HCS Board Meeting 12/9/21

001e [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] he o [Music] for [Music] good [Music] we'll call the uh meeting uh to order uh roll call please chairman M here Vice chairman Vice chair Robinson here Mrs H here Mrs Jones here Mr Perez here Mr Smith here Mrs Thurman here here Mr Walker here Mr Wingate here Mr mon interim superintendent Dr towns thank you a couple amendments to the agenda uh we are moving selection of superintendent under uh approval of the agenda um and we will move appearances or delegations before the board uh up before board matters and we will add um Rosie uh Fitzgerald Heather madro Rebecca day and then uh Dr Jeffrey Wilson to delegations do I have a motion to approve the agenda so moved second roll call please Mrs heill yes Mrs Jones yes

002Mr Perez yes Mrs Robinson yes Mr Smith yes Mrs Surman approve it all but Jeffrey Wilson see Just DE and Jeffrey good to see you yes Mr Walker yes Mr Wingate yes chairman mandon yes um that will move us uh we have no executive session that will move us to selection of the superintendent uh before we get started um I'll take a little bit of privilege and say uh a lot of thanks during this process since this process was uh kicked off um in July um our Communications staff our administrative staff uh our board secretary Sherry um a lot of hard work a lot of logistics uh have went into this um and we're here tonight with three candidates um and so with that I'll open the floor to any motions or anything like that

003Mr Smith uh Mr chairman I would like to uh make a motion that we uh select Dr Justin Robertson as our uh next superintendent of Hamp County Schools I'll second that any discussion M Jones so are we I got a question I guess is there no discussion before the motion or we just moving right into it would just be like a normal vote but we haven't discussed like we interviewed them and now we're here voting but we didn't have a discussion about we need to discuss I don't all we we can make a substitute motion well you discuss discuss now you can discuss now Mr chairman there's a there's a motion on the floor there's a second Now's the Time for the discussion and so it's appro not what I was saying Scott Bennett you

004know exactly what I'm saying I'm saying that we come on now Scott we had the last time we hired a superintendent we had a discussion about it before we got to this to be transparent to the community is what I'm saying so we can I mean I'm at the pleasure of the body I just if we're not going to do that I guess I'll wait to say to see if we're going to do that first before I go any further yeah uh Scott point of clarity on this can we make a substitute motion um to to table that motion to have a discussion if the board wants so that's that's two separate things um you can do a substitute motion to go in a different direction okay uh I wouldn't recommend that you table it

005because that's because that's an intent to defer action to some later dat and you clearly intend to do something tonight gotcha substitute M Jones have a discussion just is there any discussion I move that we have a discussion about the three candidates that we are about to select a actual hire someone to to hold a position I think we should have a I'm moving to discuss the three candidates do have a second so moved roll call please Mrs he yes Mrs Jones yes Mr Perez yes Mrs Robinson yes Mr Smith no Mrs Thurman no Mr Walker no Mr Wingate yes chairman McLendon yes okay so we'll open the floor for discussion Jones is your light on yes I'm I would like to know what my peers think about the three candidates that we interviewed because

006we haven't talked about it unless I mean I haven't talked about it with nobody I'm just try curious as to what the thoughts are about the three candidates M Robinson no thank you for that question Kissa um I had hoped to also hear thoughts from um fellow board members even even even even though I'm sure every single one of us has come tonight with an idea in mind of who we plan to vote for I think it's still important that we have discussion um as kit is pointing out and it's important that the Community hear our thoughts and understand what we took away from the last two weeks of interviews um so I guess I I'll I'll just start um I was actually highly impressed with all three candidates which is really refreshing and really

007exciting um certainly coming off the last five years of having a very Dynamic superintendent like Dr Johnson um I wasn't feeling excited about this process um I've probably made that publicly clear unfortunately um so I apologize for my for my Debbie Downer um to the public but um actually I I was it was refreshing to have um not only our internal candidate Dr Robertson um interview with us and um absolutely talk about the success and the ideas that he has for the district but um Dr berer and um Dr Dawson were also very impressive to me I will say that personally I walked away from Dr bernier's um interview like very very impressed with him I really appreciated um the Bold ideas he had around Equity um the work that done um in general in

008a very large school system I believe they have a half a million students so 500,000 students he's probably a part of managing I think maybe close to a a billion dollar budget or over a to a billion dollars and looking at scol like he would actually know this information sorry Scott um so truthfully I walked away from his interview with this is the guy like I really really liked him um I also really enjoyed Dr Robertson's interview uh the day before yesterday and had a great one-on-one conversation with him earlier in the week and felt like he would do a great job continuing the work that we have laid out and that we've had done over the last 5 years I thought Dr Dawson was a great candidate I just didn't feel like right now

009he's the best candidate for us um happy to go into details if if needed but overall I think that he's a he seems like he would be a great leader um but for me I didn't feel like he was the right fit for us today so those are my opinions and my thoughts and I look forward to hearing everyone else's Mr Walker um two parts and Scott correct me if I'm wrong my understanding today based on other things and I wasn't involved in the last one that this was a nomination time we nominate one two or all three candidates and then we ask the board who they vote for uh that was my understanding uh and then as far as the public and with all due respect to everyone else this process has been going

010on it's been open to the public uh we've gone through three rounds we hired an outside agency uh as a board to do all the vetting do all the background checks do all the reference checks and we had a chance to interview everybody it was live streamed and we'd have four or five people sat in here during the live stream um we've done all the work we've done everything everybody has you know in my opinion it's it's time to vote uh but I I appreciate discussion but I I think we've done all of that uh we're here tonight to vote and uh I'm ready Miss Hill thank you chair um I think the public deserves to have some insight into the minds of the people that have been elected to speak for them um we

011actually had very limited support from the search committee uh the search firm that was a choice of this board um but as board members we did have multiple opportunities to interact with candidates um each board member was invited to have a one-on-one with the individual candidate we were all invited as were numerous Community stakeholders to attend luncheons with the candidate and we all were invited to participate in an live streamed interview I chose to participate in every one of those opportunities and what I noticed was that each candidate had a moment where they shown and a moment where they didn't do their best um in my opinion and I also was very pleased with the quality of the candidates and I think it says a lot about the progress that Hamilton County schools has made

012um as I went into this process I was looking for what I stated I was looking for months ago which is someone who can help take us to the next level my concern is shared with the uh the candidates that we will backslide the work that Hamilton County schools has done to move forward and improve academic achievement is far from finished and I do not believe that we've got it fully baked into Hamilton County schools and the systems the way that we work so I need to know for certain that the person I vote for would be able to not only ensure that the positive changes that have been made get cemented into the culture of how we do things at Hamilton County Schools but also that they are a person that can Inspire Hamilton

013County Community as a whole to be a much better version of ourselves than we are now so Dr berer and Dr Dawson have both created a remarkable body of work that ties directly to our strategic plan um Dr Robertson has not moved around as much and consequently has a smaller body of work um what I felt like from Dr berer um was he was a little stiff but by his final interview with our board I was impressed and I don't ask my animal question to everybody y'all I only ask it to people I'm about ready to hire um but Dr Dawson I'll talk about Dr Robertson Dr Robertson is solid and I feel pretty certain that he has the votes to get this job and I also know I will sleep well at night with

014him at the helm of our school system because he is a um excellent educator he knows Hamilton County backward and forward and he cares about our students and he believes in our strategic plan but the person that I'm would vote for tonight is Dr Dawson and the reason is because Dr Dawson create in the community stakeholder meeting the vibe was electric when he was in that room and he he was he is a man I believe that can inspire people to be better than they are and that's the kind of leader that I want for Hamilton County schools and if we were doing rank Choice he would be my number one vote um he has moved around some um quite a bit actually and that was my number one concern about him but when I

015talked with him and when I checked his references which we also got references on all of the candidates and I've read every one of those um I feel like he would be a remarkable leader for Hamilton County Schools thank you Mr Wingate yes thank you Mr McLendon um so my thoughts on the process um uh during the last search uh that that uh I was a part of here in 2016 um I was desperate for change uh I was desperate uh for this school system to uh get out of what I perceived as the Deep ditch that it had been in for a while and uh in my opinion at that time I was not confident that there was an internal candidate that could um lead this school system in this County in that manner

016and so I was completely okay with uh an unknown um and uh was uh looking again for the opportunity for for drastic change and and drastic turnaround and I'm thankful that we were able to acquire that individual uh the last time around I'm also very thankful for the assistance of Mr Ken Carrick uh who uh we have partnered with the last uh two searches and I'm thankful for the highly qualified candidates that he uh was able to help us acquire uh 5 years ago and thankful for the level of candidates that uh he was able to um help us um connect with this this this time around um again they're all three highly qualified uh I'm I'm I'm glad that they came they showed interest and willingness to lead our school system um and that

017this uh for all of all three of them is a much more desirable place to be I think than um where we were um previously at this time uh I I am uh very comfortable uh with an internal candidate in Dr Justin Robertson because I just don't think that the risk reward um is favorable uh for us at this time with an unknown and so uh my intention uh tonight is to to vote for Dr Robertson Mr PR thank you when uh when I have easy decisions to make I sleep like a baby so I was up all night last night um which is a good thing I I feel uh people have asked me obviously everybody wants to know how I'm going to vote uh throughout the day and I said the good thing

018is I think we had three excellent candidates uh and I felt very satisfied that whoever the uh board would choose we would be um in good hands uh each candidate as Miss Hill mentioned I think brought strengths and each candidate brought uh I won't say weaknesses as much as as perhaps yellow flags right um things that that I was wondering about um I had the privilege of of being with Dr berer uh that day as as I traveled with him to see some of the schools and I was very impressed uh by his knowledge by his ability to connect very quickly with with staff uh I was very impressed by his uh interview process but his yellow flag to me is he comes from systems that fund uh their Public Schools uh much better than

019uh than we are used to in Tennessee and in Hamilton County um and uh and so when he speaks of the importance of early childhood and uh you know and he had so many great ideas and and investing in arts and and this and that uh my big concern uh had less to do with him but more to do with we are whether you we like it or not but we are 49th in the country as the state that supports its public education so uh coming into a system like this I uh I was very concerned that somebody with his capacity and training and experience uh would just hit a brick wall uh and and we all know I mean we all have an email that says that uh from a constituent of mine that

020says that we're already overfunding our schools um and so uh so bring somebody into a system like that um and I think it can create a lot of frustration for anybody but um the uh uh Dr Dawson I I felt also was strong um unlike Miss Hill who mentioned this as well sorry to pick on you uh Jenny but um I couldn't get past the fact that he moves uh so often uh within a system I also that was the first question I asked him when I had one onone uh I felt he had a good answer for it but I just think our system uh needs stability and not transition and and if in one or two years uh we uh transition again uh it's at least got to be you know more than

021two years I'm not going to say one you know just in cas um but uh uh Dr Robertson as I told him and and I'll say here publicly my concern with him uh was that he was the safe option and not necessarily the right option um uh we all have seen him we've seen him wor we've seen his Integrity we've seen his capacity uh we've seen the fact that he is uh a just worker be that gets things done very excited uh to have him on our team and and uh and so that was where I was just uh floundering I guess a little bit I did say early in this process that we also have a duty to the county uh and to the people that we form and shape within our County the

022people that we invest in um I have had conversations with others regarding my own children that sometimes I'm concerned that my children would come back here and not find opportunity because uh they are getting educated they're being trained and then they come back here and they get a glass ceiling uh because we as is normal uh for small towns uh often like looking outside of our boundaries because we think uh other people have better ideas um so uh when we interviewed Dr Robertson publicly uh I didn't want to select him because he was safe I wanted to select him because he was right uh for our County uh I think for this time and the continuity that we need uh and the growth uh for however long he is there or we as a board

023ask him to be there um I think he is right I think he he has earned and as I looked at his resume I actually remembered um his role uh you know that time I was considering joining the board uh and we had a pandemic got hit by a pandemic and then we got hit by a tornado and I I was you know reading through his resume remembering that that he he he stepped up I mean he stepped up and he took on uh took on uh the challenge uh in a way that I think is incredibly admirable uh he is spoken of uh highly by people within our community uh I have received emails from people I've received text messages from people within the schools in the community um and I think uh as

024almost a statement again not because he is safe but because I do think he is right as a statement to our County that there is a future for you here um if you pour in the time and the energy and the effort uh and the Excellence and uh and you seek uh to grow now that doesn't mean that he didn't have his yellow flags which I will continue to address with him often privately sometimes publicly uh but uh but um uh but I do think we we would be in good hands uh under his leadership but I also um you know publicly because I know they're watching and to Dr Dawson and to Dr berer I am incredibly honored that you would consider our uh our district uh coming from where you're coming from and

025your experiences and your strengths and your capacities uh and I honestly like I I woke up and couldn't sleep every well so if I sleep here I apologize um but uh but uh it was because I felt I had a really difficult decision in front of me it's not as everybody assumed that this was already decided at least for some of us uh a long time ago so uh so I appreciate that you made the decision difficult for me by considering us as a place where you could come in work Miss Thurman okay I thought she was first I'm sorry uh uh yeah well you know and I too I was impressed with the other candidates uh Dr barer did a great job and he will make someone a wonderful superintendent because he he had

026a lot of good things to say uh and uh Dr Dawson he was he had a great story uh I really appreciate his story where he came from I thought he was a an inspiration so it was great to hear both of them and and meet both of them uh but I I said from the beginning how I felt about this uh I think if there's nobody in Hamilton County that can move up and be a superintendent shame on us we have spent millions of dollars in this County training training our principles training our staff um we have professional development days we have all kinds of professional development and what are we training them for if it's not to be able to move up and and they see that if we continually go out of

