001[Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] okay [Music] chairman mcclendon last year robinson here mrs hill here mrs jones here mr perez mr smith mrs thurman here mr walker here mr wingate here mr macon superintendent dr roberson here all right um for tonight's flag and meditation we have dr ethan hildreth from the principal of east hamilton middle school welcome we need to approve the agenda first i am so sorry it's okay yep you know all right we need to as ms ford said we need to prove the agenda um we do have the following amendments added to the agenda under item x delegations we're going to remove item c mrs scarlin balderas she's unable to attend but we will be adding mrs heather madrow speaking regarding the substitute stipend and we will have her speak
002uh right before board matters all right i moved to approve the agenda the other part that's in black there before yeah it's about the memo yes okay okay that also i gotcha also under board matters item nine board matters a1 employee pay increases and rate changes replace current memo with updated memo provided and remove effective date okay there are actually two effective dates in the memo one related to the raises and the second related to the to the fee increases okay does everybody have that and follow that okay all right may i have a motion i move second thank you all right roll call mrs hill yes mrs jones yes mr perez yes mrs robinson yes mrs thurman yes mr walker yes mr wingate yes chairman mcclendon answer okay all yours thank you members of
003the board colleagues and members of the public thank you for permitting east hamilton middle school to be here this evening we're very proud of our students who are going to represent us for the pledge of allegiance as well as for the reflection on the topic of resiliency which i think is very timely and apt for all of us so it's my pleasure to introduce representing our eighth grade cullen henry our seventh grade cole ward and our sixth grade diexa patel who is enroute um and we look forward to hearing from each one of them but first cole ward will lead us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice
004for all good evening board members my name is cullen henry i'm an eighth grade student at east hamilton when i was asked to speak at this board meeting and was given the theme of being resilient i knew who i would talk about speaking on this topic came easy to me as i've had to spend the majority of my middle school career in the current pandemic and have had to be resilient to succeed much like theodore roosevelt roosevelt was born in new york city with asthma and grew up being sick most of the time most people born sickly would struggle to survive with the time period being so tough on children but not teddy he decided that even though he had been diagnosed with serious heart illnesses he would spend his time doing what he wanted
005once he began playing difficult sports he realized that even if his life was cut short he would still live life to the fullest thankfully he lived past young adulthood and went on to study at harvard before going into new york politics years later a tragedy would strike in his in his life when his wife and his mother would die on the same day after this event he was destroyed and to refocus he helped stop corruption in the new york city government he would later remarry and run for mayor of new york he would lose the election and would go on to fight in the spanish-american war before returning to new york and running for governor he would win this election and would continue his task of governor until the death of william mckinley's running mate
006in the 1900 election hearing this theodore roosevelt decided that he would run for vice president and resigned roosevelt and mckinley won making mckinley president for a second term sadly he was shot only six months into his second term making theodore roosevelt president at the age of 42. in his presidency he would commission the panama canal along with limiting corporations and making the national parks he would win a second term and would not run in 1908 he did however run in the 1912 election in which he would give a famous speech in milwaukee he would get shot before he could give this speech however but in a great show of resilience he would continue to give this speech he didn't win the 1912 election and would quit politics for the most part one night he suffered
007some breathing problems and would pass away early the next morning at the age of 60. the vice president at the time even said death had to take roosevelt sleeping for if he had been awake there would have been a fight although he didn't live as long as other presidents i think we should all try to follow his lead as if he could come his own if he could overcome his childhood illness personal tragedy and career hardships to be become one of the greatest presidents adults and children alike can overcome this current current pandemic and push through the trials the pandemic has produced thank you for your time in this this md and for this experience [Applause] good evening board members my name is cole ward i'm in the 7th grade and i also attend east
008hampton middle school today i've been called upon to speak to you guys about resilience and what resilience means when you look the word resilience up the definition provided is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties and or toughness my perspective where i look on the word is simply the phrase bounce back resiliency could relate to a lot of society's circumstances some may be some of your situations being able to i'm i'm sorry whether you're being resilient in a sport being able to keep your head up after a tough loss moving on for that next game you may even be resilient in the classroom after that bad grade on the assignment you know you could have done better on are you going to get down on yourself or feel sorry for yourself complain and make that
009same mistake or you're going to make sure you won't get another bad grade and you pay attention in class you participate and you study resilience is just letting the past go and moving on the word resilience itself can mean a lot to someone is the key to many people's problems but they may not know it yet it is deep inside of them but they may not show it yet to be honest i think everyone should have the desire to be resilient in life we are faced with numerous challenges when we fail one of these challenges we as people tend to give up the biggest challenge in life currently is the pandemic cover night team has affected all of us in some type of way some may have been affected more harshly than others but everyone
010has had something drastically changed in their life because of covet now you may ask what does resilience have to do with the pandemic which is a good question resilience is the perfect response to cobit coronavirus is a huge difficulty and our toughness right the virus has taken away plenty of opportunities and memories that would have occurred not to mention the death of loved ones to sum up about covid it's the worst but with all that do we give up do we stop do we let the challenge defeat us or do we bounce back we persevere and recover quickly resilience is the answer to all the challenges we as people face just keep in mind when times get tough and faced with challenges and you just feel like giving up be resilient thank you for your
011time this evening getting to speak in front of the board was a pleasure and a great experience thank you [Applause] i want to thank each of you for your kind attention to cullen as well as as well as cole we're tremendously proud of each of these students as well as all of our students at east hamilton middle school and across the hamilton county schools district i think you see in the words they shared this evening the tremendous capability the tremendous care that each one of them have in the work they do and the message they share and this is our final speaker this evening please welcome her as more than anyone she exemplifies resiliency [Applause] good evening board members my name is dixa i go to east hamilton middle school i'm in sixth grade being
