a module created by the University of Colorado it's a workplace mental health module that involves evaluates employee employee mental health and offers resources to staff this module has been adopted by several school districts in Colorado and it could be a valuable tool to ensure
080our teachers know where they can turn if they need help conduct focus groups to better identify opportunities for improvement in the behavioral health space create a space or support groups for our teachers to share with one another what challenges they are facing so they can find camaraderie partner with a mental health service to offer counseling sessions to staff investigate outside resources what other organizations can we bring in to grow an environment where our teachers feel a part of our community I'm not an educator nor a mental health professional I am however a designer and I understand the value of a process that involves collecting information defining the problem researching and brainstorming Solutions the development of these Solutions and receiving feedback on them and then fine-tuning I hope that we can Implement a similar process to
081find effective solutions to create an environment of support we know that when people are cared for when their fears stressors and challenges are addressed they are given the ability to thrive I want all of our wonderful Hamilton County teachers to feel like the administrators and the communities have their back because they've certainly always had ours thank you foreign thank you that will bring us down to uh our consent agenda do I have a motion motion to approve do I have a second any items that need to be pulled uh Mr Perez I like to call d1f on the bids and then I would like to discuss e the board policies so e1a B and C separately so you want to pull d1f and then pull e1a pull e1b and e1c okay any other items nope
082got it any other items you don't need to pull d1c no yeah okay uh roll call please yep Mrs Jones no no for foreign agenda minus those four items oh yes but I am recruiting myself from the vote of item ad1c the 2022 23 mou for Head Start Mr Perez yes Mr Smith yes Mrs Thurman yes Mr Walker yes Dr Wingate yes chairman McLennan yes uh Mr Perez d1f so I just wanna really two things I wanted to understand this is the uh bid for the contract with um I just lost the name uh Stellar therapy uh which is for uh private and homeschool students to have a uh language therapy I think it was and um and I think honestly as a member of the public I know very little of this and I
083think if I know very little as a board member even uh the rest of the public may know less and I think it's valuable for the public to know what is offered through Hamilton County schools for everybody so anyone see you seem like you know and I may need to bring some other information back but um right now it is our Our obligation to serve homeschool students to serve private school students and um if there is a need for us to Contract Services or support because we don't have enough speech language Pathologists or support Personnel within the school many times we try to have a child come to their closest school and receive Services there but where we need above and beyond which last year we we really tipped out quite quite a few more
084kids than usual for um homeschool and private school Services we have to contract through another agency to help provide for that external group there are some other needs that we have sometimes for students with very unique needs but that's where they come in to help us Provide support for those unique populations and those that kind of outlier group there thank you I mean I think it's it's I think there's many things that often the public is unaware that the public schools are providing for everybody whether I mean I'm reminded of of covet when we were feeding anybody just come to a bus and get fed we don't care where you go to school or if you go to school in our system so in the same way we are serving the community as a whole
085uh with our with our public funds so I I appreciate that very much that's all I had on that one the motion I moved to accept seconds roll call please yes Jones yes Mr Smith yes Mrs sermon yes Mr Walker yes Mr Perez e1a thank you uh so this one actually is the one that's kept me up all night through the weekend uh this uh for the public if they don't know is voting on uh a state uh code that we're adding to our policy which requires uh transgender students to play sports in the sex with which they were born biologically um uh I speak often here about the importance of finding a place to belong and finding a place where people know your name and where you are known and loved and cared for
086um I know this is a complex issue I know I have read I read I get that there are complexities to this issue um I also am the least likely board candidate sitting here to speak about Athletics I know that as well and as such I I know the limitations I I have on that um but I also believe maybe that Athletics is not only about winning and losing but that there are many other uh traits and character that has grown through Athletics that you learn leadership that you learn teamwork that you learn pushing yourself to to limits that you haven't pushed yourself and I am deeply uh concerned that we even haven't had the debate right we are being told uh by the state probably because maybe a majority of the state would agree
087with this I don't know that this is the law and that therefore as the law we as a school board need to implement the policy otherwise and I pulled the code just to be sure that I knew what I was talking about but it says uh the commissioner of Education shall withhold a portion of the State education Finance funds that an Lea is otherwise eligible to receive if the Lea fails or refuses to comply with the requirements of this section so in other words you will add this you will do this you will not discuss this you will not think about other students you will comply and or we will pull uh uh pull your funding elsewhere it explains that we could be sued by students who feel they were um uh they lost because