027town to hire someone they they lose hope and uh that's the reason some of our best and brightest leave and um so I I always like to try to look within if if we uh Poss can also the institutional knowledge that um Justin has I mean no matter how many degrees you have or how many jobs you have you can't replace that he knows every principal uh he knows every school he knows the history of the school system he knows the the discussions we've had about where we are in our building plan why we've made the decisions we have we don't have to bring somebody up to speed on that we are he already knows all of that you can't replace that and also I have yet to receive a bad email or a text

028about Justin everybody doesn't always agree with him but they respect him and they respect the fact that he's willing to always talk to them and uh I know and I said the same thing about Dr Johnson that you know he even answers a phone every time I call and he has caller ID so that sound a lot for me uh because some of our conversations get to be a little testy not necessarily with him but in situ ations in the school system um but one of the main things and having been on the board and seeing how some superintendant have come and gone and just hear what we call suitcase superintendent they show up here to go on to other things I look for loyalty Justin lives in this community he brought his daughter to

029go to school in this community his wife grew up in this community that means a lot to me and he's no not going to pick up and and move off you know and you know and and Dr Johnson and I always got along but I'm still really ticked that he left the school system at the very beginning of the year and left us in this and I certainly don't want another have to bring in somebody from out of town that doesn't know uh doesn't know anything about our school system coming in in the middle of the year and having to start all over and I know what happens when a new superintendent comes in that nobody knows people start retiring people start designing and then it just creates a domino effect right here in the

030middle of the year we just don't need that and we need that people talk about stability well that's the kind of stability I I want I want to see as well and Justin knows about our strategic plan he knows how we got to where we are um and like I say I've had a lot of discussions with him I've had a nice long conversation with him one day this week uh and that's the reason I'm going to choose Justin it's not because the other two are not going to make good superintendence they will and I do appreciate the fact that they put their name in and we got to meet them and and maybe somebody else watched some of their you know their interviews and maybe were're impressed by them so they didn't waste their

031time by coming here I thought they had real good interview process but that's why I'm gonna go with Dr Robertson M Jones so as Jenny stated we did have a ability to um connect with the three candidates a couple of times um several times I um was unable to do a one-on-one with them with the first candidate let me say that and so because I was unable to do that with the first candidate I elected not to do that with the other two to remain consistent in my interview process with the candidates however I did attend all three work round taes community roundtables and I did attend all three interviews and I did take the time to go home and read the packets that all three candidates provided to us with their 90day plans or

032100 Day plans or their vision for the district um all three and like Marco said um I I only struggle when there's a big decision to be made and I and I and it's hard because we did have three extremely viable and capable candidates we do have three of those and um they all I think will make great leaders in leading a school distri his Dr berer um very passionate had a great for thinking and some things that we wanted but I too agree with Marco that he clearly does not know the Hamilton County Commission and then um I didn't say that I'm you are nice I'm just Kissa right and so what we know is that the Hamilton County Commission and the state of Tennessee is not um probably what Dr berer is used

033to I'm just let's just be honest he's not used to the our B and the funding situation that we often have um so I thought he had a lot of great ideas and bold ideas I was like how is he going to get this done not to say that I mean Dr Johnson came with some great ideas and I thought the same thing how is he going to get this done but he was able to build that Rapport um with the County Commission and the county mayor and the stakeholders and we were able to do some things and so I think there's leverage there Dr Dawson um very um I I don't know how to describe it when he was in the buildings there was just a magic um there like his interaction with the

034students and the teachers and his ability to interact with them and not I mean it was like he wasn't even a candidate it's like he was part of I mean he went in like I I just can't even explain the the Rapport the the it was just and ease there um and he while he has had um his resume does reflect some movement um he did support why he moved on those on on that resume um and I can tell you and people don't like to to have these conversations but I can't tell you for me if you looked in my resume you probably wouldn't want to hire me either because I have some movement on my resume but that was to build my career advancement because for me and often times the people that

035look like me we have to do that to advance so I I will say that there that you often have to think about that and considering he moved from public to I mean there were some things going on and we know just as clearly what we're about to do today we're going to have some shifts when we decide whatever we're going to do today because when a superintendent leaves the cabinet changes and so that's where a lot of his movement was from um I I liked Dr Dawson I like Dr berer but I there was something about Dr Dawson um and just his engagement the natural organic ability for him to engage and the questions and the things that he had um about our district and and the ideas that he presented by our district

036that really were impressive to me um Dr Robertson I have known since my first year on the school board he was principal at Red Bank and I had an interaction with Dr Robinson probably six months in that really showed me who he was as a person and the humanitarian that he is and I would never take that away from from Justin because he did something um for a Hamilton County student that was a patient of mine that was transitioning that I stand in all of today and it was around this same time um and so there I know that he has a heart for Hamilton County I know he is Hamilton County and I know his family is Hamilton County and I know that just that he has put in the work um what I

037guess I'm going use Marco's yellow flag what's a yellow flag for me with with Dr is that same thing that is a A plus for Dr Robertson to me could be an obstacle for Dr Robertson and I say that because often times um when you are from here people will make you have a well people will I don't know how to say this will often become persistent in obligations to them that because you are a HomeTown hero and and I worry about that because I know that Dr Robinson has the heart to do what is right for children and I worry about the conflicting and I can't I can't stay up at night for him but I worry about the conflicting the conviction and the conflicting he would have because there are some people cuz

038I'm from Hamilton County born and raised that will inflict those things upon him and I I worry about leadership there because does he do what is right for kids or does he do what could compromise him professionally and personally with his livelihood um and I've heard my peers um say from the beginning of time um how they feel about certain candidates and I know what the media I feel like has done I in my opinion to influence certain things from the outside looking in um and it just it it really where it's really wearing on me because while I feel like we have a very valuable candidate I'm really concerned about if he's really going to be able to do his job in his hometown and it sounds really good to say less support and

039I'm all about a local candidate because I think I said this in the beginning often times a profit in his own land goes without recognition but we had this same situation four years ago and that local candidate who had worked his way up wasn't good enough and so I'm just really concerned about what that looks like so after careful consideration and listening to not only what I know from me being a participant in in all the activities that I could be to get the best knowledge that I could get on each candidate and based on the context that I have received from my constituents I will be casting my vote for Dr Germaine Dawson and it's nothing against against Dr Robinson but this whole process to me I'm just going to be honest has not

040been that of a fair or a transparent process in that yes we were streaming yes we were this but I mean even like today with us trying to figure out the process like I feel like some of that should have already been in place there just a lot of inconsistencies to me the question the candidate interview questions there just it's a lot for me that's just really puzzling and I don't ultimately see this as being the most Fair process for all three candidates not just one or two or either or but I really I'm really concerned in the fairness for of all three candidates but I will be casting my vote because my constituents deserve representation and based on what they have said to me that is who I will be voting for alongside with

041my own judgment of of interviewing them but I just want to put that out there I I am really unhappy and I'm really actually embarrassed to have been a part of this process having just come out of my own interview process for a POS in leadership and having done this before this is not what we did I mean it's just I I'm really struggling here and I I think we have I know I have a due diligence and I believe we all have a due diligence to the to the citizens of Hamilton County and ultimately I have a due diligence to myself I'm a taxpayer in Hamilton County too and I still have a child in in a school building and so I think we have to really consider sometimes the things that we do

042in the ramifications that comes behind that and so with that being said that's just that's where I me with that Mr Walker thank you sir um as a few months back got appointed U to the open seat that commissioner Highlander um vacated when he moved on Mr Highlander had a forum in here we had eight candidates for the district n seat and every one of them we had talked about a local candidate and their commitment to a local candidate before I ever got the appointment or knew anything was going to come open I've always been involved in the community and kind of asked around and one name continued to keep coming up but I owe it to the whole County to come in go through the process listen to all the interviews and be a

043part of that process and I'm extremely thankful there there's a gentleman in this room that I think is someone that's been in the system and had the pleasure of working with him as he was a principal at one of the schools my kids were at I keep thinking when that name's going to come on up a little higher we've got some great candidates that are already here and the constituents that I talked to and the commitment that I made to District n was that we would go with the right candidate if he was internal and I am extremely thankful if anybody watched all the interviews Dr berer I think he's ready to roll his sleeves up and go to battle he'd fight on the on the football field for us if we needed to Dr

044Dawson there is a spirit around that man that is a light in a room and is an overcomer and can be a great example for so many students and he's going to do that wherever he lands um but when Dr Robertson had his interview I had no quals with voting for that local inter candidate seeing his body of work and my vote today will be for Justin um if he had come in and and we' done the homework and it wasn't I'm not just going to say I'm going to vote for somebody because I said we do internal I'd stand by my decision if one of the other candidates were better but I am 1,00% confident uh today in in voting for Justin Robertson and and I want at least give my piece there I

045think I've said it on a few TV interviews or things and and I want I want the people to know that I've done my homework and U and uh and I'm confident in my vote today thank you um I'll take time to say my piece about this um this was a position none of us thought we would be in um right now um but we are we've had a process um and at the end of this we're sitting here with three very qualified candidates that will be superintendent all three of them will be Superintendent at some point in time in their career whether it's here or somewhere else um got a chance to spend a little more time with them taking them to dinner and stuff uh Dr berer um I think he's he's a

046Workhorse he's going to roll up his sleeve get the work done he's proven that he's shown that whether in Orange County or Clark County um my concerns are are not necessarily same to my colleagues I I wonder the scale of to which the the things and the resources he has just in general in a large city can be replicated here we're just not Las Vegas or Orlando um and so that was my worry about him but I think he um is innovative um he is someone that really puts a focus on relationships which is huge um as a superintendent um and then Dr Dawson um Miss Jones and I got a chance to walk around with him and I mean you would have thought he was superintendent already he was going in classrooms talking to

047kids talking to to principles and and teachers and and whatnot um and his story is just incredible um he should be a speaker and tell that story because everyone needs to hear his story about how he worked his way out of where he came from um and what he has has done and it's impactful and he has um what really got me excited about him was his experience in turning around school schools and doing that type of work um and I think we could we could benefit from that um Dr Robertson I've gotten the chance um I guess the last year and a half um to work really closely with him as facilities chair um and I've seen some of the things he's done for this County um the day after the East brainer tornado

048me and him were walking uh the school in you know a foot of water trying to see what's going on and whatnot um it wasn't a super it wasn't someone from Administration that was at the warehouse making sure every teacher's Bel longies were accounted for it was Justin um I think when we talk about internal external um and whatnot I think at the end of the day you hire the best person for the job um I think you get tag lines of external internal um how I go through this process is I have three people and I'm picking the very best person um so I'll end on this note and I've said this and I said it um when Dr Johnson resigned this county is in a very important place in public education um we're

049about to go through um change like this county has never seen before in elected offices um we're about to go through changes as an Administration we're at a very pival part in the history of Hamilton County when it comes to education um there's not a better time for everyone to come around education and continue the momentum that we have there's no denying the momentum that we have and that we have had over the last three and a half years so I'll say that as my closing piece is whoever gets the job tonight um this community needs to come around them support them and be there for them um because at the end of the day everyone in this room everyone watching everyone that's going to sit at this table in this dis it's about students

050and it's about kids and it's about making sure we're teaching them and making sure that all kids Thrive um so with that that's my closing part um I will be supporting uh Dr Robertson Mr Smith thank you Mr chairman a lot just a lot of good things have been said nine different opinions and that's healthy uh I said from the very beginning and I'll say it again um seemingly in Hamilton County every time we need somebody to step up in a key role like this we have to go do a national search we've done it with the chamber we we done it with River City we recently did it with the the organization I spent 25 years with the YMCA we're doing it now with the police department and so I don't know what that

051says does that mean in Hamilton County we don't train people well I I don't know but um I was impressed with all these guys particularly impressed with Dr Dawson the other day at the chamber luncheon and the man told his story and I've already told his story to some kids over the last couple of days just an amazing example of where somebody can come from nothing and be anything they want to be and I was really impressed with Dr Dawson but um I just feel like we've we've uh spent a lot of energy training if you will uh the right person to to lead our school system and I think back and you know when we did our strategic plan that we're working under right now Dr Robertson was very instrumental in crafting that plan

052so he knows it he's worked it and um and and he can carry it Forward more importantly I think you know we're going to have one employee us nine guys we got one employee and that's going to be the new superintendent whoever that happens to be the new super tenants going to have thousands of employees and and I've interviewed some of those employees principes teachers parents to see how they feel and I mean just almost unanimous principles have told me that Justin Robertson's the guy and I know we hadn't had big crowds here for interviews but I know there's been a lot of people watching I had to watch on TV because of my schedule and uh I think that that if you talk to some of these principles they'd probably tell you they were

053impressed by all the candidates but they want Dr Robertson and um I he he's the guy in in my opinion and with that uh Mr chairman I I think there's a motion on the floor and I'd call for the question actually there was a substitute motion so we now need a new motion I motion that we hire Dr Justin Robertson to be our next superintendent I'll second we have a motion and a second to hire uh Dr Justin Robertson um as our next superintendent uh roll call please Mrs heel no Mrs Jones no Mr Perez yes Mrs Robinson yes Mr Smith yes Mrs Thurman yes Mr Walker yes Mr Wingate yes chairman Mendon yes 72 72 that passes um congratulations you'll have a new superintendent yeah congratulations Dr got to sign a contract um it's