012resilient is not just the strength of one individual sometimes it takes a family coming together to show resilience it started on my dad's birthday in july my brother told my mom that he didn't feel good my mom put him in in bed later that night i woke up and saw the bathroom light on my brother my mom was with my brother he was up all night the next morning my mom took my brother to the doctor's office the doctor said he had appendicitis my mom was scared when she heard she called my dad and told him the news my parents couldn't believe it the doctor said to go to the emergency room on the way there my mom called me to share the news i was worried and asked if everything would be okay she
013explained that she wasn't sure and she would call me back my dad and i waited for my mom to call several hours had passed before i learned that he was transferred to erlanger children's hospital there my brother underwent blood work and x-ray and a ct scan we soon learned that doctors had to remove his appendix as a family we started packing for my brother's surgery we packed up blankets jackets socks etc my parents would be in the hospital and i would be at my grandparents house i had to be cooperative i spent about five days at their house i wasn't able to see my mom dad or brother because of covid we had to give we got to give them food but that was only once it was hard not to see my family on
014the day of the surgery i was really scared that something would happen to my brother the surgery was two hours long i wasn't able to see my brother for five days once he came out of surgery we had to wait for him to wake up he was really weak after the surgery he stayed at the hospital for an additional three days he was barely able to move he was on bed rest for a couple of days when we came to when we went back home everyone had to help him with many things he also tried to do as much work as he could on his own it was a hard time for our family we all had to try our best to be supportive of each other it was important to be cooperative and easy
015going we all were glad to be home again sometimes being resilient is not for one person only sometimes it takes a whole family to show resilience getting to speak in front of the board was a great experience thank you for your time this evening [Applause] on behalf of east hamilton middle school our students our staff our community thank you again [Applause] thank you you all did a wonderful job okay we'll move into uh presentations um we have a presentation from shannon moody on future ready i'm sorry to somebody want to say something oh you do want okay no i i had asked oh i'll be happy to dr hildreth thank you thank you for uh bringing your staff tonight and students and you guys always make our community proud so thank you guys for all
016you do okay all right um shannon moody we will have you for are you giving the presentation we're switching it up it's gonna be dr stewart and i so uh throwing you a curveball no i mean we are ready for surprises tonight yeah thank you uh for for the short time we wanted to give a quick update uh if you remember back during the interview process i provided a 100-day transition plan for you and wanted to give you a quick update on our plans for that and some adjustments that we've made and just give you an idea of how we're going to move forward so as always we we want to go back to our just cause and and this idea that all children thrive and experience the future without limits that's something that we're
017committed to as a district and invite our community partners and parents and families to come alongside us as we strive for that aspirational goal again i think part of the discussion about a transition plan was the status of future ready 2023 and want to reaffirm that as an administrative team we are committed to seeing future ready 2023 to its end and we will continue to provide updates we'll have one in the next in the coming weeks and will continue to push towards the goals that are set forth in future ready 2023 so if you remember in in the 100 day plan that that i provided you there were really four main areas of focus that i mentioned and put some ideas around how we would move forward with these one of them was governance and
018district alignment this idea of making sure that the school board administration school administration teachers that as a district were aligned and that's something that's going to be extremely important for us moving forward we've talked a lot about a productive culture uh we we know that this has been a difficult time and i couldn't have asked for a better intro than the theme of resilience and we need to work towards making sure that our staffs are appreciated and that we're building a productive district culture i talked a lot about an effective transition it's an interesting time to transition when we're talking january in the middle of a school year so we'll hit on that a little bit and then finally especially considering the second semester we have to remain focused on student outcomes so we've broken
019this up into uh three phases and i'm going to ask dr stewart to walk us through the specifics of each but the first phase we're considering this month is building relationships building relationships with the board within our team with schools community members government officials etc gathering input is what we're looking at for february and then finally in march taking what we've learned from that and applying it to our transition forward yeah so phase one is we're right in the middle of phase one this this building relationships component and i think one of the things that was really important for dr robertson and and myself as a part of his team is to deepen the relationships that exist as well as expand on future relationships and so certainly he's worked hard to build relationships with each
020of you um and set up a cadence for for meeting with you also making sure that he is getting to know the county government and making sure that he's building the relationships there that need to need to be established in order to continue uh the work that we're doing and then of course meeting with school leaders and community members one of the very first things dr robertson did was was hold those principal listening sessions right there at the end of the first semester really committed to making sure that the leader voice what was happening in the schools was elevated as we began this process of building relationships and deepening relationships phase two is around gathering input so i always think you know as we build relationships with people the so much of that process is
021to listen right and to hear what they have to offer and so during this phase which will happen through the month of february we're going to be doing some some analysis about of the learning communities and the strengths and opportunities that we see in each of the five learning communities you know how our district has had such a strong cadence around advisory groups the the principal or the principal advisor groups the teachers the students making sure that those groups hold and continue in this input in this input cycle holding listening sessions in each of the the departments that we have uh in the district again asking those really important questions what's going well what's not what are the challenges what supports do you need uh to move this work forward and then the last piece