088of a of an unfair advantage or something along that and they're worried about scholarships don't worry I get the complexity uh so the reason this has been keeping me up um is because I'm sorry it's really been keeping them up so I may get emotional I don't get emotional often but it's because I want our transgender gay and lesbian students to know that we do care about you I want you to know that you belong I want you to know that in so much as for some of us we may be uncomfortable we don't know how to deal with you how to speak to you how to manage your reality that doesn't mean you don't have a place in our schools that doesn't mean you don't have a right to learn leadership teamwork and other
089great uh opportunities that come from multiple activities and places and we are our hands are tied by a state law that requires that we follow and commit but I am one of many board members here want to be very clear in saying that as far as I believe you do have a place to belong you do have a place that you can call home your teachers love you hopefully your classmates love you and hopefully the administration will stand by you especially if we after we've talked about bullying uh and I'm sorry that right now it seems like we don't care um and uh and I hope one day we can look back and let you know that we do so that's all Miss Hill thank you chair I mentioned on Monday that I would be
090pulling this item if no one else did um I will be voting against this I don't care that it's a law I think it is a bad law most importantly I have witnessed in the schools that I represent trans students who have been deeply hurt by other laws that our legislature has passed that Target them and make them less of a person that is not what any student in Hamilton County Schools should expect when they walk in the door and we have just talked about an enormous amount of thought and Care in a policy around bullying and we all know that when somebody's different people are hateful to them because they're afraid of them because something's just unusual but as grown-ups we're supposed to be better than that and to me this is a bullying
091law furthermore I feel as though it really conflicts with line seven in this policy which says the bylaws of the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association so regulate inters collect inner Scholastic Athletics I do not it does not uh is not lost on me that the biology of male and female bodies presents complex challenges as it relates to athleticism but we're talking about middle school and high school kids and I believe that the TSS double A if left to its own devices could have figured out how to make Sports welcoming to everyone while also protecting the competitiveness of female and male gendered Sports thank you Miss Thurman yes um having played Sports my entire life anything having to do with the ball I usually played it me or someone in my family did there is a
092difference there is a big difference for instance I played third base playing fast pitch softball you stood almost right in their front pocket playing there there's a reason that boys play on third base they play behind third base at 80 feet where girls play about halfway up to 60. there's a reason for that if you think a girl can play third base with a fast pitch softball against a guy play halfway home you've lost your mind I would not do it there's no way because you will be eating the softball boys are so much stronger so much bigger there is a difference there's a huge difference and if you've never played Sports you don't understand this is a safety issue as well there's a safety issue if we're not going to do this if I
093thank God Tennessee passed this law what I think should be common sense Title IX this we just might as well do away with Title Nine if we're going to allow this we could save lots of money by doing away with Title IX we could just have one soccer team one soccer coach let the boys and girls all play on the same team who do you think would have to sit the bench the girls when I was in high school we had a really good basketball team we went to the state many years our boys basketball team was okay Joe you know that Joe went to Red Bank a little bit before me but he knows we always had a good basketball team the girls but when we would scrimmage the boys we would lose every
094time a really good girls basketball team was not as was not bet better than a mediocre boys basketball team it just wasn't and until you've placed unless you play sports you don't understand that this is about competitiveness but it's about being fair we just don't show up on the field to play a game there are lots and lots of days that you have to go out and lay in heat like this and practice and hone in your skills Joe knows this Joe has been a coach for many years you know what it takes to make a really good athlete you take your Summer's practicing you take your nights practicing I can't tell you how many days I used to jump rope a thousand times a day I you know we used to do things like
095that even in the summer we would do things like that so when boys play get to play girls Sports you're cheating a girl out of a position makes me angry because I know if a if a boy wins first place he's cheating somebody who finishes fourth out of a first the the third place spot it's not right it's not fair and like they said they've never played Sports so they don't understand this is a huge deal for me it's because it's uh it's my heart I've seen so many like sale Creek Soddy Daisy have some really good softball teams but if you let boys play these Sports it's just not going to be fair it's not going to be fair to them at all but like I say if we spent all these years getting