054an exciting time um we are going to take a brief break to allow our uh administrative staff to come in um and join us um going to notify the candidates really quickly um so it's about a 5 minute break and then we will uh get back to official business [Music] sh [Music] okay we are going to go ahead and get started and move on with our agenda thank than y'all for allowing us to take that quick break everyone we are back in to our meeting thank y'all okay we will uh move forward um with the pledge to the flag and meditation uh by Dustin humph Bible school Bible history teacher at Lookout Valley Middle High I'll go ahead and introduce one of our students Jack Morris um we're going to start out with the Pledge

055of Allegiance Zach is our drum major for our band he is second in our class and he is our senior class president so we're going to introduce him come up and please rise and take off your hats I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all first I want to say it's a privilege to be able to speak to you all I appreciate Mrs MCG our principal on allowing me to represent our school along with Jack um Lookout Valley and our community um I'm a Bible history teacher and I really enjoy my job I love being in front of the students every day I love talking about the Bible and I'm really a history guy

056too um and I think one of my jobs as a teacher is to really instill in the Next Generation a love for the past um a love for the things that we can learn and yet there there have been many men and women who have done bad things in the past but there are so many more great men and women who have lived good Noble beautiful and just lives recently I I finished reading through Up From Slavery by Booker T Washington and as a a history guy I have a lot of historical heroes uh f g dington is is he's moving really high up there on my list and one one part of his book really stuck out to me he was talking about how he was with Frederick Douglas and he was on a

057train and even though he paid the same price uh for the ticket they forced him to ride with the luggage and a lot of the the passengers went back there they were profusely apologizing you know Mr Frederick Douglas we're so sorry you have been degraded in this way and then Frederick Douglas dropped some wisdom on us and says no one degrades Frederick buckas no man can degrade the soul that is within me it is not I who being degraded by this action but those who are inflicting it upon me and that's a moment when you're reading a text you got stop and got let simmer a little bit no one degrades Frederick Douglas and you read that you say that's good stuff that's good stuff that's something worth grabbing on to something that's beautiful that's

058good that's Noble that's just and something worth passing on On to the Next Generation right and if you know history what's even more beautiful is that Frederick Douglas didn't come up with that concept he was reading people that came before him Marcus aurelus Froman Emperor cica epicus the stoics who had that that same idea of only you can degrade yourself through selfish action through harmful actions and Frederick Douglas lays before us an example of the benefit of learning from the people that came before us taking the things that are good Noble beautiful and just just recognizing them embracing them passing them on to the next generation and I think that's something that we strive to do in Hilton County to find the good the noble the Beautiful the just things in the world and to

059and to pass them on not like propagandists uh but like CS Lewis says like adult birds that had to learn how to fly at one time we teach the Next Generation how to spread their wings and continue on and I want to end by reading one verse and then I know I've spoke too long and we'll be done with our meditation Philippians chap 4: 8 finally Brothers whatever is true whatever is Honorable whatever is just whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is commendable if there is any Excellence if there is anything worthy of Praise think about these things what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me practice these things and the God of Peace will be with you amen [Applause] thank you for that next we'll move on to our

060exemplars of Excellence uh with Dr Robert sharp and Mr Perez all right thank you very much chairman McLendon for allowing us to come before the board uh this evening to present to you uh a special group for uh exemplars of Excellence uh Mr Prez would you like to come up and join the group yeah let me uh are you g to say something else I want to say something shortly after I was just going to read re I'll read our our recognition then I'll let you this has not been uh uh practiced so yeah dress rehearsal you um so uh before you this evening um was The Signal Mountain High School Marching Band their directors uh and the principal Shane Harwood uh these are seniors some of the seniors that are in the band and

061they've had a very special season and that's why they're here tonight uh we often um recognize we always recognize our state champion athletic teams and I think this is the first time we've had a state champion ban that we brought before the board and I'm going to just read you what we have on our uh recognition and then um uh Mr Perez will um go from there so the hamilt county department of education is pleased to recognize The Signal Mountain High School signal Corps marching band for their recent first place finish in the the Tennessee division 2 state championship marching band competition the band's first state championship in school history and the first division 2 title for a Chattanooga area band other significant accomplishments from this season include the Bradley classic where the band won

062their first Grand Champion award in school history bands of America Regional competition in Johnson City Tennessee where they gain their third division a class championship at a boa Regional competition and then finally the bands of America Grand National Championship in Indianapolis the band plays third in the nation and their class becoming only the 10th band in history from the state of Tennessee to make it to the semi-final round of that prestigious competition uh I was there with uh board member Perez for that event as we both have uh children in the band and um we were very excited when that announcement came I I never thought I would hug Marco Perez Indiana but um we did it was great um and uh it's a special special group of students you got standing before you this

063evening special group of uh band directors and a principal that that make this work happen and I've gotten to know gotten gotten to know them all really well my son is a senior in this group so it's a very special time for us as a family as well so [Applause] before so be before you all leave before you leave um I also uh I actually wanted uh Dr Sharp because he has the privilege of having his son in his senior year uh be in the band and win this amazing competition so I will go out there because we do need a picture at some point um but uh but I want him to be able to to present this to the band uh Mr walker uh Mr uh Mr bner uh Dr Harwood who's with

064us uh Mr broom um thank you so much all of you for the work that you've done uh it was incredible exciting you hear me talk about band because uh in uh the band is where I have one child who has found her people right and um and who really thrives and loves it uh we band parents know what it's like to pick them up at 1:00 in the morning to take them at 7 in the morning for some breakfast and watch a child get up with a smile on their face because they're going to go have breakfast with their band group and that I I didn't have a smile on my face so um so anyways I want to thank you all uh it was amazing to be there and then a challenge to

065us because uh and and I said this I can't remember to who but um but being there I want to make sure that what our band was able to do other bands have the opportunity in Hamilton County and uh and other groups of different kinds and different uh practices so uh so I'm so proud of you all uh I was so proud to be there uh what he Dr Sharp didn't say was we got a little text somewhere along the way I would say from who saying everybody calm down your expectations we're you they really are the best bands in the country um and so it's like yeah and then we made semifinals and and like Dr Sharp said we even had to hug each other we didn't know what to do so um congratulations

066to you all and I know the band people will kill us if we don't take a picture so um so I'm going to thank you you guys should see Dr Robert sharp run with a prop across a football field [Music] one [Applause] conratulations I'm conratulations conrat congratulations conratulations proud of y'all see now I'm confused I got to just commit to [Applause] conratulations [Applause] awesome great to see that um we'll move on to presentations uh with our chief Equity officer Dr uh Marsha Drake thank you chairman thank you chairman and board members Dr towns will start us off great thank you do you have the click okay great thank you we always want to start with um what we elevated during the pandemic we had to refocus and we uh want to make sure that everybody

067is a part of our just cause that all children Thrive and experience a future without limits of course that starts with the next slide uh the board's Mission and uh the mission is that we would create Pathways to Bright Futures for all of our students and that means that we're going to need to uh equip them with the skills knowledge and supports to reach their full potential uh which leads us to our future ready 2023 plan you all have seen these five action areas uh that we always Elevate with accelerating student achievement at the Forefront of that but this time based on uh what we're presenting tonight you see that Equity is at the center of this and this means that we're really trying to make sure that every child gets what he or she

068needs to reach their full potential so in focusing on accelerating student achievement uh we uh Elevate one strategy one action area in particular and that's closing the opportunity Gap we realize that we have have a disparity in outcomes uh particularly among students and historically underserved groups so tonight uh with the board's uh great fora in March to adopt uh unanimously an educational Equity policy we are bringing forth to you uh an educational Equity plan a draft of that plan and Dr Mar uh Dr Marsha Drake and Cassie Davis have worked very hard on this draft it is actually posted to the agenda for those who are watching at home the full document uh so that you can follow along and with that I will hand it off to Dr Drake to talk about the actual

069plan thank you Dr towns uh creating this Equity plan uh if you all remember back in March you unanimously voted uh on this educational Equity policy and in this policy um just to kind of ground us and the others that are watching we also um we also decided on some shared terms terms uh that you will find in the policy and I do have them listed in the presentation uh for the members or of others that are our community that are actually watching uh this online and they have access to it um but also after that board meeting you gave me some next steps that I immediately started working on uh one of those next steps was the creation of a diversity equity and inclusion committee uh we formed that committee and began working in

070May and as you see here here are some members of our committee our committee consists of uh some external experts Equity experts uh within our community as well as some internal experts and at this time we have several of them that are actually in the audience that I would like to knowledge so if you're in the audience this evening and you are a member of this committee would you please stand thank you for your commitment and also before you I uh you have a copy of the Tennessee leaders for Equity Playbook uh this was given to you uh back when we had our work sessions um but what you see before you is a revised copy of that uh our committee we use this to as a support tool in developing this Equity plan this

071Playbook outlines um eight commitments to equity when we began there was seven commitments but this revised copy adds an eighth commitment which is allocating resources equitably and that is included in our plan that we will present to you this evening uh this slide is familiar to all of our board members this is our Equity this is our opportunity Gap um and if we are to meet our goals our future ready 20 23 goals we have got to have supports around our subgroups in order to meet those goals now some would believe that the students that are in these subgroups are in um our Midtown and Missionary Ridge schools however we have over 26,000 students that are in the subgroups and of those 15,000 are actually in Midtown or our Missionary Ridge but that means that

0722third of our students that are in subgroups are not in our highest needs schools they are around the district so as you look through this Equity plan you will notice that in order order for us to meet our 2023 goals that this statement is throughout the plan this statement here is actually in there 10 times because if we really truly want all of our children to thrive and that is what we say that what going to require an intentional focus on our historically underserved students in subgroups in order to meet the needs of all of our students so here before you is a three-year plan that we have developed and the goals are prioritized um by the greatest needs as seen by our senior leadership team uh goal number one within year one 2022 is

073reducing disproportionate suspension and expulsion rates in this graph you see that we are disproportionate in our suspension by race in 1920 that continued in 2021 even though that was a pandemic year and 20% of our students were learning at home but when we took a deeper look at this we noticed that students in any subgroup were three times more likely to experience an exclusionary discipline response than students who were not in a subgroup and then looking that if you were a student that was identified in two or more subgroups in multiple subgroups such as this chart right here this data shows you that if a student is a black student and they are an exceptional ed student that they would experience they are 23% more likely to experience an exclusionary discipline response versus uh 1.8%

074if they were not in a subgroup so what are our next steps um for this goal one of the next steps here for this goal would be are we don't have it on our screen but we have it okay oh okay sorry I I can see the looks on your faces okay so our next steps here is to uh build capacity uh around the our leaders being able to navigate cognos and Power School data and to use that improving their data awareness the collection and utilization within the schools on that as well as revising our code of acceptable behavior to include some restorative practices okay uh year one goal two is embedded cultural competencies in school practices and in this we were looking uh for the practices where we would the teachers would bridge that

075uh relationship with their students uh so that they understand them and see their lived experiences whenever they're making decisions and that they have a connection with their students and this actual this data here shows that there's some disconnect between um what the students are experiencing in schools and how the teachers are seeing their experiences this chart here indicates that students report 25% or 1/4 of our students report that they have experienced uh some type of negative social reaction firsthand uh due to uh raise religion or um how much money their family makes to teachers report that um that that only happens only about 6.5% of teachers agree that that takes place and this was further um this this point or this whenever we held some student focus groups the students um actually told us um

076there was one student in high school um who stated um that she did not see any um leaders of color in her building and she was not encouraged um to take on leadership roles uh in organizations at her school and then another Middle School student actually stated that you know she wanted to have good relationships with her teachers uh she wanted to be uh wanted to not get on their bad side and U but she didn't know how to do that and this really drives that point home there is a teacher in our Midtown who says that you know if we really really want to improve student achievement and to make sure that all of our children are thriving that we're going to have to be just as bold in cultural competency as we were

077with uh making sure that all of our students had um um had internet connections within our homes that we have to be that bold so what are some next steps that we have actually outlined here one of the ways that we feel that this is important and things to do is to build a work group around our cultural walkthroughs with um building capacity to doing those and developing um a form or a protocol that we can use throughout the district um as well as engaging our families uh through surveys and focus groups and doing uh some post checks with them across the district and uh our third goal for year one is to allocate resources equ here you will see that over the past several years that we have been able to maximize our Title

078One funds and increase our per people allocations making sure that our students in our Title One schools our most vulnerable student population um are receiving those funds to get the resources that they need now when you look look at this data here these blue dots on this data point represent schools in our district this says that 70% of school performance is explained by poverty rates so your success rate can be explained by your poverty rate we have put some dots we have identified two dots on this on this um scatter plot Woodmore and Thrasher this is unacceptable we've got to do better although this is a problem around the country but this is also a problem here in Hamilton County so we have an opportunity to do big things and to be the leaders in

079solving this issue so some goals around this purchasing and using adaptive technology to enhance the learning of exceptional Ed education students but also approving a School District budget that includes academic supports and nonacademic supports now at this time Cassie Davis who is a um program support manager within the office of equity we'll um provide you with um our year two and year three goals we are aware that these years will take us into a new strategic plan under a new Administration she will go through the data with you however um we did leave room to add our next steps um with that new Administration and our new strategic plan Cassie thank you Dr Drake can you all hear me all right okay wonderful thank you Dr Drake Thank You members of the board um so

080as Dr Drake said you won't see next steps for years two and three of our goals um but we do have a lot of data that we think is very relevant and very important for you all to see and so what you're going to see here uh year two goal one is addressing uh chronic absenteeism and this is important very similarly to how reducing our disproportionate suspension and expulsion rates are and that students cannot learn unless they are in school so with chronic absenteeism this is defined as when 10% or sorry excuse me students Miss missed 10% of their enrolled school days so if students are missing that much class they're not going to be able to get the education that they need to thrive um so of course the trends are continuing where this