022here is to build a transition team and i think one of the things in an input cycle is is to make sure that the voices of this entire county are represented in a transition team and ensure that those voices are at the table and so this is a signature part of phase two so there are six uh transition teams or transition committees um for this input phase and they're listed up here you should see some strong alignment um to future ready 2023 as you might expect but on each of these transition committees there's representation from the district as well as the community at large and so they are eight to ten member teams that are going to meet regularly and then report back uh during the month of march so you can see that we
023have transition teams around student learning community partnerships that third one there with students thrive that is you know i think about our young people and resilience it's making sure that the whole child is cared for uh deeply that purposeful community again i think this is something dr robertson made note of as he as he opened but making sure that the district culture is where we need it to be you know the language in inside hamilton county is purposeful community is ensuring that our staff are thriving that they are getting what they need that they feel connected to each other and connected in the work and so that purposeful community group will really be looking at that what are the staff needs and how can we meet them parent engagement we want to reimagine some of
024this i think if covet has taught us anything it has taught us that zoom is a tremendously good tool for for getting parents involved we've been able to engage parents in lots of different ways through different methods and so again to reimagine and to deepen that space and then that last bullet there diversity equity and inclusion this particular committee what we're going to ask them to do is to really consider the work of those other five committees and really ask the question how do we ensure that as we consider all the things that are discussed in those other committees that diversity equity and inclusion are are the lens that we look through and make recommendations with so and then the last phase application of learning if you're building relationships and gathering input um you know
025you gain credibility when you apply what you've heard right and so during the month of march it will be just that uh we will begin to start thinking about uh the how to build on that future ready 2023 plan we think we're really well situated in a really really strong strategic plan to early in dr dr robertson's tenure to really gather input as we begin to think about what the next strategic plan might look like asking questions around district alignment are we organized the way that we need to be are we are we meeting the needs of our communities and our schools making adjustments of course based on current data and of course making sure that we have the resources and supports for school leaders and teachers again centering the work that's happening in schools
026so i again think that it's a really unique time to transition and uh we put together a timeline of just some things that you can expect to see coming i think what fits nicely together uh is this input cycle aligns well with our budget cycle and so we're we're going to start obviously in february uh some listening sessions and some budget work sessions that will lead through the end of april but some of these items are going to work together and work side by side as we go through that we're looking to nail down the state of the system address attendably for february the 15th um we we're looking at obviously doing that virtual uh for a number of reasons just kind of currently where we are but what we saw last year with the
027the virtual session is it was probably the most watched and most well attended state of the system address that we've had in three years so we'll have more information coming from there again report out on the transition and do some budget workshops through uh february march what what i hope that this transition does is obviously it informs us with our transition informs us with our budget but again to put on the radar uh on the board's radar future ready 2023 is not that far away in terms of its end i feel strongly that at the end of this will provide us kind of some precursor information for how we move forward beyond future ready 2023 and then as a board and administration late spring we we really need to start digging in to developing a
028new future new future ready 23. a new strategic plan beyond future ready 2023. and before i take questions i want to publicly recognize the school board on school board appreciation week we we are uh we are thankful for you guys and and presented you with something that we thought was fitting for the times we we know so many kids have had to bring water bottles to school and so we wanted to present you with something that would hopefully be useful for you but just a small token of our appreciation to everything that you have done for this school system and for uh the community i've been it's been nice to be able to go meet community members and talk to people and and to be able to praise the work of this board so just
029a small token of appreciation to you and at this time we'll take any questions that you may have all right mrs hill well first thank you so much for the water bottle i do love to show my hamilton county school spirit and we'll use it regularly appreciate this summary of the way that you all plan to move forward in the coming months one thing i just want to put a fine point on and you and i have discussed it is our work with community partners has come a very long way over the last several years and what i've witnessed is a move from hamilton county being either not even at the table or quiet to being a leading voice at the table and i know that our community partners are eager to hear from hamilton
030county schools and understand where they fit in the work that we're going to be doing so i do encourage you to continue to take that that role of leadership moving forward mr perez just very quickly in uh in your approach uh i'm sure you've thought of it i just want to remind you if you haven't but we have a growing latino community and very often in some of these conversations uh the latino community is not as engaged as they should with uh the representation they have in in our schools so um so i just encourage a and it's complicated and uh and we know that but i i just encourage you to find ways to engage the parents especially uh beyond and i know dr drake you do that but i just uh want to
031point it out again so thank you okay anyone else well i'll just have a couple comments um under the building relationships i i was thinking about um your emphasis on uh meeting with board members but i did i did want to ask that maybe you guys think through how you can strategically leverage and use our board committees maybe more i mean we have some committees that are formed for some pretty pressing topics and um i just think there's opportunity there to really think through that and also in regards to um gathering input and just listening i mean i just think that the or not the let's see page i missed it but either way like really engaging parents i think is crucial right now you know um before dr townes transitioned out i had a
032long conversation with her about how i think that parents have forgotten what it's like to be in our school buildings and i think that there's you know we've just had the last two years of like really being engaged with our students schools and um i think we've gotten really used to zoom and like as much as i think that that's a great tool too i do think that there's like a lot of value and being in person and touching and feeling and really understanding what's happening in our students schools in their classroom specifically i had a conference with my kindergartners teacher on friday and that was the first time that i had been invited into my children's school in 18 months or two years i'm really not even sure anymore so um i just think