096for Title IX girl women females fought for years to get equality in our athletic facilities and our Sports we thought for years to do this and to allow boys to play in girls Sports and go in girls dressing rooms I cannot imagine that I'll just tell you there's many reasons why I cannot imagine letting Boys in girls dressing rooms for many reasons a common sense should dictate that but obviously it doesn't so we have to pass laws for this kind of thing but like I say unless you've played Sports unless you've been in those dressing rooms and unless you have worked your heart out to play a position that three or four boys could come in and put put you off a team that you've worked harder for years and years of your career this
097is about this is not about making everybody feel better this is about competitiveness and fairness and this is not fair to allow boys to play in girls Sports if you notice it only usually goes one way every once in a while you might find a girl that wants to play on a boy's team and nobody ever says no you can't do that you go ahead you can do that because she usually doesn't last very long because when boys go through puberty it's all over they've bypassed you right on by so uh anyway like I said having having had athletic experience from the time I was five years old I know what's fair and I know what's what's not and it's just not fair Mr Walker thank you um I can't believe we're having this discussion
098um when I saw it on the agenda and listened to some of the commentary on or some of the conversations on Monday huh I mean I was going to like come in here and say we don't need to write any of this stuff down I can't believe the state had to write something down I can't believe we're having this conversation but then I started because I was going to say no I don't want to change anything I don't want to put any policies in place but then I started thinking about Middle School girls basketball coach that cuts a little a young boy off her team because he just wasn't good enough to make the girls team you ought to hear the way coaches you know every baseball football softball coach and in Middle School in
099high school if you cut their little girl on the softball team or a little boy on the baseball team those mamas call up there and say Johnny made All-Stars on the All-Star sea team at Snow Hill I can't believe he didn't make your middle school team I can't imagine what a coach what one of our teachers one of our employees will have to go through if somebody accuses them of cutting their child because of their gender it amazes me and and so I'm going to vote Yes that we put this in here because I do care about our Educators and our teachers and and I just think it gives something else for them to somebody to latch on to and it's going to happen somewhere it's going to happen somewhere in Tennessee or Georgia or
100wherever it's going to happen there's gonna be High School coaches or Middle School coaches that cut a child cut a young man because he didn't make the girls team maybe he was good enough maybe six feet tall maybe he could dunk the basketball they're going to come up with every reason to condemn our Educators over this one um and you know I'm not a bad guy I care about every student that we have and everything that they go through and all the differences and all that I'm going to love everybody no matter what and I'm going to come off as a bad guy when I say I vote for this but but I I'm not gonna I'm not a bad guy because I'm not going to pretend along with somebody else and if that comes
101off as hateful then it just does but we can't ask our teachers our principals administrators to continue to Pretend We're going to love everybody through all their differences for all their their everything but we don't have to pretend along with them okay roll call please motion yeah do I have a motion motion to deny I'm sorry no Jenny made a motion to deny to I guess reject I guess so that motion takes precedence over there if the chair says that you're recognized her motion to to disapprove then we need a second then that has priority if the chair recognized it first it needs a second and if it gets a second then you move for a vote on that I will remind you that Tennessee law on this point is very clear yeah I agree
102do I have a second yes okay goes to deny right yeah so a yes on this would be to deny it a no would be to keep it on the agenda yes Mrs Jones abstain Mr Perez yes Mr Smith no the sermon no no Dr Wingate oh chairman McClendon no okay do I have a motion to uh approve make a motion to approve a second roll call please no Mrs Jones Mustang Mr Perez no Miss uh Mr Smith yes Mrs sermon yes Mr Walker yes yes okay that will uh bring us down to e1b Mr Perez so on e1b again uh I mentioned this when we were going through the committee I mentioned that on Monday uh Scott you weren't here but um the fact that at one point the state's going to pass a
103policy and we have to pass the policy again right we're we're back there and so we can have all the conversations we want the state's going to tell us what to do um with 4.402 I mentioned on Monday and Scott maybe you can clarify but I'm concerned about the term offensive because that's a very general broad term to me which doesn't really establish parameters at all and and here's my concerns Scott and maybe you can um Mr Bennett I try to refer to you all by last name when I'm speaking so I apologize um Mr Bennett no Scott um and and so my uh my concern here um when I think about this in practice is that schools in order to just avoid any tension will choose the lowest common denominator I guess like okay
104just all of this is offensive just get out of it so that nobody calls us and and has any any claim so how do we understand the parameters and and how do you value and I read the policy I know that there's a line of what a book would be but just help me understand sure so um the reference to offensiveness and this by the way is is also in some sense of response to what our Scott can you speak into the microphone yeah I thought it was I'm sorry sorry thank you you just better I think it's his thing running back here I think whoever heard of a lawyer being quiet right um so so the term offensiveness and this also responds to to what one of our earlier speakers uh inquired about the