081is heavily impacting our subgroups as you can see from the the chart above and unsurprisingly chronic absenteeism has skyrocketed in the last year and a half what you are going to see it's our uh sorry back thank you it is our um economically disadvantaged students in the blue our black Hispanic and Native American students in the purple and our exceptional education students in the orange who are experiencing chronic absenteeism the most and I know this is on the screen but I do want to point out this one piece of information that last year our economically disadvantaged students 34.6 of them were chronically absent 34.6 so that is something we need to improve our students can't learn unless unless they're in class our next goal is providing Equitable access to effective teachers and when we talk

082about effective teachers we are looking at the whole child to evaluate what students really need so one of the things that we are looking at is uh teacher representation studies show that all students benefit when they have access to diverse teachers and the greatest rate of achievement occurs when a student of color has the opportunity to interact with a teacher of their same rate or ethnicity so as you can see here almost all of our students have access to White teachers um however 62% of our students of color have a teacher of color and only 30% of our white students have a teacher of color um again the greatest rate of achievement occurs when a student of color has the opportunity to interact with a teacher of their same race or ethnicity so you might

083notice up here we don't have any statistics on the number of black students who have a black teacher the number of Latino students who have a Latino teacher so that is something that we hope to to explore in the next year to learn more about that um and how we can improve years of experience is another characteristic that increases the in effectiveness of teachers so this chart similar to our last scatter plot uh the blue dots do represent the schools in Hamilton County um and this is looking at the average step or the average years of experience that teachers have at that school so as you can see Thrasher has about an average their teachers have about 15 years of experience on average versus Woodmore who we have labeled on here their teachers have about

0846 years of experience on average um schools with the lowest poverty rates have teachers with approximately three times the amount of experience than schools with the with the lowest poverty or sorry excuse me schools with the lowest poverty rates have teachers with approximately three times the amount of teaching experience than our schools with the highest poverty rates um so what this is doing of course this impacts the academic Su success of students but it's also putting our young teachers in a very compromising position where they are charged with overcoming some of our District's greatest challenges when they have the fewest years of experience um and our qualitative data tells us that this is impacting teacher retention for their particular school if they're at a school that has um High economically disadvantage rates it's impacting their

085retention at the district level and it is impacting their retention for the teaching profession as a whole and again we've been talking about how we want to keep our talent this is one of the things we need to improve in and then our last goal for year two seg going into this nicely is recruiting and retaining a diverse teaching course and so um I'll kind of let these charts speak for themselves this is pretty straightforward but last year the racial makeup of our students was we had about 52% students of color as you can see our teachers and administrators do not share that same diversity and as previously stated all students benefit from diverse teachers and of course this is something we are looking at increasing as well and we have this wonderful educator diversity

086policy that was also unanimously passed in March of 2021 so when it does come times to making steps for that goal we will be referring to this closely and that brings us to year three goal one increasing postsecondary opportunities so this is looking at things like do our students have access to AB classes IB classes dual enrollment so on so forth so again you see it's our subgroups who are falling behind and um students falling into any subgroup are at least half is likely to be prepared for Pursuits After High School that's what these Hamilton County School's ready graduate uh data is saying is that about 20% of our students at a maximum are prepared for those uh Pursuit After High School if they are in a subgroup and if we want all of our

087students to thrive more than 20% of students in subgroups need to be prepared for those post-secondary opportunities and that brings us to our final goal of year three partnering with Community allies so we have many Community allies that play a role in making our schools better and as you can see we know who these allies are we know what types of programs they are offering um but we do have more work to do collecting data for this so we are working on a comprehensive tracking method through our Student Success planning platform um and we're going to be working with data and information systems to capture additional data and to work to ensure that we are utilizing our partners efficiently and equitably and without further Ado I will pass it back to Dr Drake I think

088this teacher of color said it best that the fact that we're having this conversation is a huge step in the right direction I certainly agree with him and I know that once you know better you'll do better as well so now moving forward that plan that is in front of you is a draft and it states draft on it uh I am really seeking your input uh to finalize this draft so over the next month uh if I can gather your input on the plan because this is a collaborative effort um and then hopefully we can finalize this plan uh at our next board meeting in January and then I look forward to giving you quarterly updates beginning in April of 2022 as we agreed upon within our educational Equity plan so thank you Dr

089Drake um I just wanted to take a moment uh I am thrilled for Dr Justin Robertson as he will be taking over as the permanent superintendent and this is my last board meeting with you all as I will be transitioning uh in early January next year and so I wanted to remind you that we had a few interim goals um I was hoping that we'd be able to maintain uh continuity as we move through the transition when Dr Johnson departed in August and I think we were able to manage through that uh we got through uh maintaining our future ready 2023 updates we dealt with a covid wave that I think we hadn't expected uh as well as we were able to move forward with blueprint 2030 as we've now secured funding for a new

090Tiner Academy in addition we wanted to make sure that we supported acceleration and Recovery in response to the pandemic that we've now been experiencing for year three year three of the of for schools uh in terms of dealing with with uh covid challenges so we were able to submit our Esser 3.0 budget uh and get it approved in fact the state department just reached out to us to highlight that we were one of the strongest plans and will'll be included in a a media announcement because they've now gotten most of the districts in the State uh to get through uh that uh that approval process that we completed in October and so we're already using those funds to make sure that we can accelerate literacy and remediate challenges that we had uh with the pandemic

091and we've graded those funds to continue the Strategic plan work and finally tonight we focused on closing the opportunity Gap you all know that we've uh kept going with our uh children's cabinet and that Chattanooga 2.0 now has a new executive director our former Chief of Staff uh Jim Bronson as well as making sure that we launched well uh our partnership with the city of Chattanooga our community Ford schools uh Community Schools program and all of our Midtown schools and uh our board representative Kissa Mosley Jones is helping us to lead that work and then the final promise that we had is that we would deliver uh during this transition period the educational Equity plan based on the policy that the board PL passed in uh March so it has been my pleasure uh to

092serve in this role and to help make sure that we move forward uh I look forward to working with the transition with Dr Robertson and we look forward to taking your questions uh now around the educational Equity plan thank you Mr Walker um don't necessarily have a question question but just a comment um for years and years and years we've had kids that have fail kids that'll pass kids that'll show up kids that'll be absent um and I appreciate the thought that has put into some of these presentations but one thing that drives me crazy is the term sub subgroup we label any of our students as less than or below it drives me crazy and when we set up here and refer to our students as students from wherever they come from I came

093from not the greatest background um you know there are things that we can do but but listening to our presentation last month um when do our teachers have a chance to teach and again that's not for any answer probably just more for me to get this off my chest for the first couple of meetings I came in I wanted to be quiet I want to be you know um and just listen but you know so many organizations we're the Department of Education and and we have so many social programs and other things that are out there that are necessary and our students need but every single thing that's coming to the Department of Education can our child take their math class down to juvenile court and have somebody help them with math can they go

094to a a a or whatever uh some other offices in the city or county and ask for help we've gotten so far away from the Department of Education and letting our teachers teach and we've got to find out how to plug in kids and make them have that selfworth and and do good it's okay if a kid doesn't pass every class that's just life that's going to be here forever but the levels and layers that we've put the levels and layers that we put on the levels and levels here's what I want to do when I came and got this appointment I wanted to speak for the students speak for the parents and not have any extra layers and and levels that our teachers and principles have to go through I just and I don't

095know if I you know I hope that it comes off the right way I'm just amazed of the different levels and time that we put in uh for things that have been around for a long time and it's you know I want our teachers to teach and our kids to learn and I I want everybody to be successful I don't want to come off that but we spent a lot of time I don't know how we let our teachers teach with all these layers and things that are in there m Jones Dr Drake um question so with the finalization or wanting to finalize by January 2022 you're wanted to do that by the board meeting in January 2022 that is my desire okay so is as the equity leer on for the board is there

096do we I guess I should be asking this to the board would you all like to discuss do we need to have like a work session to talk about the plan and discuss it so that when it's time to finalize we've had that conversation we've done that and the executive cabinet can move forward with continuing that work so chairman um Mendon we can get together and try to figure out some dates for that is that okay if you and Dr Drake if that's how you want to gather feedback or do that and 101s or whatever you want to do um we can schedule that probably after our agenda meeting um well you'll need it probably before that for for changes or anything so yeah we'll get together and and schedule it okay and then I

097wanted to just say this um Jane subgroup is probably the new term but for eons of years if you weren't the majority you were put into some type of category so it might have been a category it might have been a minority it might have been whatever and I get what you're saying because I believe that all students are all students but data is data and when you look at the data that's what it shows now what I liked about the presentation tonight is that while it did show that it was prevalent um as we've already known in the subgroups that we show that that's just not in one facet of our County and what that looks like going abroad I I really want um this not for you so I'm through with that um

098but just overall I want us to understand that Equity is not just about race right and so this is what this presentation shows us that Equity is about exceptional Ed Equity is about social economic backgrounds Equity is about neighborhood situations Equity is about teacher representation Equity is about student representation Equity is about um people that may not um be the norm in their beliefs um or ideologies about things so Equity is about access Equity is about a lot of things other than just race um and often times it gets to that conversation about R race and E ethnicity because systemically that's where all the other um obstacles or challenges that our students face come from not necessarily the not necessarily saying that Hamilton County systemically has created those things but historically systemically that's what has

099happened and so because systemically that's where we are then we get into those other conversations and I I say this all the time um they're not comfortable conversations I learned this from our previous superintendent candidate back in when Dr Johnson was running but he really encouraged us to have courageous conversations and I think that we have to continue to have those courageous conversations if we want to do what is right for all children and so that all children Thrive because when I was in school and I went to a very diverse School it was all kinds of people and so we had to learn about each other we had to experience each other so that we would have empathy for one another and be able to understand what was going on so I think I

100I find it hard when we want to say well let's just talk about all kids because we are talking about all kids but all kids are not living the same life like tonight at home every single child 44,000 different children are living a different life in their home tonight and they're going to wake up in the morning and do that same thing again in that building and so I think we have to realize and do do our due diligence and ensuring that we're doing our part to make that a stable of an environment for them when they come into a building um that we can and I know that's often a tough conversation for a lot for the county period but I just think we we have a due diligence to our children chairman Mendon

101could could I clarify the term subgroups because I do want and I agree with you Mr Walker I I try to stay away from that term it is a federal accountability term uh that is a part of our state accountability framework so we are responsible and required to disaggregate data uh by those racial groups by the economically disadvantaged by the disability um there's a couple other groups that we have to track now too I think it's students of military uh homeless students um Etc but the language that's used in the federal legislation is subgroup uh I also want folks to point out we focused in this presentation on Future Ready 2023 goals but next year will be the year that I believe that state report card grades will be published right the a through F

102grades um for the first time in Tennessee and uh for schools uh 35 to 45% of the grade will be based on how the performance is of the children who are in one of those accountability subgroups so this is important that people understand that the the report card grade around performance and chronic absentee is is actually one of the accountability measures that uh if we're not improving you all in Hamilton County and across the state of Tennessee will see that reflected uh as a a good proportion of what will go into that grading system so just so everybody is clear subgroup I I agree it's a regrettable term it's just what's captured in federal legislation and we are required to track it uh because of the federal accountability and the state accountability system that we

103have uh Miss Thurman uh yeah there's some some things i' like some clarification on please some of the terms you know ever since I've been on the board I find it quite humorous the same thing that we've called so many different things over the years uh I call it Edy Babel you just they come up with these words and you really don't know what they mean um but one of them on page 10 embedded cultural competence what exactly does that mean um it says uh reduce dis disp disproportionate suspension and expulsion rates embedded cultural confidence in school practices uh allocate resources equitably okay embedded cultural competence what does that mean there okay so I am going to um refer back to our educational Equity plan where we did Def policy excuse me our policy uh

104that we passed um back in March and we defined that um and then what you're referring to on page 10 so we did Define it as functioning C uh comfortably across cultural settings and um and interactions that you have where you're being productive um um and with people from cultures and races that different from your own and understanding and communicating with them productively interacting with with people across cultures okay so this culture here you said that we're talking about socioeconomic and all but this right here is strictly race this cultural embeded cultural confidence that I just ask for a clarification okay can you tell me what page culture it's on page 10 oh okay it's the same yes culture and race mhm culture and race okay yeah um on page nine on page actual plan

105oh oh just embedded okay oh so one of the equity shifts yes yeah okay okay that's one of our goals and then also discipline response rates on page uh six I think it is what does that mean it says discipline response rates are disproportionate and negatively impact Student Success okay okay discipline response rates okay exactly what do you mean the the amount of time that uh they it takes to get disciplined U they that some students are disciplined quicker than others uh exactly what does that mean so yes discipline response rates are um there what we're referring to is I'm trying to get to it but it's um this slide for uh ex ex exclusionary discipline that if we look at it by race that response there are several responses but districtwide uh black students

106are disproportionately receiving an exclusionary discipline such as ISS um at um in school suspension out of school suspension uh expulsion or being remanded which is being sent to Washington alternative so the response to their discipline is an exclusionary more often than other students within so they could be and uh they could be receiving there could be the same incidents but more often our response in the school is to uh provide them one of those four discipline responses what we're saying is is that we need to look at those respons that actually do something different such as some restorative practices positive schoolwide intervention so that um so that we can um teach the students um the behaviors that are desired in school as well as when they um have one of those discipline infractions that we