033that whenever you're thinking about how to really continue to gauge the community and parent groups like how can we continue to emphasize like come into our buildings and really understand what's going on their students so all right okay we'll move on okay we'll move into our board number disclaimer statement um so if you'd like to make the statement statement just light your lights all right do you do you go down the line or do i just you do okay great uh mrs thurman okay i declare that i have a relative who works for the school system that the boards vote on the budget and some of the policies may have an effect on my relatives employment even so i hereby certify that i will cast my vote in the best interest of the school system
034i 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 relatives 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 that the board's vote on budget policies etc may have an effect on my relatives employment even so i hereby certify that i will pass my vote in the best interest of the school system i declare that i have relatives who work for the school system and the board's vote on budget policies and anything else may have an effect on my relatives employment even so i hereby certify that i will cast my vote in
035the best interest of the school system great i declare that i have a relative who works for the school system and that the boards vote on budget policies et cetera may have an effect on my relatives employment even so i hereby certify that i will cast my vote in the best interest of the school system okay all right we'll move into the approval of the consent agenda um do i have a motion move to a pro second second all right would anyone like to pull anything from the agenda yeah behind you okay um um just uh 1b 1. howard high and best t shepard portable purchase okay uh mrs hill i'd like to pull 7 d b specifically looking at the report on the fund balance and now ellis okay uh mrs thurman oh that's
036okay mrs jones did you have something okay all right does anybody else have anything okay all right well let's go over um item one b one we need to do yeah we do that first i've only been here for five years i mean i know okay okay um roll call mrs seal yes mrs jones yes mr perez yes mrs robinson yes mrs thurman yes mr walker yes mr wingate yes okay we'll move into mr perez's item 1b1 besties shepard portables uh that's t and howard um uh so i understand uh why we're purchasing them i understand why it makes sense i am afraid or concerned that when you do purchase a portable the portable becomes the solution uh because we've already spent the money and uh and so i'd just like to hear beyond the
037portables uh what is the plan and uh and what would we be doing so in terms of the plans that specifically bestie shepherd and howard uh we've obviously experienced rapid growth at howard um and it's to the point that we had to get some relief um obviously everything is depending on funding right and so uh you know we do need to consider in the in the next probably five years what we're going to do different at howard because we continue to experience this growth the portables aren't going to help um in terms of besties shepherd i think that besties shepherd will probably be in okay shape with these portables for the next several years and um understanding it's it's not where we want long term but uh where we are with facilities putting uh new
038portables in place to us is a viable solution one of the reasons if you if you go back three or four years ago we started uh having these conversations about portables and a lot of people are considering the old portables that we've had and the ones that we're putting now at schools are uh are very nice situations for classrooms they they have two classrooms on each side there's private restrooms in between so they're almost self-contained spaces so i want to be clear that we're not putting old portables these are these are really quality learning environments but um as always with our facilities plan we've got to consider what this what the real solution is at howard thank you okay anything else on that topic from the board all right move to the next item um
039mrs hill oh i'm sorry that's right do you want to put it back on the agent then you have a motion to put it back on the move just move to it yeah most of a second yeah i just want to say that like i think there should be a script like i'm just going to be very honest like this is crazy yeah you're doing a great job you're good mrs seal yes mrs jones yes mr perez yes mrs robinson yes mrs thurman yes mr walker yes mr wingate yes okay the next item item 7d 3d report on fund balance yes thank you guys for including this on the agenda for tonight the thing i wanted to point out on this fund balance analysis that stood out to me is the line item that is
040assigned for education technology money so we have built up over the years monies in this part of the fund and we've used it on a relatively regular basis to make large technology purchases as we've moved to having more devices in our schools but moving forward we all know how important it is that we have students with devices and so i spoke with dr robertson and he advised me that it's going to be costing us every year about 3.6 million dollars to add new devices to the system so they age out right if you could just talk us through that dr robertson so that we can kind of generate an awareness because right now we're using esther dollars which is one-time money for something that ultimately is going to become a necessary ongoing expense so this
041conversation started several years ago and where we are with kind of getting on a good schedule of replenishing devices is uh each sixth grader and every ninth grader should get a new device and so a sixth grader should get a device keep it with them for three years and then in ninth grade get a new device keep it with them through the end of twelfth grade so when you look at that number um it comes to on average if you consider what we're spending per device and about the average number of six and ninth graders we have it comes somewhere between 3.2 and 3.6 million dollars mary ellen and i have been talking about this is a conversation that past administrations have had about the need to get this as a recur a recurring item
042in our budget instead of just building up fund balance and doing it that way we uh are working towards that we're not there we've got a small window with esser we've got about i think just over 3.6 set aside and esser funds to make the next purchase you see in this fund balance we've got about a million in fund balance set aside for technology so we've got a little bit of a window but uh the goal is to work to get this as a recurring item in the budget maryland i don't know if i missed anything on that oh thank you for that and what about staff devices where does that fit into the 3.6 and is there any plan to renew staff devices more often than every beyond i think the staff devices are
043on a lease and so the lease is built into the base budget okay terrific so both so okay wonderful that's all move to approve all right is there a second second or mrs hill yes mrs jones yes mr perez yes mrs robinson yes mrs sermon yes mr walker yes mr wingate yes okay we'll move into administrative business matters um mr eaves with a transportation or director transfer first student contract one year extension oh no was that part of the consent agenda i'm sorry yeah well okay actually i'm sorry we'll move into our first delegate um heather madrow no no no no no no no you were right of business you were all right that was important okay good all right okay yep is there a motion to approve so moved thank you is there any