105term offensiveness is actually a term used in the law about by the Supreme Court to um to recognize that that Community standards do differ from from Chattanooga Tennessee to Des Moines Iowa to you know Los Angeles California and this local board of education is in large measure the Arbiter of community standards here in in this town and so you are the voices of your constituents they speak their values to you and you impart that into the school system so I understand that that offensiveness as it's written doesn't seem to have any clear parameters but it's not actually supposed to it's it is it is a term that is intended to evolve over time so what may be offensive to one community in Hamilton County might not be offensive to another community in Hamilton County and
106likewise five years from now we may have different mores that Prevail as it relates to a particular topic or particular issue so it it is intended to be an opportunity to to speak to the moment so that's actually not a weakness of the policy that's intended to be a strength and it's something that that that first amendment Amendment jurisprudence recognizes is a little difficult to quantify but but it's that way on purpose so that's that's the first thought the second thought about offensiveness is something might be offensive but nevertheless still have value and there's actually a Supreme Court case that goes back a long a long time that that talks about how it's the task of of local school officials to ascertain whether something has value over and above whatever offensive contact content it may
107be the the primary consideration here is You Can't Ban ideas so you can't say we don't like the content of this the ideas behind this we think this is anti-American or we think this is anti whatever the one thing that you can regulate is the offensiveness or the age-appropriateness of content of the content not the content itself and so that's why we have this long list on page two of things that the Educators and the committee are supposed to consider to weigh against the offensiveness and so when when something winds its way through the policy procedures um the committee should make a report and make a determination you know here are some factors to consider this is a work of enduring of enduring history it speaks to it's acclaimed by etc etc yes there are
108some isolated uh uses of curse words or some Concepts that are a little little Troublesome however and so that gives that would give the the administrative apparatus something to work with and if someone appealed from the administrative apparatus to this board it gives you something to work with something to chew on um so yes I can see that there is not a a yardstick behind the word offensive but again that is intended to be one of the strengths of the policy because we we shouldn't be bound by what someone in Los Angeles California might think is appropriate and likewise they shouldn't be bound by something that we think is inappropriate does it make sense yeah it doesn't remove my concern but it doesn't make sense right I appreciate that thank you and so to to
109your final question doesn't remove your concern there's a concept um there's a concept in the law educational in particular we refer to as Educators discretion pedagogical discretion at the end of the day as long as the administration and this board can articulate the values that are important to you and while you're making a decision courts are going to give you a great deal of deference because because if you're working through a policy that looks at legitimate criteria and this does they're going to assume that you've acted in good faith the policy is designed to keep you from screening out things such ideas that you don't like we don't like we don't want to talk about that topic that would be an unpermitted censorship okay so you can screen out really the only thing you can
110screen out something that is offensive or that isn't age appropriate you can't screen out ideas thank you for explaining if I if I was able to explain that then I'm I'm humbled because there are classes in law school that revolve around yeah that's the issue right it takes a month at the end of the day uh you know again uh we we we have a lot of passion around positions and uh and my concern is when we I look at all this criteria just not having to deal with the heat that will come if we allow or don't allow becomes the highest weight right and so and there doesn't seem anything here too defend beyond that if if the group's like you know what just remove it because it's the easiest thing to do so
111to that point um and this is actually outside of the age appropriate in this build uh there's a there's another part of tendency law that requires of all of all organs in Tennessee government the state textbook Commission which which doesn't have an Avenue for for anyone to appeal a textbook decision by a local board the state textbook commission is going to be empowered to hear Appeals from Decisions by local boards over Library content now how that works we don't know because they don't have to promulgate rules on that until December 1st to understand that their deadline to promulgate rules is December 1 but we have to have this policy adopted by August 1. so we may have to change it to somewhere it's possible but but I will say that that this bill the age
112appropriatess bill was not pushed by the general assembly was pushed by by the Department of Education and so a lot of lawyers got together and were trying to figure out the best way that we could go with this without doing violence to the First Amendment and so the age appropriateness bill I think will will probably track very closely with what the state textbook commission is going to do that remains to be seen but I think I think we're gonna be fine Miss Jones well I think Scott just answered it I kind of just feel like we're spinning our Wheels here because everything that you just said was what people were saying in the community was saying when there was a discussion earlier in the year and I think it becomes objective like I think all