107do one of those restorative where we're sitting around and we actually uh are discussing it and we are restoring them when they come back and so that they're that they're or not doing it again within the building so we need to teach those restorative practices uh amongst our um our administrator so you're saying that there's this is discriminatory the way that we're the way that we're disciplining students now is is that where this is going I'm just trying to I'm saying is that that we need to change I guess is what I'm saying if if students some students are being treated unfairly who is doing the who who is treating them unfairly and uh what exact exactly who is doing this um this unfair that we need to fix I guess is what I'm saying

108I just don't know exactly what the goal is since I've never really understood what Equity was I know what equality is I'm just wonder and how we're going to get to where we need to be if I don't even know what the definition is who's who's doing the the unfair discipline who's who's doing it so so let let me just I do want to clarify a couple of things the the the term to to just be simple um discipline response is another state term and disproportionality is also a state accountability metric see I really don't care n who who does I want to understand exactly what are we looking to do by this plan who do we hold accountable I do just want to to clarify why it is that we're actually measuring this so

109the state department actually produces a significant disproportionality um report and identifies districts and schools that have a disproportionate response it just means consequence and what the state does is look at our rate of discipline response or consequence by race and they compare it to the rest of the state and for the last three years Hamilton County has been identified as one of the district who has more uh disparity between our racial groups and uh I believe that the reason that the state department tracks this and I'll confirm is because it is an office of civil rights requirement of course by the federal government and so okay I I you know I understand all that I'm saying who is doing it that we're in trouble this is what I'm trying to get to who is responsible

110for doing is it a principal is it the administration is it the teacher who is doing it I this is what I'm trying to understand I understand all this garble stuff with the state and the numbers and how we have to fix all this but if if it's unfair and we're doing it more than anybody else who's doing it it's not us right so so who is it right Dr you're you can answer so in this in this plan and what I what I failed to actually mention is in the plan we laid out the equity commitments and um as well as in our action steps there are actions for our school leaders for our teachers for the district uh leaders as well as um our school board and the community so when you say

111who's doing it what uh what my response to that would be um we have our school leaders um uh deans of students and when we met we met with um we had some focused groups when we developed these next steps and we talked to them about what was going on when in our focus groups we met with school administrators we met with assistant principles we met with deans of students okay right here on page 14 it says we believe this formalized system of discipline response created equal consequences that's equality right but not Equitable solutions for our students what what exactly does that mean if they're being disciplined Equitable I mean uh y'all U equally and and you want Equitable Solutions what exactly does that mean see I I mean all that sounds good and warm

112and fuzzy and all that but I just don't understand what that means if if this student does this infraction and this student does another infraction I don't care what color they are and they're both being disciplined equally that sounds fair to me but then you're saying they're they're disciplined equally but it's not Equitable explain that to me I don't understand so can I give you an example M Jones my son your grandson get into a fight my son gets I get a call I got to leave the city to go get my kid he needs to go home for 10 days your grandson you get a call and he's going to ISS for today and he's back in school tomorrow that's the example talking about because he no no listen to me I'm saying no

113no I don't know what I don't know what I don't know I have a white Aunt so I don't know right Joe Smith my cousin he White we found that out the other day but I'm just saying we did we share a cousin I'm not being funny we for real share a cousin but nevertheless but nevertheless what I'm saying to you is Rhonda that no Hamilton County as an umbrella is not doing that the nine members may not be doing that the principal may not be doing that in all schools so forth and so on what happens what I've seen happen in in my my professional realm that relates to these to our students is that um and I'm going to say something is oh Lord but I got to say it CU it's only

114way I can explain it but often times when people are dealing with their own generalizations and prejudices and implicit biases they make decisions or categor or categorize students or stereotype students behaviors and because um not necessarily saying that my little brown boy acts this way but they may have had a trauma or an experience from another little brown boy that acted a certain way when EJ acts a certain way well EJ is just like all the other little black boys and so now he's going to get the same punishment because the other three black boys that they dealt with two and three years ago did the same thing so it's like a trigger it's all this Psy it's all social psychosocial okay but all of that is just it's triggers and it it causes implicit

115biases and so forth and so on vice versa it could easily be the opposite way and it could be a teacher of color who may have had a bad experience with a Caucasian student or um a Hispanic student and because of whatever their implicit bias or generalization or Prejudice or discrimination is it's opposite so it's not necessarily black to white white it could be boy um it could be a woman who has an issue with a boy or it could be a boy who has an issue I mean a male teacher who has an issue with a girl so a lot of times it's just based on your experiences but what the data is showing the state is that in this particular case here in Hamilton County that clearly it is a situation that's affecting

116black students more so than non-black students but implicit bias and all of that and those triggers and traumas can go a variety of ways in this specific State though the data says here in Hamilton County this is our issue and it's not necessarily pointing a finger to a specific person because nonblack peers could be white black Afghanistan Pakistanian Asian a whole lot of stuff so it just looks a different I mean a whole lot of different races so it looks at a lot of different ways um but that is the example I can use and I feel safe in saying that um because that historically is the case and when you look at the the data for Washington alternative when you look at the data for the appeal situations that is what happens and by

117law we are mandated to report this stuff and the state um evaluates it and lets us know where the areas are that we need to work on okay I'm just want another well I understand I'm just like I said I still just want to understand how we're supposed to correct it if we don't know what don't know who's doing it and why okay the uh on also on page 48 on this it says U about hiring more diverse teaching Force did we not just spend $2 million to Teach for America to hire minorities did we do that am I is it me did I remember that everybody said yeah there are okay and and they hired they hired a few so it's not like we're actively discriminating against tiring minorities because we're active spent $2

118million to actively seek hiring minorities so I'm just not real sure what we can do about I think it was a million over three years is that right yeah I think it's $250,000 a year yeah $250,000 so it was a million dollars a year I mean a million dollar contract for four years for four years okay so it's not like we're not doing that already so I'm looking at some of this and I'm thinking a plan and I'm thinking I'm not real sure what else we can do about Miss Miss Thurman you are correct we are doing some of those things but it's going to take a longterm commitment in order for us to really move the needle for these and the opportunity um gaps that we have and so this plan it does it

119does include some things that we are already doing but we just need to continue those commitments and that's what we're asking well I just want people look at this I don't want them to think that this board is not doing anything because we have and then on the other hand you go on and talk about teacher experience about some schools have more teachers who are experienced is it more important to to be worried about who's the most experienced and who are the best teachers or are worried about their race I I mean this seems like two two totally totally different things you compared uh some schools like to to Nolan was it Nolan or Thrasher I can't rememberer and uh you know I I just don't I I don't understand I just don't understand that

120comparison really because it's it's almost like we're doing these things on purpose and we're just not but anyway I'll talk about it more when we have a work session about it and I'll have a little bit more time but since we just got it today I just haven't had that much of a chance to look at it thank you Miss Robinson um I've lost complete train of thought since turning on my light um I think I was actually initially going to respond to James uh kit said so much of what I also was going to share but truthfully you know Ju Just to to James comments and I I know we'll have so much more time to work together over the next few years on this plan but truly this plan is about is about

121learning it is about teaching it is it is about solely the basis of learning and how to move the needle with students that are struggling with learning and and um meeting the mark and so um won't uh rant on that much longer but um you know I just want I do want to say though we've been talking about this topic for like five years at least since I've been here how do we not already I mean I can't even believe that we just had the conversation that we had because truthfully every board member here knows exactly what we're talking about this is happening in our schools I represent District 4 it is the most diverse District in the county socioeconomically and racially and I'm a white upper middle class woman the most unlikely suspect to

122represent the population that I represent I am happy and proud to say that and I see this in my schools okay don't tell me it's not happening don't try to pretend like it's not happening I have a great friend who's is sitting in this room who experiences firsthand with her black son at one of our top highest performing schools okay so the schools in my district they they absolutely like cross the Spectrum I have some really great High performing schools in in my district I have some really great schools that are struggling and performance-wise and it's happening across the Spectrum okay so you know ultimately this plan is not about just race it is about all of it but it's about how do we make sure that my three boys are performing just as great

123as Kit's Sun even though they look different and they're coming from totally different backgrounds okay and so I feel like if I can recognize that all right every single one of us here can and that's that and I've sat here for 5 years and I've heard this data over and over again and there is no way that anyone on this board except James Walker maybe hasn't heard this before and I know James Walker is going to understand this data soon and he's going to really understand the point of why we voted 90 as you pointed out to approve this plan and to approve the work that you're doing so thank you for that work Marsha um the one question I've got help me understand how our plan intertwines with Dr or uh Governor Lee's plan

124because I also want to point out that our governor approves and supports this work which is f fascinating because also the be formula currently is being reorganized to support this work to student based budgeting so if we have a problem with this work we need to go to the state level okay so whoever feels this work doesn't make sense and that it's just being pulled out of thin air and that there's some type of narrative and some type of conspiracy theory happening behind this work I encourage you to speak to our state Governor because he alongside us whether who cares what political affiliation he has he actually recognizes the value and the power of the work of equity shocking for many people to wrap their heads around probably on both sides of the political Spectrum

125but he does and I'm grateful for that okay maybe don't agree with everything but grateful for that no doubt I think we've really got to ask ourselves what in the world are we fighting about here people like this is literally the answer so anyways I'd love to know from your opinion how does this intertwine with the plan that you're presenting us so yes um Miss Robertson we use that Playbook as a support guide so if you look through that uh Playbook you will see a lot of the actions come directly from that uh Playbook and I also would like to add that our former superintendent Dr Brian Johnson was on that committee for the revisions of that you will notice his name is there as well as Dr Sonia Stewart our community superintendent within the

126district was also a part of that she was actually a part of it from the beginning so the very first one U that was um developed in 2018 as well as the revisions that just came out and and I want to make sure I make a clarification just in case anybody from Governor Lee's office is watching this was not this did not come out of the governor's office office right to the point there are people from the Tennessee Department of Education who work uh in state legislatures who work across different nonprofits but I don't want to put words in the mouth of the governor uh but the point is this is a Statewide view this didn't come from some National Group this came from right here in Tennessee and to Dr Drake's point the same

127eight commitments that were in this Playbook are the same eight commitments that you see in the equity plan uh draft that we have for Hamilton County Mr Walker I did a lot better the first few months by just sitting back listening um hey my point was and and I heard the groan and it crushed me it is not okay for a kid to fail and I think that's when I screwed up and said that uh it's never okay for them to fail my premise or point was kind of trying to be we beat up our teachers and our staff if if I didn't do so well in that class and somebody else was a star it I want to make sure I think that's where I got the grown look I that is not my

128intent and no it's not okay for kids to fail and didn't mean to I was really actually meaning to say like in a particular class it's not okay for a student to fail in year or any of those things uh so I'm going to go back to be quiet until the next thing but but that is kind of my point there are some things that it just happens and and we can't beat our teachers up over it and rewrite the whole thing and and and after this diversity you know my life is better because I work with a diverse group I understand diversity makes this whole world better that's on me backtracking I just picked the wrong time to jump off and talk about all the stuff I heard at the last meet but Tiffany's

129going to get me educated so we're going to be all [Applause] right we've all had that we've all had that we've all had that moment where we say something we're like that didn't come out uh Miss Hill well it's it's definitely true that education is um sometimes seems more comp complicated than it ought to be um I actually just had a conversation today with a a mentor of mine he was talking a lot about Square pegs and round pegs and triangle pegs and that just because you're poor doesn't mean you're dumb um and he said you know if you've got a if you got a hole that's built for a square peg and you're a triangle and you can't get through it where does that leave you and he and I don't always he don't

130always understand the definition of equity either Ronda but he he was gave me a great example with square pegs and round pegs and triangle pegs um and uh you know I I have noticed that um I I I think James that part of Y education is as complicated as it is is because everybody's been to school and you all have also heard me say some of you that I've also noticed that almost every state representative Andor Congressman or Senator um is married to a former kindergarten teacher y'all ever noticed that so they're all experts and they put together a system that is complicated um that said our team and this board has been willing to get in the weeds and if you're going to be on a school board that's the kind of work you

131got to be able to do you've got to every one of us up here has a lot of homework all the time to really understand and the staff does even more than that um one of the details that I did notice that I just wanted to point out and thank you for Dr Drake um and I I'm looking forward to studying this plan is the fact that you did have a representative from chatt State on the team which I thought was really wise um because we have such an issue with matriculation and they even have an issue with um helping students that fall into these same categories students who are poor students who are of color um do not graduate from Community College at the same rate as um their their peers that come from

132uh more financially stable backgrounds um and white backgrounds so um that was a that was a smart decision and I applaud you for that um you know as as the room gets heated um and as sometimes you know we we come out and we we want to say a lot um I'm reminded of one of my very favorite verses of scripture because I I need to hear it a lot which is um from the book of James uh chapter 3 veres 17 and 18 that real wisdom God's wisdom begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others it is gentle and reasonable overflowing with Mercy and blessings not hot one day and cold the next not two faced you can develop a healthy robust community that lives right with God and

133enjoy its results only only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other treating each other with dignity and honor and I think that this Equity work is is not about blaming people it's not about who who did something wrong it's about acknowledging the fact that none of us are perfect and that we have to learn from our mistakes you know I mean if we were to approach this work Rhonda with a a blame mentality none of us would be left because every person here is an imperfect person I think we are charged with doing better year after year after year doing better and um I'm here to represent district 6 with the hope that students will be be better um because of the work I do and and I I hope

134that's why all of us are here so thanks guys I look forward to discussing this in more detail Mr PR just a few things um one I I'm actually gonna uh repeat uh Mr Walker's comment on sub even though I understand where it comes from I do think language matters and I think we can choose here when we publicly State what we talk about uh the language that we use and um assets-based language is very very important and so um so I do recommend that we use uh for our sake we got to report to the state where we got to report in the in the numbers that they say how they say it uh but but I do think it's it's valuable and so the example that cross my mind is we start with