044discussion yes yes mr i know there are a lot more people probably watching now than watch on monday night uh just want to clarify a little bit about what this is and what kind of increase there is justin we did discuss this on monday night and about the possibility of adding maybe more contract drivers something the discussion would have to have a later date but if you want to address that again sure so um this is a one year renewal the original contract was three years with option to renew for a year so this is us uh asking or recommending that we uh go with that one year renewal um first student has done a really good job especially in terms of safety have exceeded the kpis and future ready some of the discussion on
045monday centered around the cost increase that's that's in each contract and it's three percent we also discussed routes and uh you know the opportunity moving beyond this year to reconsider the number of routes currently uh first student has i think 151 or 150 routes um our other routes are of course covered by contractors so right now what we're asking or you know seeking your approval for is to continue this contract for one more year knowing that we're gonna have to put out an rfp uh probably in i'd say october november of this year um and then at that point we could reconsider how many routes we want to put in the rfp and also uh justin we discussed that they did put in a lot of their own money this year but the sanitizing and
046lots of things just want people to understand they uh right the start of the pandemic when we didn't quite know our funding situation they agreed to cut that uh increase in half and then uh use their their own labor and and supplies uh to uh disinfect buses uh each day during the 2021 school year thank you okay mrs hill yes mrs jones yes mr perez yes mrs robinson yes mrs thurman yes mr walker yes mr wingate yes all right now we will have our first delegate i think so i think so all right and mrs hill has actually agreed to take your time and to sure 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
047also 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 i will tell you when you have one minute left and i will set an alarm that'll make a noise also if you're not looking at me at one minute that is not that's that's on you i got it all right all right and at city council there's a timer and they can see it it's a countdown clock here we go ready all right go good evening school board members in november 2019 i came to talk to you about a topic
048that is finally being proposed tonight compensating teachers who take on additional students in classes when there are not enough substitutes to fill the positions over two years ago i proposed the idea of splitting the cost of a sub to give to the teachers who take on extra students and classes finally now that we are in crisis mode something might get done to recognize this problem and what your staff does to keep the schools running during survival mode we really are in survival mode last week we had 10 unfilled subpositions at my school and i know we're not an exception the solution was to have one sublist class from every grade level split into a different grade into a different classes although one grade did go to a different grade an assistant covered the kindergarten class
049an rti interventionist covered another class literacy and math coaches rotated to finish covering another class and finally the assistant principal taught pe class so that those classes weren't able to be merged with the other related arts class kudos to that admin who figured it all out so that every student was supervised during the entire time related arts teachers they always get extra students one teacher told me she had 38 students last week i've heard of 34 kindergartners in a class that's a lot yikes when esau or x our staff are out and we don't have a sub there are no services no special ed services that's a legal issue even if we do manage to get a sub that person is then pulled from ours and given to a jenna classroom and i get it
050it's so much easier just to cancel services than to split a class in the self-contained setting for x-ed assistant teachers are then teaching they are doing their jobs of theirs and the teachers job for less money that they can make doing retail or fast food jobs i really do wish that this policy did pay stipends for the teaching assistance as well it does state certified classroom staff they're not included in this new policy for years they have covered when the teacher is out including longer maternity leave they don't get paid enough to do their job and the teacher's job there is a teacher in our school now who did from august to thanksgiving lesson plans data everything she didn't get paid a dime more than she normally does the lack of subs creates a strain
051on everyone how many of your staff are ready to quit because the survival mode has taken on a great toll and it's unsustainable i've seen teachers scramble in the mornings to make extra copies for the students that they're getting that day and to pull in chairs and desks this week last week when four first grade teachers were out which is half they sent out an email plea to make sure that all of the students got from one end of the building to the other at dismissal several teachers did answer that call we do it because we care about the safety of the students and because you know it's only a matter of time before you're going to be out and you need your colleagues help contrary to what was said tuesday teachers do not volunteer
052to give up their lunch or planning periods to cover classes we are voluntold all last year we could only fill the cafeteria 50 so the rest of the classes ate in their classroom teachers gave up their lunch time to eat with their own class and non-homeroom teachers also rotated to give those teachers a break when i approached admin about the legality of a duty-free lunch i was told this is the best we could come up with if you can think of something different i'm all ears now it might seem like i'm whining but as the ex-ed teacher i've been the least impacted so far i just have the bigger voice i'm here because of the kids none of this is beneficial for us our students they walk into the classroom every morning not knowing if
053their teacher is going to be there if they get to stay with their classmates or if they're split if they go to another classroom what will they be learning will they follow the academics of the new classroom or will they be given a packet in a chromebook and hopefully stay busy enough to stay out of trouble when i'm absent i don't get a sub my assistant stays in the classroom with the students who need the most intensive supports that means the seven classrooms that she goes into for inclusion don't get the help they need my 25 students that pop in and out for 30 minutes at a time don't get their reading and math interventions not having subs hurts our students so please vote yes for the stipend and be certain that it includes all
054staff who take on extra duties including the classified staff such as our amazing talented educational assistants and related arts staff which are not thank you teachers we need help please thank you for keeping time all right moving into board matters our first item is employee pay increases and rate changes do i have a motion to approve some move second all right i'm sorry who mentioned that mr president okay and do we have discussion mr walker never mind okay uh mrs thurman yes so we we discussed this at uh length on tuesday uh i did make a call to uh justin and also i called scott today to get a little bit of clarity on something i just want to bring something up i know that we were talking about having a hard time hiring people