113this criteria allows it to become subjective such and I agree with Marco on that because what may be offensive to one may not be offensive to another um and then when it comes to us as a as an Administration and as a board clearly there's going to be all kind of discussion here so how do you come to the appropriate resolve to ensure that the children or child or whomever has had access to literature that would be beneficial for them if it's all becoming subjective opinion for the decision that makes sense what I was just saying it it does and I think you're right you you are in some sense restating what Mr Perez said and the answer to that question is I'll I won't I won't repeat myself I'll say I'll say something a
114little bit different the fact that something may be offensive does not mean it gets removed the issue is whether it's offensive and it doesn't have have a letter or a redeeming value that balances it out right I guess what's our Safeguard to not go through what we went through months ago a couple of months ago like what's the safe car for the board to not go through what we went through months ago or 403 I would say I mean I saw that but I mean it still it still leaves room for so so I feel like we just keep going back to the same place even though there's something in place so that's a great question so so your current policy does have an opportunity for people to challenge stuff but there's but there's absolutely
115nothing that means that that is the only pathway and so your current policy basically says if if someone doesn't like a particular work that's in a book that's in a library that they that they could even find with GPS um or on the other hand maybe the grandchild goes there um they have equal standing to come before the board and complain about something that that may never affect them this policy says if you're going if if if you're going to bring this to the board's attention number one you have to have standing this has to affect your child and number two you've got to go through the process rather than just dumping it on the board's doorstep because you jump dump it just on the board's doorstep you're sitting there and you're thinking we're not
116equipped to answer these questions we haven't read the book as a whole we don't we don't know and so what this does is it gives people who have a legitimate concern and Avenue to bring these concerns to the attention of the education professionals who quite frankly are better equipped to take a first crack at this than the focus on this side of the rink so so I to your question what's to keep us from getting right back into the same rut I think if we follow the policy we won't because if you have standing you now have an Avenue to complain and the Administration has clear guidance from the board about how they're supposed to chew on this and work through it and yes it may end up back in front of the board at
117some point but hopefully not until after it's gone through the process and and then I think you'll have a record which I think is a constitutionally sound way to resolve this I have one more question um 4.403 in line 37 I asked this Monday it states that any parent and then of course and or other citizen in it that's removed who wishes to request review or reconsideration of the use of any instructional material in the school must take let's make such a request in writing through the principle of the school where the material is my question on Monday was um any parent s what defines any parent because my mother is a parent right and she doesn't have a kid at Hamilton County Schools right and so um first uh that really should be parent
118or Guardian right um and so we we've discussed internally we're going to change that okay but but I so I do one on the record for it to be clear that when this policy is uploaded it's going to be parent or Guardian so to your question karitz about you know any parent what does that mean well if you look back up uh to number two um in that in that paragraph So This is line 32. it reads that no parent or group of parents or non-school group has the right to determine the instructional materials for students other than their own children so your mom is a parent I don't think she currently has children in Hamilton County schools and she ain't come about no books because she said just read a book but she need
119me to read right but but you know she's a parent she wouldn't have standing to Lodge a complaint about anything in Hamilton County Schools except her own child or or a child over whom she is the guardian right so so that's that that goes back to what I mentioned a second ago about standing if you're going to complain about something you have to have standing to complain it has to affect you so so a regular taxpayer that eliminates that this policy yes sir that's right well they could still they could still contact a board member and say I have some concerns about this but in terms of whether they would have standing under the state law even to challenge something they would not they could still they still have First Amendment rights to say I
120have a problem with this but this but they wouldn't have the keys to this procedure to go through and have a hearing at the school level does it make sense they still have First Amendment rights they could post something in the Chattanooga and they could contact a board member they could go to the County Commission very good uh Mr Walker thank you I think one of the things that I learned through the discussion on the library books is that and you all can correct me if I'm wrong but talking to some Librarians that if I as a parent didn't want these five books checked out I fill out the form it goes in the system if I go to check it out I can't get it um I don't know why you know it's been
121so long since I've been in school and I was sitting in one of the school libraries one day and it just hit me like they're not taking the card out of the bank and signing their name on it anymore they scanning each other before karitz is the only one that can harass me not you Marco but I think that we need I think that we need to make that known as well we could have I mean to the parents and let them know and I'm not all about you know I'm all about people needing to opt in versus opt out but I think you know we have some things in place if James's parents don't want him to read these five books and fill out the form give it to the librarian and again I