135opportunity zones we started with uh priority uh schools with promise with Partners like you know we we look for language that is that is building of the community that we're serving uh and not language that discredits their their capacity and so so I think that matters and I'm going to go to the other side of it which is gifted um I have been blessed with children who uh have fallen into that category and they know and they will tell you that I can't stand the word gifted because it assumes that they are gifted and other students are not um and uh and I again understand fully that this is language that is given to us uh but it's language that that for them raises them up and and and they can walk with pride and

136for others um makes them feel like well I guess I'm not one of those um and and I can guarantee I'll never forget uh in in one of the class projects uh whatever it's 11th grade or what they have to do these big huge projects walking by a student who built his own guitar beautiful guitar amazing guitar but he didn't pass the uh the project because the Project's about writing about building a guitar um and not about building the guitar and uh and uh I had a I knew another student without saying anything who was not as successful in the doing but is exceptional in the writing um and I thought how interesting the the Dynamics that we have so so some of that is is where again I think the more we can look

137I I celebrated among them my daughter uh who in band did excellent and I'm not going to lie when I sat there in um in uh uh whatever that state was Indiana Indianapolis uh watching those bands play the top bands in the country um I can't help but noticed that they were disproportionately white bands um and uh with one exception Chicago Heights uh that I noticed and and it I I guarantee that we have quality bands in neighborhoods that are majority uh Black Or Hispanic uh or that we could create quality bands uh and so having uh and this statement uh I said to one of our candidates and and he repeated it uh as well so I was happy because I thought well someone listens to me um but uh but I am very

138blessed that one of my children has achieved what for many parents uh is the dream of academic success growth but as I told him what motivated me to be a part of this um board is I am 100 I I know she's exceptional uh but I am 100% convinced that every one of our schools has an exceptional student uh like mine uh and I don't want any uh obstacles for that student to have the opportunity unities that I have been blessed with my students being in the schools that they're in which are ranked here on that end um and so yes I'm I'm part of that success and I get to see that success but I as I'm not the perfect parent uh it's probably pretty obvious uh my wife gets close uh but we've

139made our mistakes it's not our parenting exclusively though it matters it's not I'm not the wealthiest of people on this board uh uh anyways we can go on from that but like so it's not my my income it's not my parenting uh uh exclusively all of those things matter all of those things play into it um community that they grow up Place into it the opportunities that they have play into it um but I don't I've never believed that somehow uh God has graced me more than everybody else because somehow I have earned more more than other people um and it is our task I believe as a board to ensure that on both ends of the spectrum that the students who are uh hurting because of of lack of uh whatever it may be

140I mean talk about a homeless student and the difficulty that it is to go to school the next day when you don't know where you're going to sleep the night before um and and the impact and those are students we rate and we rank uh to see where they where they'll be and if we can do anything to serve that student in order for them to achieve uh as Dr Dawson who we talked about achieved and was able to move on uh I I can't understand why as a community we wouldn't do it um so that that statement um but I do think language matters and and I do recommend that internally uh we speak in language that is building of the individual um and asset based language that really speaks of their power and

141their capacity and their e effort and grit and and strength um the the second thing that I just wanted to ask uh expulsion this is my ignorance what happens to a student who is expelled from a public school system and what's the next step for them well so students who are expelled they um they still have due process and um so they can call and a due process meeting um Brad Jackson actually handles those meetings and he has a team of Administrators from around the district that come in and they hear them often times they are remanded to our Washington Alternative School uh versus being expelled or uh for an entire year okay and if they are expelled it's for a year only or are they out and there's no educational Capac that's what I'm

142asking I just don't know so Mr pres it depends so under state law except under very uh unusual circumstances a child who is removed from the the regular school is still required to receive some type of services so that can either be through Washington alternative uh or it could be through an online virtual program as appropriate to this child situation in every situation if a child uh is special educ is is receiving special education services that child by federal law must continue receiving special education services special even if the child is quote unquote expelled the the the the word expelled doesn't really have application under Tennessee law anymore because the assumption is the child continues to receive some kind of that's what I want and if you put the child out for you completely the

143superintendent has the discretion to modify so that the child continues to receive some kind of services okay all right thank you m Thurman yes I just Tiffany left uh but anyway this is not and it's also not about blaming anyone this is called accountability uh she said that we had been talking about this for four years and I beg to differ we've been talking about equity for much much longer than four years and if it's still going on this is not something new that we just did when we went to Tiner and had our meeting that is not when the equity thing started it started way way before that uh this board talking about Equity what I want to know is is who we hold accountable and the only way you can hold someone accountable

144is to find out where the weak link is or whatever is going on somebody has to be held accountable we've been talking about this thing for at least 10 years that I've been on since uh 10 years of almost 17 that I've been on this board uh if we're still talking about this and none of these needles are moving uh that's what I'm talking about and uh you know I think God's okay with that if I want to know uh if uh if this is continues to go on if it's something we're doing or something we're not doing this Board needs to know that's the only thing I want to know who do you hold accountable for this if it's a problem still a problem after all of these years and for us to just

145to sit and and hold hands and sing kumb ya and say you know we're just going to go on and and continue what we're doing if what we're doing is not working we need we need to figure it out about what this because this is not the first time I've seen all of this I've seen it for years many years and like I say I just want to know who to hold accountable if this if we're not moving the needle any that's my my only point and like I say I'm not trying to be discriminatory or ugly or finger pointing I just want somebody to be accountable we say we're going to be accountable on this school board and that's the only thing I'm trying to do thank you Mr Smith thank you for your

146work um Marsh I I remember when we met I think we met it was it the the elementary school and we got this Playbook and uh the the one you gave us tonight looks like it it's the September Edition so it's been revised since the one you gave us that night that is correct and I am so glad to see in here because if you'll remember that night I pointed this out under the recommended actions you know it had actions for what the school board need to do it had actions for what the teachers need to do had action for what the administration need to do for what the community need to do and it didn't mention parents at all so now they they revised this praise God they put it in there because when

147you read those one of those numbers about uh chronic treny those are my kids and I'm with them and and bless their are it's not their fault that they're not in school so you know we this is great and I look forward to studying this draft but man we got to address Mom and Daddy the home and and until we do that I know it's not government's responsibility to fix the home and it's sure not our responsibility to fix the home but I see kids every day that's not going to school and it's not their fault it's the adult in their life's fault and I don't know how you fix that I just don't but thank you for your work and uh we're we're moving in the right direction and Marco so right you know

148I see kids every day and I was growing up my monsters were so pretend I mean we got kids that their monsters are real and uh we have a responsibility to do all we can give those kids education too man the one thing we don't have control over and we it shouldn't be our job and that's what's going on at the house so I don't how we fix that margin but thank you for your work and your committee we're going to move this thing we're going to keep fighting thank you m I'll be brief because I we we'll have a work session on this um you kind of stole what I was going to say of briefly reading through these we got this um thank you for your work it's a lot that you put

149in this since we passed the policy one thing I think we do as a a board and administration is we have relationships with people and groups and stuff and so it seems um like when we do something like this whether it be facilities or discipline like it's the same people in the room every single time and how do we in this next month take this plan and meet with people that's outside of the realm I was thinking through this and exactly what Mr Smith said was the attendance thing and I was like you know what if we provided a car for these students we provide a bus and it's not us we can't go in and make kids get out of out of bed every day um you know we do that yeah yeah we

150do it we do it and and whatnot but at some point I think in this plan a a parental aspect has to come into play because we can control a lot up here and a lot in our schools and and what we do um but we got to get our parents on board we got to get them you know on board with this and whatnot so I'll leave with that we'll have we'll have broader conversations as we move forward and get more feedback on this but thank you for your work on this thank you very much um it's it's great and be great to to to look through and give feedback on um no more lights we'll uh move on to our board member uh disclaimer statement Miss Thurman we'll start with you work down

151okay I declare that I have relatives who work for the school system if the boards vote on the budget and policies may have an effect on my relatives employment even so I hereby certifi 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 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 relative's employment even so I hereby certify that I will cast my vote in the

152best interest of the school system I declare that I have relatives uh who work for the school system and that the board's vote on budget and policies and 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 uh I declare I have a relative uh who works for the school system and that the board's vote on budgets 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 that will bring us down to the approval of our consent agenda move to approve second any items to pull yes roll call please Mrs Hill yes Mrs Jones yes Mr Perez yes

153Mr Smith yes Mrs Thurman yes Mr Walker yes Mr Wingate yes chairman McLendon yes okay with that that will move us to delegations um I'm pulling double dut tonight so bear with me um I can run the timer all right thank you we have uh Jennifer pyro Levi black Janette AR aroel how om marel Rosie Fitzgerald Heather mroe and Rebecca day and uh Dr uh Jeffrey Wilson speaking I'll read this once for everyone so please pay attention um and then uh Miss Hill is going to help me out with time tonight and when you have one minute uh she'll let you know 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

154present complaints or concerns you have about 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 responsible for individual employees please limit your remarks to 5 minutes uh Miss Hill will tell you when you have one minute left you may begin when you are ready good evening I'm honored to have these few moments to speak with you can she speak in the micophone imagine that can you hear me now yes oh that's better sorry good evening I'm honored to speak with you and to have these few moments I'm a mother of four children attending three schools in District 3 I grew up in a home that most people would call The American Dream

155my father was a decorated and well respected police officer my mother was a highly regarded and dedicated nurse I had a gifted older brother on the wrestling team we owned our home and lived comfortably I was blessed as a child to be in public schools that allowed me to make deep friendships with classmates of color but in e8th grade I moved to a much more homogenized area sadly once I got to high school the majority of my experiences with people of color came through books let me be clear my understanding and appreciation of people of color for my high school years was primarily found in books I would not have known anything about the experience of black or brown people during those formative years if not for the books that I read and thankfully I

156had access to many books through my school and public libraries I read so many but one of the biggest influences on my spirit's capacity for empathy was Mya Angelo's I know why the Cage Bird Sings many parents have tried to ban this book after all it does describe her rape and molestation as an 8-year-old in her own words it also says life is going to give you just what you put in it put your whole heart in everything you do and pray then you can wait it is a ravenously hopeful book and it made me feel like I could overcome anything another book that parents have attempted to ban is The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison again this book is graphic in its depiction of rape and also this time physical abuse by an alcoholic

157father It also says this there can't be anyone I'm sure who doesn't know what it feels like to be disliked and even rejected momentarily or for sustained periods of time some may even be or it may be even be that some of us know what it's like to be actually hated hated for things we have no control over and cannot change when this happens it is some consolation to know that the dislike or hatred is unjustified and that you don't deserve it these things may be upsetting but they are happening to children in Hamilton County Schools one in nine girls and one in 53 boys experiences sexual abuse or assault as a child one in five adult Americans lived with an alcoholic relative growing up 88.9% of Youth in grades 9 through 12 have attempted

158suicide at least once in the past year that is almost twice in females and those numbers are even higher in non-white students there are 34 identified hate groups in the state of Tennessee I did my student teaching in Florida back in 2002 in 2 grade our school was again suburban and the students were overwhelmingly white I had only one non-white child in my class of eight-year-olds it was a black boy and his name was fenard he struggled in many ways he was in foster care because his mother was in prison his clothes were disheveled he was an emotional kid who cried easily he was often teased for that and he was hyperactive and desperately wanted attention and a lot of times that meant he spoke out of turn Lenard also loved to be read to

159he would listen to me cry my way through Charlotte's Web after lunch every day I mean there's never been a better friend than Charlotte right books were his safe place when his mind got too overwhelmed with his inner World being so big it was how he connected with his larger world we didn't do much for black history my supervising teacher actually said we would not be addressing ml day because they do that in fourth grade what would it have been like for Lenard to come to school and see more of himself in the curriculum imagine us reading a book about a child in foster care about a child with an incarcerated parent or what if we just read a really spectacularly delightful fun story about a little black boy having a great time how might

160the other kids's Hearts have been opened I can only pray that he was positively steeped in Black role models from fourth grade on since he surely didn't get it that year the closest we had was a spider I still think of him all the time he's 25 now I pray he didn't lose his sweetness I hope that books are still a friend to him each parent who sends our child to Public Schools does so with the understanding that our kids will be exposed to information that we would not necessarily provide to them shoot dang it so good at the end leave black District Six welcome Levi ladies and gentlemen of the board thank you for allowing me to speak to you tonight my name is Levi James Black and I'm a fifth grader at Battle

161Academy I learned recently the school board and other parties that have influence or control over the running of the education system are considering removing some books from school libraries books that show the racial unfairness in history are being suppressed because some people think that they are too mature for the elementary age group or make Caucasian children feel bad about themselves as a fifth grader I can tell you that this may be true but it is healthy for us to learn about racial unfairness at a young age so we can affect the future filtering history is much more destructive to our growing Minds I hope to be an author when I grow up in some books that are being being challenged have really influenced not only the way I see the world and right but also

162my friends views and understanding of society espon arising by Pam munus Ryan for example was a very moving piece for all of the people I know my age and above my teacher and several friends cried as we finished reading it it and other books like this greatly helped us to better understand human rights and its challenges Social Challenges that still exist today and how to change them another book like this for me personally was the Lions of Little Rock by Kristen LaVine which was set in 1958 during Brown versus Board of Education times about an interracial friendship it has mature topics and minor language but this also gave me a sense of growing and becoming more mature which helped again my writing and My Views all in all I think it is important to remember