055workers for uh schooling child care and i've always thought that cafeteria workers would just be the perfect people to work in child care because they're getting finished about the time school is over and about or really before school's over and they can go to child care and work which brings on a few other problems that that's what i call just what i call scott about uh because if they get over 40 hours then it gets into overtime and what rate would they get paid now my question scott i didn't ask you this today but what is the difference in the rate i guess they're different rates in in the cafeteria as child care workers do they get paid about the same or is there a big difference so that so if that would be a
056problem i should have asked you this before but i just happen to think there's probably not a whole lot of difference because if they get over 40 hours then we have to think we have to it becomes a blended rate it get becomes the blended rate or we can just the board could decide to pay them the higher rate the higher rate right but we can't pay them the lower rate but it has to be the higher rate by law so um those are things the board might want to consider doing in order to get some of the people who have already been vetted and already been um you know already gone through the process of being hired and already worked for the school system penny you're shaking your head am i missing something here
057that maybe we no and um no you're you're right and i think that's a great um item to explore scott and i talked about it this morning um i think after y'all spoke um the current issue that we have that i talked to our payroll supervisor about this morning and we're going to explore with munis and maybe an outside consultant that we have is that our food service and school nutrition employees their time keeping system is different than the one that we use for the rest of the district and so to pull that into payroll it wouldn't alert them they would have to manually handle it but um there is someone that we're working with now with the new system who could possibly help us with a solution so we're going to explore that for
058sure okay i think that's something we might need to look at because i think that that may alleviate some of the problems that we have trying to hire some people because it seems like i'm doing the roadblock a lot of times when they want to do that they've done that but i think that's something that board me to be aware of that maybe we might need to look at yeah so we're going to dig into that thank you okay yeah and madame chair for context uh what mrm is referencing is that many many years ago the board established a procedure where if you if you worked in one area of the system you generally didn't work if you were if you're an hourly employee you wouldn't work somewhere else in the system as well because
059then if you went over 40 hours it triggers overtime entitlement and then you've got to figure out what the overtime rate would be and you have to average the pay over the previous hours worked and depending upon which how much time you spent doing your first job versus how much time you spent doing your second job your average rate could change literally every single week you might never have the same rate of pay every week and this is one of those things that the federal government takes very very seriously because in times past employers would abuse their employees and so this board decided i think it was probably twenty two years ago if i remember correctly because we we had some wage and hour violations that that we're just going to keep it separate so
060that's what ms thurman's referring to we now have the technology where maybe if we can get the two systems to talk we can track this so so it may be that we can do something that we haven't been able to do previously okay all right any more discussion no okay we call mrs hill yes mrs jones yes mr perez yes mrs robinson yes mr smith mrs thurman yes mr walker yes mr wingate yes okay we'll move into item b certified staff supplement pay during coveted pandemic do i have a motion to approve do i have a second second okay all right got mrs jones and then mr perez no oh i'm sorry uh mr walker thank you i know i rarely push the button over there when i do i get moved here i'm in
061a new seat i'm like just getting silent we talked about this on tuesday and we referenced staff being paid one seventh is there is there accountability for schools that are on block schedule and that would be one-fourth so is that already yeah yes so it depends on like if a classroom is divided in half let's say we take sonia's classroom and she's not there that day we can't find a sub and so they're divided between myself and neely then i would get half and she would get half or if i'm just covering a class period of the day and neely covers the other class period then that if there's seven class periods there then it may be one seventh or if you're to high school and they're a block and you cover one full block
062it may be one fourth so just depending on what they cover thank you yeah mr perez so since it's certified classroom staff help me understand uh related arts teachers uh if they cover substitutions are they also entitled related arts teachers or certificates i just wanted to make sure because i got asked that question so i want to make sure that that's the case um i do agree with uh with miss monroe as she uh referred to um pretty much anybody like yes we're grabbing people from all over uh who are basically playing the worldwide substitutes uh i'm not gonna make a motion to amend that but i do want to bring that up because we we need to consider it for for maybe uh another motion of the future but um and again just very
063briefly very briefly repeating what i said this isn't a long-term uh solution right in any way shape or form as uh you know people are going around talking about the bep formula and how to do that we have to recognize as a community that we are no longer competing against literally grocery stores retail stores uh with our with the salaries we provide so please reach out to your uh other elected officials and ask them to recognize the reality of growing costs in our community mrs thurman yes i had a note as well because i received a couple of phone calls from some educational assistants people in the classroom who said they had been taking on a couple of classes a day and so and they don't get paid very much at all so i do
064really think that is something that we do do need to need to look at i'm not like i said i don't know that we need to admin this one or if we need to look at it maybe at the next time or or you know and pay pay some back pound on how you keep up with that actually at this point but i do think it's something we need to consider because some of them are taking on the classrooms and more than one i meant more than one day you know doing it for days at a time a week at a time so i think it's something we need to consider and two mary ellen and i have talked from a budget standpoint as well and one of the other things that we're continuing to
065look at and we've been speaking with a compensation consultant is looking at the pay for our educational assistants and how can we raise that and ensure that we don't have paid compression again so she and i met yesterday and then we have a follow-up meeting with him next week so we hope to have more information on that as well and be able to figure out within the budget how we can bring to you you know a pay increase for the educational assistance well not just the educational assistance but i think what the people who work in the office oh absolutely we're looking at all class five years because there's some of those people we're looking specifically at the clericals and attendance clerks and yes all the classified staff yes we are thank you there is