122know somebody's gonna say well James your back pedal I'm not backpedaling anything I think there's stuff in the books in the libraries that shouldn't be in there but the quick thing is I don't get to choose what charitsa wants to read and what may have more value for her but I think we need that parent engagement to say if these are the five books or the 25 books get that in the system at Hixson high school and then if somebody and again somebody else will James their friend can go check it out if they're going to go through everything to try and get some if they think it's that bad but I think we need to reinforce that a parent can fill out that form at every one of their schools if I'm correct or
123not y'all let me know and then when they go up there and try to check out a book then you know that's that's off something he said no your parents don't want you to check that book out I mean I think we really have spent a lot of time talking about it start talking about it before I ever got on the board now I've already getting kicked off the board and and we're still kind of kicking it down there but but I think we ought to remember that and let the parents know you are in control what your child checks out fill out the form and send it to the school so anyway Mr Walker you said something I think it's important for the board to hear me say and for the public to hear
124uh this policy doesn't apply simply to the books that are in the geographical location of the library the statute defines Library materials to mean any book any or any material that's provided by the school or an agent of the school so that could be a classroom teacher um outside of the curriculum so you know Mr Walker here um you know runs runs 8th grade ELA and uh he's got a collection of books um in in the back shelf and you know he lets people grab them anytime he wants they want to read uh you know by all means you know he gets you know John Marco you want you want to take a book home to read help yourself grab something so this policy would apply to those as well because you know we got
125to be sure that Mr Walker doesn't accidentally put the wrong book on that shelf you know something from home that he didn't even put in that shelf um this the new law applies to literally everything um and I I'm sorry that Shannon's not here um but she and I were talking about the logistics of that and as I understand it there's a vendor who can actually make that a relatively easy process I don't know if uh the the superintendent can speak to that but but my understanding is that that's actually not as as daunting a task is as I think we were thinking it was going to be you think about that or is that it I mean we're looking at that I think there's a lot of discussion around look at the intent of
126the legislation not that right well the the administration's position the administration wrote the the statute and and their position is pretty clear in fact and I think there was a guidance letter the the um I think there was a guidance memo that that either has been sent out or is going to be sent out that that still hasn't been sent out okay Miss Thurman uh yes Scott you just answered one of my questions that it was going to be about all materials and even the books that are put on shelves by other outside organizations those have to be vetted by the same I knew that was a question that that had come up in the committee so I want to be sure that the public heard that okay and there's another thing okay so to
127pee back off of Joe's question about whether people who didn't have a child in the system could file a complaint it says and I was just I was trying to find just kind of glancing over here I couldn't remember where it was that uh until all of the steps had been exhausted you couldn't address the board right so that doesn't apply to them either if it outside that if they're not a parent then that doesn't apply to them so they can come before the board and tell us about a book and and they could do that because this wouldn't apply to somebody who's not a parent right well the way that I've drafted this it would give the executive committee discretion to decide whether whether you want to keep doing that and that's so I
128I've written it in a way where if you if you want to have people coming in and reading books that well maybe not just read but come in and say there's a book here that you might want to check and parents need to know it's there you know or something like that I mean I'm just saying that that doesn't apply to them well the way this is written it it gives the board latitude to decide how you want to handle that going forward I mean again strictly speaking the way that it that it's that it's written have standing to have standing you have to have a child who would be exposed but we let people speak in front of the board who don't have children in the school so that's absolutely true that's absolutely true
129so the way this is written the interpretation would be um well one interpretation would be and this is up to the board to decide moving forward uh based upon whatever precedent y'all want to create and I would suggest that probably it's the next board that you know that seats in September for y'all to decide how you want to do this but you could say fairly ma'am you know there's a process here um thank you for bringing this to the attention you need to take that with the director of schools or you need to take that up with your principal and if the person wouldn't have standing to go through the process then then they might not have five minutes to speak that that is an issue that you don't have to decide tonight yeah well