163that academic studies include social studies and a complete education includes knowledge of these topics no matter how hard it is to hear it is important to teach the truth of our shared history thank you for your time thank [Applause] you can I ask him a question okay because I didn't I'm sorry but I could not understand you what was the first book you said that your teacher read that you think somebody's trying to take out what was the first book I couldn't understand you um Esperon Rising by Pam Muno Ryan okay thank you thank you [Applause] Janette he he only took two minutes and 42 seconds by the by I'm not doing that's what succinct speech looks like everybody I'll talk real fast speaking to myself first all right ready Let's Roll chairman McLendon board

164members in Dr towns I am here tonight to address a critical issue educator morale you may have seen the recent report from professional Educators this week that morale is the number one reason educators are leaving the district and the profession across the country educators are walking out the door every day at an alarming rate and talking to Educators here in Hamil County we are hearing the same issues around around we're here for the kids it's it's all about the students this has been what has been said in hton County a lot you may have even said it it is true we are here for the kids students are the reason schools exist and every decision should be driven by the needs and interest of the children however do not make the mistake of thinking students

165needs and Educators interest are mutually exclusive it can be argued they are inextricably linked to put it simply happy educat are more effective Educators in fact the morale of your faculty is an important component of a strong School SC culture we know that teaching can be a lonely thankless job frustration isolation feeling a lack of respect and job insecurity leads to low educat morale teaching is not like other careers where sales quotas and titles can remind employees of the quality of the work educators are feeling frustrated overwhelmed and unappreciated I agree with JC Bowman who said that parents need to care about this working conditions of Educators greatly affect the learning conditions of students the issues are we are hearing include the in continued increase in the workload without increased compensation which has overwhelmed our

166Educators student behavior is also affecting them lack of consistent clear communication Educators don't need a sign a t-shirt or a ribbon they need to know they are supported they need to know through experience being treated as professionals they need to be included into the decisions that affect their students their working conditions and the district Educators have a lot happening throughout their day and that doesn't include their personal lives outside of the classroom adding extra weight to their overflowing plates is more detrimental than useful respect their time by canceling meetings that could be an email treat their planning time as sacred don't fill them up with meetings they should not be spending excessive hours outside of school doing the work that should be able to be completed in a reasonable day I have been an educator

167for 36 years and in the last few years I have seen an exorbitant growth in the expectations of time beyond the work day on Educators along with a decrease in the respect they receive this has to change if we are going to attract and retain our Educators educators will always go above and beyond for this their students because they care about them but the sacrifice as being asked to them has come to a Tipping Point trust them to do their jobs these are professionals who worked hard to get their degrees respect their experiences and respect their expertise there's a lot of talk about self-care it is impossible to ask them to practice self-care yet take all of their time with other expectations they are being asked to sacrifice time with their families to give to

168their job they feel they don't have an option to say no to extra ask because they'll be marked down in their evaluations if educator morale increases so will the positive energy in the building students will notice it parents will notice it and anyone who visits the building will notice it when the community will notice it there is never a time when educator morale is irrelevant Educators who feel good about coming to work and who feel good about the work they do will be more effective employees the key to effective schools does not reside in the interventionist strategies and think tank polished ideas but in the way Educators and students are supported thank you thank you Rosie uh Fitzgerald um I don't have a beautiful speech I just have notes um so first of all I

169want to um thank um the committee for their hard work on the educational Equity plan uh you don't solve problems by ignoring them we need this very valuable data to find out what gaps there are um and and what opportunities are available so that we can uplift our students and make a positive change in their lives where where where we are able obviously we cannot go into their homes um but we can make a difference at schools for them um number two I'm grateful for our health department and the work that they're doing to get our kids vaccinated especially as we're seeing Delta cases Spike again um and we have the incoming omnicron variant uh in November the health department partnered with East Ridge Elementary to vaccinate 169 children and they continually offer vaccine events

170for kids in our community I hope our schools keep partnering with the health department to ensure that every parent who wants their child vaccinated has access um and I'm concerned because at the last meeting there was some uh correct information uh shared about vaccine so I just want to clarify that so that we are Guided by truth um according to the CDC uh when you uh are become sick with covid your natural immunity only lasts 90 days and it does not protect you against severe illness or death um zero children in the fiser trial experienced the most serious side effect um which is an inflammation of the lining of the heart and the most ser serious side effect in the study or the trial was a fever which occurred in less than 10% of kids

171so I really encourage our community to seek out vaccines for their children and boosters for themselves so that our children can attend school safely and focus on learning and not this pandemic I know we all want to be done with it um number three I wonder about um this book evaluation committee um and I feel like we have other more pressing issues happening in our school Banning books has never been looked uh favorably and in the past and I'm not hearing any stories of students you know committing acts of violence because of something they read in a book or needing therapy because of something that they read in a book um I know I saw recently in the news that we have an issue with our our school lunches so I wonder instead could we

172make a committee for that um good nutrition has one of the largest impacts on our test scores and why are we not informing a committee to investigate and improve them we could explore the opportunity of partnering with local farmers local Growers local businesses to provide our students with good food with fresh produce um because when kids have uh a full belly uh they're able to fuel fuel their minds and um and perform better not only in school but in life I don't know about you guys but my my first grader gets really mad when when she's hungry so I can only imagine um for our for our students that do not have uh or that are experiencing food scarcity at home um how difficult it is to make it through the through the school day

173when they don't have um a filling and nutritious meal um lastly I have a wild idea I'm wondering about the format of these meetings with the 5 minute speeches because I feel that um it can it seems to only sew seeds of mistrust and division rather than Community collaboration and carrying would there be a way to incorporate a moderated question and answer session with the board members and the community members one minute in hopes that those with differences of opinion can come to a greater understanding and possibly even work together on problems that are really affecting our staff and students um I know so many of us saw a beautiful sunrise this morning um and I just want to acknowledge that though so many of us come from different backgrounds and experiences and have difference

174of differences of opinion we're all here because we care about our kids and we are all part of this community and I feel like there are so many opportuni ities for us to work together no matter what our background is thank you Miss madro sorry um good evening thank you for allowing me to speak to you tonight on such an important topic um choosing our next leader unfortunately um I didn't get to speak about that before the decision but that's fine um I ended up deleting most of this while I sat here listening and but I wanted to keep this one little nugget um and it actually applies to Dr Robertson and all of those who are sitting on the dis and everybody here in this entire room um the little offer of advice comes

175from Seven Habits of Highly Effective People which is habit number five seek first to understand then to be understood um we tell our students listen before you speak um please listen to the parents they are entrusting us with their children to educate them sorry that wants me to update no um okay uh please listen to the teachers we are in the trenches teaching and educating the children um oh good no anyway okay and uh please listen and have conversations with I'm so pleased to see them here today Commissioners state legislators those in our government who actually hold the purse strings so please have conversations and come to a great building the bridges community and that's all I have to say because my phone's updated Rebecca day hey Mr Joe good evening board members and thank

176you for adding this committee to the agenda um first in all transparency I'm speaking for myself I'm not speaking for a group um and I just wanted to say I'm actually thrilled um I just wanted to say I am a child of God so I try I'm going to try to make my words align with what he thinks and I think if I'm not mistaken all of you too would say you are children of God I mean you read a Bible verse tonight so I did not know that about you but good job um it is necessary for Christians to be courageous speak up for those who can't speak for themselves or children and I do have a grandchild in the school system um so please just bear with me while I provide some feedback

177on the committee that you will hopefully be setting up to complete a review of the policies procedures and standards surrounding reading materials in Hamilton County thank you for recognizing that this is an issue that's bigger than just a random book or two there is a surprising lack of Standards oversight or guardrails around what's presented to our students and I love policies um so I'm going to read a policy Hamilton County schools has a dress code a student code of contact contact conduct and professional code of conduct for staff those policies say things like students should not use excessive slang or language that they might use in other environments students are not to use obscene profane threatening or disrespectful language in any Communications with Hamilton County School faculty staff or students the district defines profanity as

178Blasphemous indecent or obscene language email addresses that use profanity or may otherwise be construed as offensive shall not be permitted and students are not to incite a disturbance and that's defined as encouraging encouragement of confrontations fights disruptions that negatively impact the school Community encouragement includes but is not limited to using one an electronic device social media to inside a disturbance two racial slurs EPS or any kind or any form of discrimination so the question is since the district has deemed these things inappropriate for the School setting and disrupt disruptive to education shouldn't the material that's in the schools follow the same standard I hope that you will approve this committee and support the work that they do parents are asking why would someone not support this committee transparency and parent involvement I hope that you

179vote Yes but if you choose to vote no I hope that you will provide a clear explanation on why you made that decision thank you Dr Jeffrey [Applause] Wilson thank you all so much for your time uh someone asked me that I miss serving on the school board I don't miss the long meetings the uh we're here tonight uh came with members of clergy I'm going ask the members of clergy who are with me to stand if you would thank you so much and there others who had to leave uh as well as uh our state representative hakeim came with us uh commissioner Macky came as well and had to leave as uh councilwoman kunr we're here uh at particularly as African-American leaders we represent uh the students the the data that was shown tonight

180and the dispar we are the pastors those of us who are pastors of these students so we have great concern people say where are where are the pastors we're here we're here because uh among other things we when you hear things about uh Banning books and I wrote a little bit but I know our time is long and what I wrote on my paper is that if only it were about the books the problems that we face in this community uh stem Beyond books and the content within books uh one of my parishioners who was here talked about earlier uh books that we read as children killer mackenberg uh books that we read Huckleberry Finn that were required reading for us we had no choice uh but to read books that many times portrayed African-Americans

181in an unfavorable light so we wonder when we hear it if it were about the books where has the rhetoric been all along where's it been we've been dealing with it for years and years but it's not about the books and it's been mentioned and and candidly so uh that we're going to have to have uh continual conversation the new superintendent has to be I've heard he was a good man is a good man you got to be a courageous you got to have courage in this District because we and uh many of these these things we have talked about them when I was here we talked about them years ago I sat right next to you we had many many many talk but you wonder where we get it uh and and we're going

182to have to have candid talks Equity is real uh this community has come along way but it has a long way to go and some of it because we don't always like to say it some of it is race a lot of it is race I Know It uh we uh also come to support our board member uh because I sat on this board for nine years and I told her I was never alone there always to to African-Americans people say does it matter yes it does cuz we get out of here and I had somebody to talk to and uh now uh you it's a different situation and the culture is changing and people need to dialogue and communicate but no no one should ever leave a meeting and feel you need security amen

183so the preachers have come out and the community leaders have had to come out and say we have your back but we got to do better we have your back we got to do better we we got to have we have to have conversations and there's a lot of issues that take place in the community I don't want to you'll never hear me say that every every it's all black and white I know my 56 years I met all kinds of people some of them good people they black they white the color doesn't matter some of it's race a lot of that stuff I saw sitting back there some of it was racial some of it's class some of it's gender some of it is good old boym it's in this community it doesn't want

184to die some things die hard one minute so my one minute is is well spent uh we are here we'll be back we're in support of the superintendent uh we support Free Speech uh it's interesting that those who speak the cancel culture now want a cancel book folks I just find that interesting by by black authors uh and and we are here and we're in support uh but we got to do better thank you thank you that will move us to uh board matters um the Chief Financial Officer uh the new p uh position request for director of budget do I have a motion second any discussion M Thurman yes I would just like to say we discussed this on Monday this position is going to be budget neutral U just moving around some positions

185already there and uh some vacant positions to make money uh for this position so it is budget neutral it's not like we're adding another any more money to the budget just want to clear that up for everybody roll call please Mrs Hill yes Mrs Jones yes Mr Perez yes Mr Smith yes Mrs zurman yes Mr Walker no Mr Wingate yes chairman McLendon no that will uh take us to community superintendent uh Midtown Learning Community uh School turnaround pilot move to approve second I'm sorry who motioned that H Mr Perez was the second thank you any conversation I said my piece about this um you said you were going to say more I know I I I my mom taught me anything else nice to say don't okay um I I'm worried about how how much

186of a partnership that's going to be um I reached out to the state they reached out to me um had conver Sation um went a week without hearing anything back and got something back last night saying oh yeah well you didn't return our phone call in August so we're not going to really talk to you um and so I I worry about it I think there's some good things in here that could be done um I worry about the distraction that it will make for this for um Orchard knob that's already getting supports and what that looks like um but I think the the Howard program could we could benefit greatly from but I really hope the state um is a partner in it um and is a willing partner and doesn't just come in

187because they're the state and they have to and they have to and we have to approve this or they're going to withhold funding or whatever else they're going to do um so that's my piece Miss Jones so um I'm I'm not voting for this and it's really more just how I believe um and what I believe about this I'm I'm really tired of the state using our district as guinea pigs for their homegrown Garden programs um and because arer knob is already in a pilot I just don't understand why they need to be in two pilots I mean I I never I never understood that I thought a pilot was like an initial thing and then the second so I don't understand but nevertheless I'm not voting for this um I'm just not in the

188business of using our students as guinea pigs for things that are not evidence-based or research and have proven outcome I don't care what they try to appease us with with doing a Howard I do not support this I've made this perfectly clear from the beginning um and that's just where I'm at with it so I'm not going to vote for it and it's not because I don't want the students to do better and it's not because I don't believe Howard needs to support I just ain't I just don't have time for the state Shenanigans for pilot programs this is ridiculous like this school is about to come off the list and you want to put another pilot in there just that doesn't make sense to me and I think the whole avoidance of talking to