066one there's one difference miss thurman between certified staff who are being asked to do literally extra duty and classified employees who are who are hourly employees hourly employees are on the clock from when they get there to when they leave and and you know my daughter's an educational assistant in a special ed classroom they have assigned duties all of the time what what this pro this proposal does with teachers is they're actually being required effectively to work later in the day for for planning or for um they're postponing their planning time basically so they're taking on additional duties during the day that they don't have an obligation to do so i don't think anyone would dispute the fact that your educational assistants like everyone else has really been been leaning into the oars and and
067doing hard work but the reason that this proposal is is different is you're you're effectively extending the working day of teachers when they jump into to fill in for their colleagues during the day yeah and i want to reiterate again just what we said on tuesday night just valuing our employees and our teachers and what they're doing every day and how hard they're working i'm the daughter of a retired educational assistant and i know how hard my mother worked um and how you know she worked hard um every single day for every child no matter what and so you know we want to be that voice for all employees and continue to advocate for them as best we can so thank you thank you great call for the question mrs hill yes mrs jones yes
068mr perez yes mrs robinson yes mr smith yes thurman yes mr walker yes mr wingate yes okay we'll move into our final delegations um we have chrissy and summer essex and jeanette o'markell after that okay um mrs hill will keep your time and she'll give you the little run down speech thank you boyd for letting us come speak we are here to petition the hamilton county school board and administration to change policies and procedures on how to handle bullying in the public schools the zero tolerance policy that is noted in the hamilton county school handbook is being ignored on page 13 under the zero tolerance offense it clearly states that under state and federal law a student who commits an assault on a teacher principal or administrator shall be expelled for one calendar year but
069interestingly enough it doesn't apply to a student if if they're assaulted on a page 20 through 24 on the acts against persons chart it's very ambiguous and allows for liberal interpretation to the point of being useless as a guidance for punishment or discipline insiders have shared with me through summer cares which is summer's organization that the system is broken broken when it comes to reporting incidents of violence against students a politicized system appears to have encroached on the teachers regarding what they are expected to report regarding incidents of violence committed against students our teachers need to have the proper tools at their disposal to be able to instantly communicate with administration regarding ongoing violent incidents this is sorely lacking as a concerned parent of a child that has been bullied harassed and assaulted in the
070school system who has a responsibility to protect them i say this is enough and it needs to end now what can we as parents do to help with these issues have you ever been a victim of an assault and battery in school have you ever felt so alone because the people in school you are supposed to trust the most do nothing to help you i was being bullied and harassed for one and a half years by the same girl that assaulted me in november of 2020. i was scared and afraid to fight back because the principles teachers and school board administration told me if i defend myself i could face suspension so instead i am just supposed to time the other cheek i had to leave school and finish the year online and struggle daily
071with online school because i did not feel safe to come back to school instead of making the bully leave the school to learn online i had to leave this school for safety reasons i chose being homeschooled this year and the rest of my high school years because i do not trust schools or school systems to keep me safe what would you do or how would you feel if it were your child that was assaulted in the school system i would like to share with you my remonstrance called unheard voices by summer essex when you are going to the bathroom at school to get ready for your soccer game and two buoys follow you into the bathroom and you retrieve yourself to the bathroom stall and lock it to get away from them you find yourself
072violated because the bully slides underneath your locked bathroom stopped to yell do you want to hit me do you want to fight me then she pushes you against the toilet then you find out it was videoed by another person instead all over social media i'm the one that suffered humiliation and embarrassment i'm the one that was scared to step foot back in school to learn i'm the one that kept my parents up at night crying i'm the one that didn't want to eat i'm the one that went into depression i'm the one that doesn't trust teachers principals or anyone else in the school authority to keep me safe i'm the one that had to leave school and learn remotely because i was embarrassed and scared to go back to school i was the one that
073was told by school officials if you fight back and defend yourself you could face suspension i'm the victim yet the boys get the free pass and get to continue to believe other students continually without getting expected from school it's time we children that are victims of bullying and assault take a stand and fight back they will not let anyone take our rights from us we will defend ourselves from being attacked or assaulted or bullied and not get into trouble any longer if we need to defend ourselves i will i will not let another person touch me without a fight and i will not let another person bring me down without a fight thank you for your time and attendance and attention may i approach you with my petition to affect change regarding bullying in hamilton
074county schools um summer got a petition we would like to present to you guys it's seven and a half pages long we are petitioning the school to change policies and procedures as to how bullying is being handled in our schools [Applause] summer i would i just want to personally take the time to applause you for your courage and your ability to come and advocate for yourself and other peers that probably have experienced or have had the same experience as you that takes a lot of courage um i i don't know my heart hurts for you i cannot stand a bully of any sort i don't care what age you are i don't care i just do not like people that pick on people i just think that's just i don't know i can't say what
075i think right now about that but i do not like a bully um and i will probably get on dr robertson dr stewart's nerves about what we can do next steps for that but i just do not um find pleasure in that at all um and while we do try as best we can and as a system to address these issues there's always things that happen that we are not aware of or able to um to address but i personally um i'm going to take time out to to look through these policies and to see what can be done or what we can suggest to our cabinet because i know we do not perpetuate bullying and we try to have procedures in place to address that and i'm sorry that this has happened to you
076chrissy uh i know i've talked to you about this uh and i know you went through all the channels you you called everyone i told you to call you did everything i told you to do i know you did that first time i've ever seen your daughter though met your dog i appreciate you i'm sorry you had to drop out of school i didn't know that but i tell you nowhere in our policy should it be that you can't defend yourself and i don't know who's telling you this but there is no way that that's true and i would i would really like to know the whole entire thing of who did through the line do we have a student who has to quit school that should not happen i'm sorry chrissy i appreciate you