130okay I just want to think through that it was just thought I had okay thank you Scott sure miss Hill thank you chairman uh Mr Walker I appreciate you putting a fine point on the fact that the hysteria that we have been witness to has been unnecessary because in fact our schools have our students best interests in mind our educators are professional and have always offered parents an opportunity to opt out of reading a book so that's great that we have that and I appreciate you pointing that out to everyone um about the implementation of this I will reiterate my point from last week that I will implore our staff to have backbone so as to avoid weaker less courageous choices of just pulling things willy-nilly so as not to have to go through this
131process also for the board uh that will become panel in September I would suggest that within the strategic planning that you look at values like what what the vision and values is we have board goals but not sorry board values and I think those values could be used by those review committees to help further guide beyond the items within this policy um because I have faith in the team that we have I don't have a whole lot of worry about this policy with the changes that we've discussed about making sure that it is actually someone who is related to a parent or Guardian within a school that is appropriate and I would say that um if you want to let anybody come and read from a book without context you're inviting chaos that is not
132productive and I would question if that was a good use of the sports time I would say it is not um and I pity the board that decides to sit through that again um thank you out of motion but we are separating the policies right yeah this is this is on uh for policy 4.402 this would be e1b do you have a motion move to approve oh second roll call please yes Mr Perez no Mr Smith yes Mrs Thurman yes Mr Walker yes yes chairman yes okay that will go down to the final policy e1c depressed well we already discussed it that one interestingly I think uh provides a lot of safeguards and protections so I'm I have no problem I just want to make sure we voted on them separately any other questions do
133I have a motion motion move to second roll call please yes yes Mr yes yes Mr yes Dr Wingate yes chairman McClendon yes that brings us down to board matters our first item is the Cigna building purchase do I have a motion to approve some moved second conversation questions uh I just think we thought I just uh just want to make sure that the public knows what is going on here uh we're working with the county on this am I correct I just want people to understand what's going on right so the eight million dollars purchase price is actually being paid by the county and then we will be responsible for any modifications of the building to make it suitable for a school suitable for school probably East Brainerd Elementary from what we understand be
134some Elementary capacity we don't know the configuration it'll probably take at least uh you know a year and a half two years to modify the building so we've got some time but we do know that through the Springer Corridor you know we we're in need of Elementary seats I just want everyone know the county is purchasing that building it's not coming from us okay thank you we're spending some money the renovations we're paying for it yeah and if you haven't I believe Empire communities has released like the first sketch of their whole neighborhood and it's going to be and it's a building spending I forget what our amount was how many millions 10 12 million was it something like that we looked at maybe the renovations versus building a school for 40 million right right
135yeah okay yeah it's a great cost saving um thing for for the district do I have a we already have a motion and a second roll call please Mrs Hill yes yes Mr Perez yes Mr Smith yes Mrs Thurman yes Mr Walker yes Dr Wingate yes chairman McClendon yes uh this brings us down to the new position request for learning acceleration leads to approve second any conversation hi Miss Thurman yes uh I just want everybody know this is Grant funded and we were told the other night when the grant runs out the person has been is going to be told that that position will be eliminated when the grant Runs Out correct okay thank you roll call please Mrs Hill yes Mrs Jones yes Mr Perez yes Mr yes Mrs Thurman yes Mr Walker yes
136Dr Wing day yes yes that brings us down to the next new patient position position request for homeless Specialists move to approve second any conversation this is a grant funded position yes it is no I'm saying that so it can go on record so we can keep going um I'm Mr prayers I'll let you go first um I just think it's very important to restate what you stated on Monday we have over 700 students that um are experiencing homelessness uh I'm not an educator I can't imagine the effect of homelessness on a student's capacity to learn in a classroom correct and uh the stresses and the impacts that that brings to their life and so this is more meant for the public as we're voting for this like this is a position to help the
137one individual that is assisting 700 over 700 homeless can you stand up because you deserve um and uh thank you so much but um but uh you probably are tired on your feet already um no and and so just to assist uh this is not a problem that's going away that's another group that we have um as the state kind of said don't have a place in our society um and they're not going away and so uh I just uh when we look at numbers when we look at results when we look at achievements when we look at sometimes we don't realize that there are seven over 700 students who every night have to go see where they're gonna sleep and who's going to take care of them that night and and those numbers that
138we look at and we criticize are just statistics are reflected in that reality so equally to that group you belong you belong in our community you belong in our society and we will serve you till we die so uh thank you for this Miss Jones I want to add that if you've not been to the 40th this is 40th Street on it I always say across from the cemetery but if you haven't been to the whole city um School building um to see the work that she um does and the area that she has set up and the process that she has put in place as one person to support these children and these families then you are missing out like you need to really go see what she has done it's amazing I mean