077all right um our next delegate mrs o'markel okay without crying here okay your time starts now good evening chairman board i want to take this opportunity to thank you the board for your hard work and to acknowledge that this is school board appreciation month not just week so you you get celebrated all month and you'll see me later this month to appreciate you we do appreciate your time and your efforts i want to thank you for approving the supplemental pay for educators who are working extra by covering classes during this time and your approval of the increase in pay for child care workers and look at being willing to look into other supports as well the supplemental pay for covering classes has been said already has been in discussion for two years as it was
078happening at a smaller level prior to covet i met with dr robertson this week and was pleased that he has already set this in motion and i appreciate all that he is already doing to make sure educator and staff voices are elevated thank you also for the comments i've heard this week showing that you have seen and heard educators in the buildings and across the district it is so important that your staff feel seen heard and validated the 100 day plan presented tonight is also very encouraging in that that matter we all know the current pace is not sustainable as of today there are 335 open positions posted 400 employees out with covet or contacts and 513 students it's higher than any year any that last year and that doesn't include those who don't have
079coveted everyone is overworked and overwhelmed asking your staff to do any more has not been the answer educators are resilient as the student said earlier but they are going to keep going until they drop or quit and that's not okay we are seeing an increase across the country of those who are leaving the profession a few who are wanting to become a part of education it was already changing but the past two years has seen a dramatic shift we do not have an issue of learning loss we have an issue of trying to keep up with an unrealistic goal in unrealistic times the reason for this is not our fault trying to keep up with what would be a normal pace during this time is not sustainable we don't need to go fully remote again
080but we need flexibility we need to focus on a realistic look at where our students are and where we can move them at a pace that is workable in this current environment while we prepare for a better time and and not try to compare 2018 apples to 2022 oranges we are more than a number and learning is happening across hamilton county one test is it going to show all the information moving the focus to funding our classrooms appropriately and paying our staff at a level that is comparable to other professions of their status will help us improve and meet the goals set as we move into the budget season we will continue to look at what we believe the state needs to provide education funding needs to drastically improve that's another reason that we are
081losing educators we need the staffing and the initiatives mandated to be fully funded we know the bep doesn't work and we know this new initiative is unknown but that's another topic for now we need to be looking at what we know we have with a three billion dollar states general fund surplus in 2021 and an estimated 3.6 billion dollar in surplus for this fiscal year state government has the ability without raising taxes to make a substantial increase in education funding tea is advocating at the state level to recommend an increase of 1.25 billion dollars in recurring state funding to any base of a new plan this would be approximately thirteen hundred dollars per student and would lift tennessee into the mid thirties for our national education funding instead of the bottom five and the first
082time it would get us to the southeast average this is what we all need to advocate for with our our legislators this is a win for all again thank you and happy school board appreciation month all right next on our agenda is events and announcements um we have parent teacher conferences january 24th to march 4th wednesday february 9th will be a remote and asynchronous learning day monday february 14th is the board agenda session and um we'll either have treats cupcakes candy roses thank you those die though you know chocolate doesn't die that's true and then our next meal and then our next board meeting will be uh february 17th so will you miss me if i'm if i may jump in here well welcome i apologize i'm gonna tell you why i was late because
083it kind of piggybacks what jeanette just shared bo watson senator watson is right now doing a series of listening tours if you will i just came from one out in hixson and and they're looking at funding and he wants to hear he wants to hear from us there's two more uh january 27th highway 58 volunteer fire department six o'clock and then his final one february 4th at college dell commons and and i just left the one in hixson and there was probably a hundred people there so they're being well attended i think uh maybe miss jeannie you went to one the other night but but this is the time this is the time for the for the public to jump in there because nothing is decided he's listening and he wants to hear from everyone
084so try try to make one of those and i know we've pushed it out some sherry's been helpful in getting that word out but we need to there's anything else we can do dr robertson to push that out to our parents across the district uh let's do that and i'm sorry i was like miss chairman i was just going to say we also have a working session don't we that's not listed here that's right this is the equity plan discussion yes yes just actually a committee meeting that's not a work session okay but i like for everyone to be here so come and work yeah i mean i thought it was funny it's the equity discussion but it's not actually it works so one quick correction um mr smith is correct about the sessions however
085he mixed those dates up so we want you to be in the right place we want you to show up and not be there the 27th is college dale commons the third february third is the um harrison um highway 58. yes he got him back we want him to be in the right place we don't want him to be over there and be fussing and senator watson right so um yeah just to do that and please i know we we get a lot of i want to say this too we get a lot of uh calls and emails and texts and um appearances and op-eds about having a virtual option if we could have a virtual option you all we would i want to make that clear if we had the option i'm pretty sure
086we probably would be able to fluctuate a little bit better we do not have that option unless we do the waiver which we are having to do uh seems like day to day now um unless we have the waiver um we don't have that option and so we do want our children at school as much as possible but we also want them healthy and safe and so it's just very complex but we cannot make that decision locally okay so i want people to understand that we hear you so it's not that we're ignoring you it's not that we just don't know another way to say it other than we don't get to make that decision so i want to just make sure that the public understands that um if we could i think we there
087probably would be enough support to do that however we are not able to do that and so we're trying to do the best we can i know and it sounds really bad with what what we have um and it is wearing on our staff it is wearing on our support our contract staff means wearing on everybody um so just know that we want to do what's best and we hope that there is relief coming very very very soon thank you all right anything else okay if not the more adjourned you