139she probably could come help me organize my house but it's really uh but it's really amazing the pro the process she's created to be able to support these families um just being one person so this this position is very needed and I know that oftentimes and I've worked Grand funded positions that when the grant is over it's over but what we do know and what we see here in our County and in our city is that this population is growing not decreasing and so I do think um this may be a position that when the grant ends that we may need to consider looking at sustaining because based on numbers and data of course but um one thing is for sure is that we know that children learn better and do better in academic settings
140when they feel safe and secure and have everything that they need and so if we're able to support support that in a temporary or transitional period of their lives then we I feel like it's our due diligence as humans to do that and so I want to thank you for the what you do um and I'm glad that we're able to be able to provide um the vote to support you and some support Dr Drake I learned today that the 700 number 6 1500 yes that is correct um it yeah it's a strike Mike really like 17. I'm sorry yes I I said over uh without an exact but it is uh close to 1700 at this at this time and one uh part of what Laura's job is is to go out and actually
141locate the students so when we get calls that there are people that families that are sleeping in their cars that's a part of the job that Laura has to do to go and investigate and identify them and inform them of their rights and what Carissa spoke of is that Laura really came in and um put a more of a care and to give you some dignity what she's speaking of is that what she set up typically we would um form like a box of give like a care box to folks but she really set it up like it's a grocery store so they can come in and and choose the items that they want and not something that's chosen for them so she's she set it up more as a store type environment so thank
142you very much please yes I do heavily rely on our school social workers our school social workers have given me lots of the ideas that I have put into some of my our homeless grants that have brought us in right under a million dollars for the course of three years just to give some extra services so we do I do really heavily rely on our social workers to help me with completing my families in transition paperwork and going out and getting items to families and just kind of like letting me know what they need when they need Transportation set up so they do Aid me in in this process but it will be definitely helpful if I could have some additional staff to better serve our students and our unaccompanied youth so thank you um
143no I don't have any questions yeah you can you can sit down you probably had a long day um Mr Perez you said earlier today something kept you awake I woke up Monday in the middle or Tuesday Morning in the middle of night thinking about the 700 number um and to later find out it's 15 1600 students it puts this year it puts it in perspective of what our students go through um I woke up went to East Brainerd Elementary my mom took me I got Chick-fil-A every morning and to even think that I that we have 1700 1500 kids in this District that are either in shelters they're sleeping in cars and then we expect them to get up the next morning and go learn just boggles my mind and I think as I
144reflect off my four years and I have a month and a half left on this board this community this County this city we have to get our priorities straight anyone I mean if I knew where the money would come I'd make a motion right now to give you whatever you needed because we have to it it it's a loss for words knowing and I've seen it firsthand with with my wife being at Eastlake this year but how any of us how this is not the number one thing that we're trying to fix as a County um don't get me started on that I'll I'll say to that point there's a lot of discussion about priorities and public money going places in this community right now when we have 1500 kids sleeping without a roof over
145their head and we as a County need to make sure we have our priorities straight so I'll leave that do I have we've had a motion a second [Applause] Mrs seal yes Mrs Jones yes Mr Perez absolutely yes Mr Smith yes Mrs Thurman yes Mr Walker yes Dr Wingate yes chairman McClendon yes uh next we have the resolution uh to condemn the comments from uh Mr Arnon I was going to suggest um instead of doing a formal vote uh on this that the board members that wish to sign the resolution could sign it and the board members that do not do not um if if that is do you want to rescind your motion I resent mine there we go um so board members Miss Ford has the resolution um after the meeting we can
146sign it um if you want to if not that is that is fine as well um and then that will be sent to the uh proper people uh any conversation Mr Prez so it's still there will the letter be changed reflecting say we the members signed below yeah there's if you look on the second pair or the third page or I believe it it has everyone's names and we'll just be able to sign it yeah thank you either sign it or you don't okay moving on that uh brings us down to our Legal Services report um you all have that there you have events and announcements uh we have our district-wide day of service uh if you have someone or know someone you can sign up for that um and then you have the rest
147of the events the back to school bash uh is August 6th and then everyone's favorite day um do we not we don't have we don't have a first day of school on here the 10th right yeah August 10th um you're trying to trying to push it off as we as lucky as we can yeah I bring it up in my life's like do not think about the calendar I'm good um other than that we have our next board meeting August 18th and we will adjourn