189our chair the whole back and forth theya with our interim superintendent it's all a game I just am really not in support of that so I'm not going to be voting for this m Thurman yes I'm just going to have to rely a lot on kit and and her school she knows a whole lot more about what's going on her schools and how this pilot will impact so kit I'm just going to have to lean lot on you on this if it's not something that you feel like would be good for your school then then I I will I will vote against it like I say I'm just going to have to respect your opinion about this Miss Hill Nikia um am I correct that we don't get a choice in whether the state is

190coming into Orchard knob middle correct um so I'm going to AER defer to uh SC on we we went round and round Mr Bennett um and the the want of future that's right have asked the question of do we have to do this and so yeah I guess cu the the fullness of my question is on the table tonight with this agenda item is is packaged together the state wants to come and and um win a quick win with Orchard KN middle because of the very diligent work that Hamilton County schools has been doing right um and my understanding would be that they're going to do that whether we want them to or not but because of shrewd negotiation on the part of of you and um others at the district we have the ability

191to accept a $750,000 grant to be used at Howard um where we know that we need to have additional resources so if we vote no are we actually keeping them out of Orchard knob or are we just cutting off our nose and not getting the 750 for Howard I I would I would I think that the way you just put it cutting off her nose despite her face is probably an accurate way to to put this okay the state has styled this as a partnership um I think that is a euphemism to be perfectly honest uh I've been I've been a party to several conversations both with the administration and with the uh the state my counterpart with the state uh Cate joural Council and what it boils down to is they the department was

192tasked by the general assembly uh with the responsibility of selecting a certain number of schools across the state and um they need one more school and Orchard knob fits their the their rubric um we can say no and their enforcement mechanism is limited to um withholding funding and so they could just take funding away from us for the value of the student population at they're not limited to a number oh fascinating so they they have the they have the fiscal Club um so so the state has created a program in which they want to come and take a school out from under us that we are about to move off of a priority list and the way that they're going to enforce that in in an effort to improve education in Hamilton County Schools they're

193going to threaten us with taking an unlimited amount of money out of our budget is that what you're saying well I don't want to put words in in their mouths uh but that's what they said to me oh is that what they said to you chairman okay verbatim almost okay so so I can't I was in a party of that conversation so Scott did I can you repeat that again they basically uh my conversation with them was if you don't approve this we will take funding just any amount they don't have no already ain't given an appropriate amount why take take what you let's be clear about something so so again let's go back to the point that Miss Hill made a minute ago which is this really isn't something that we have a lot

194of choice with okay um and we made all the arguments that that that y'all have just discussed that the Administration has already moved this school to the point that it's likely to come off the list anyway uh we made the argument that why would you have two competing uh Innovations going on in the same school at the same time we've made the argument that um really why would the state be wasting money um that is desperately need elsewhere in Hamilton County to to to take credit for work that these folks have already done to move the needle that was going nowhere simply because the the state department is also sort of stuck because the the statute requires them to check some boxes so they have a limited amount of latitude no I think they have

195more latitude than they necessarily suggested to us um but we can't we can't change their minds so so what Dr towns did was she went from okay you want to help someone let's give you an example of someone who needs help and so she articulated and very very very clear terms every reason why Howard should be the focus and and I think the state realized that that we were right Howard is the better choice for this initiative than Orchard knob except that it hasn't been on the the list for the requisite amount of time for it to be ripe to go into some sort of pilot so so what they did because they recognized the Merit of the administration's argument they crafted out of whole cloth something for Howard because they recognize that that there

196are a lot of elll issues that are that are developing across the state and this is really an opportunity to help Howard help Hamilton County schools and develop a road map for addressing these issues as they develop elsewhere so we were kind of stuck with with the the the Hobson's choice a deal you can't refuse but we were able to Parlay that into something that that really does have an opportunity to help a school that is not currently in any kind of partnership okay so this is for everyone here and my my colleague James a great example of the over complication of public education um I bet someone that wrote this had a wife that used to teach kindergarden in public school okay well I strongly respect my colleagues and their vote no but I

197will vote Yes to get the money I will just sell us out for the 750 you better get that mrz so uh Miss Hill asked the question I had I I um hear you Miss Jones I respect you I understand this is uh some would yeah some would argue that it's a extorsion but um you know uh we need uh the money uh the state will have an incredibly successful pilot because that school was already out of the uh process so Kudos State because if I understand there were two uh firms we could choose one of them has never done this before and that's the one we're going with um no the one that's never done it cogne is is the accreditation we chose the other firm that actually has done turnaround so okay so

198they have in Partnership but those are two firms the state gave us and said those are the two firms um and so you know I I'm sure they did their due diligence uh behind the scenes um and so I will vote Yes because uh like my colleague Miss Hill I will sell my soul uh for the students of Howard um and uh and maybe I'll sleep at night I don't know M Thurman yes I it's you know now that I understand if they're going to do it anyway whether no matter how we vote I guess and it will just be it could cost us $750,000 and they're going to do it anyway so I'm sorry but I probably we fli we flipped her so so just to be clear I mean don't apologize to me

199because I my vote is a vote of stance my vote is a voter stance and and to be perfectly honest until the state gives us 750 I don't I'm not trusting nothing they say because they still ain't fully funded the B but my vote is a vote of stance for my community yeah absolutely yep respect and historically we've always been guinea pigs and I'm just not in the business of of of continuing to do that so we're I mean it's going to happen regardless I'm just not voting in support of it we hear you I just hope you hear us as well yeah I do we're good I understand yall yeah I won't BL the point but I think the public should know uh what Dr towns and Mr Bennett myself and other staff the

200position we've been put in to say the state said they're coming in regardless we said well okay pick this school we're admitting needs help needs supports the state said actually we're going to pick this school that y'all have done amazing in and it's turning around and they're going to get an easy win but to make you okay with it we're going to give you $750,000 it's not okay in my brain let's just put that out there say whatever you want it is I can say what it is but just so the people know this is the position we are put in as board members that says State's coming in we say Open Arms Howard Howard needs help we don't want to touch that we want to take this school that is a prior or that

201is coming off the list that's a in the uh priority school that has done a remarkable turnaround and they're going to take the credit and the department of Ed when they turn around they'll celebrate it and they'll do all this but we know the hard work was well before they got here and will continue when they leave so I just want to make it very clear cuz I've been dealing with this along with Dr towns and it does not sit well with me and I hope our state delegation it doesn't sit well with them um and we have some kind of change but let's vote roll call please I have sorry Mr I didn't see your a comment and question my comment is I agree with Chris I you know I'm from Missouri you know

202I want to say the money show I want to hear from you Dr towns because I see you shaking your head a lot and I'm I'm really not sure sure what you're shaking your head to are you shaking your head to we don't have any choice here or yes it is my understanding we we pushed pretty hard on this and back in August at the end of August I asked Scott could we Sue like what would happen if we just said no um and and the board's attorney advised me that there's no beating City Hall so he said that there there's no way around this it's in the statute the state gets to choose the schools so we went round and round about the schools um and we offered again multiple times multiple occasions multiple

203ways with the state department that we'd like to do this with Howard they told us no multiple times multiple ways and um landed on Orchard knob middle we pointed out that Orchard N Middle is already in the partnership Network Orchard N Middle is already above the fifth percentile um we anticipate that Orchard N Middle will not be named a priority school when the new list is run in the fall of 22 uh none of those arents worked and where we landed having made the argument and put on the record in terms of the data at Howard versus the data at Orchard knob middle that is to Scott's point we negotiated the concession that we would protect Howard from the achievement school district and earn $750,000 of support but they still insisted upon Orchard knob middle

204being in the pilot so as I understand we have no choice it's in the statute the statute said that the department gets to choose and that there's no way that we canop stop them from choosing so we can't we can't meet them at the County Line and that's what you're saying we tried we we try right that's unfortunate because it is extortion it's unfortunate it's mean it's wrong that really makes me angry yeah roll call please Mrs Hill yes Mrs Jones no Mr Perez yes Mr Smith no Mrs Surman oh wow we got count it's okay we got the vot go vote no vote no I'll v no I'm with you I mean I hope we have the vot Mr Walker no Mr Wingate no chairman mlon well there's already no votes so no so

205two are uh Phil on ropic Community um we would love to see you step up with $750,000 I will say this I will anyway I will say this they're coming but they're coming since I have not got a call from commissioner swin before this I hope to have one tomorrow um because we're about Partnerships and since it's been said it might not be the legal Des uh definition of extortion but it's what it is it's what it is and if we need to do what we need to do and this Board needs to have conversations uh let's have conversations and let's not have back room deals and the the passage of money to get yes votes because as you can see that's not going to work up here so just Jenny and I sold our

206soul I that's what happen sorry Scott thank you for all the work you did him work tomorrow n and I just work here we worked past T moving on uh to community superintendent Miss Missionary Ridge Dr Jason Vance intervention and support Grant uh support grant program do I have a motion yeah I don't know yes this is this is theou for the $750,000 I'm gonna vote Yes on that one now we will certainly that we're signing it but the state department has not signed it I suspect that regardless they may be different the conversation will be different however we should go ahead and move Pro yes second okay roll call please Mrs Hill yes Mrs Jones no Mr Perez yes Mr Smith so that money is for Howard that's for Howard 750 it doesn't include

207the the orchard knob then yes absolutely yes Mrs Thurman yes Mr Walker yes Mr Wingate yes chairman McLendon yes oh now they're going to have to say know looking forward to that conversation um that will uh bring us to the formation of a uh special committee um I think Monday you all got uh from Miss Ford the breakdown of it that I sent to y'all um be before we get a motion or whatnot um truthfully 90% of my time the past month or two has been superintendent search um and that's what I've been focused on so yesterday got a chance to breathe didn't have anything going on got on social media um and there was all this talk about banning books and taking books out of our schools my name's on this memo and I

208don't put my name on a lot of stuff I was like did I put Banning books in here because there's not anything on this I think one thing that's been mentioned um earlier tonight courageous conversations and I don't know if there's a better um two words to kind of fit what this is this is not about banning books this isn't about removing books this is about hey let's have a conversation that's not up on this dis if I don't spill all my water and let's have a community conversation let's have a partnership that we were just talking about and let's look at our procedures our policies and how do we make that better not for us up here but for our students for our parents for our community so I this this talk and this

209rhetoric and I saw media reports not about banning books that's not what this is this is about having conversations I'm not of the the the thing to ban books because I think if you ban books you have a slippery slope but I think this conversation and this County can have this conversation that leads to meaningful change needed or not we'll decide that's not us this this committee will bring a report to us and we'll see and it will be made up of 18 people that live in Hamilton County that will give us Direction on what they think so this conversation about banning books it it gets clicks it gets that but that's not what this is about and I'm the person that put this on the agenda and I can guarantee you that but I

210do think that we've had coners Sation and we've had things brought to this board that a lot of us have said we have some concerns we have some pauses about and we're trying to navigate it and see what we need to do to make it better for our students for our parents for our community so I just wanted to leave that out there first um but do I have a motion so move second discussion Mr Perez so um thank you for for the explanation uh because Miss day asked that if we're if we're not going to vote that we be clear um so there's a few reasons uh the primary one that crosses my mind is we just voted a new superintendent into office uh who will start uh within the next uh few weeks

211or whenever that is after we uh sign a contract and move forward uh whose uh priority in my my opinion for the first 100 days which is about the time that this committee was placed uh and given the responsibility to decide um is to invest in building their team and their focus and their future um and uh and to set us on the right path excuse me um and [Applause] it won't do hey just can you close it there we go anyways and so for the I I hear you Joe I'm gonna hurry up um and so for the first 100 days uh I really don't want this to be the focus I I and and already part of the superintendent's job is to kind of uh pick somebody or um that doesn't change because

212I think that would be unfair if I said that was the only reason and I don't think I would be truthful fully to you and I want to be truthful to you I've stated my opinion on this I I have also seen the other side and I was thinking about this um you know like when we send our kids to to their grandparents the first time right and they come back and they're like Mom I ate ice cream and I played uh Nintendo all day or whatever it is these days and that's I just aged myself and um you know and and we watch Silence of the Lambs you know and they're only 5 years old um and and you're like you know it's this wait a minute you know you have the conversation with

213your parents my kids weren't ready for that I think when people do send students to our schools uh they have an expectation I yes we would wish uh all Stu all parents knew what their kids were reading we have ways for parents to to remove that um or to ask that their child not read this book or to pick them on books uh but I think just overall I go back to the to the statement one I don't think uh it's our job uh to be uh selecting for all parents what their children should read and um and I don't think uh though I may make choices on my own children's uh reading uh having said that I've already talked to two people if this passes so so I respect that the board may pass

214this and and I will put two people in the in the committee that I think will will serve well but I can't I can't vote in good conscience uh especially for the 100 days of of our superintendent as they move forward M Jones so I I have a couple of questions about this committee so um in the selection of the the I know you said every District would have two representativ well those Representatives how would they let me say this will they have connection to Hamilton County school so like do they do they need to be like a parent or a grandparent or guardian or a teacher or you know like is there a connection to them in Hamilton County Schools or is it just two people in your district and the reason why I

215asked that is because um I I kind of struggle with someone who doesn't have a buy in in Hamilton County Schools other than paying taxes which I have I pay taxes too but I'm just saying I kind of struggle with that because wherever someone else's child may go we can't go over there and have a conversation about what's going on in their system so that's a question for me and then two um I guess what would be the time frame um if if this is passed like what is the time frame to get you the two people the two nominees or the two people that we're wanting to represent our district um but thirdly to that um Marco brought a very valid point which I I had thought of too and was wondering had anybody

216else thought about that if this is voted upon um and passes should we wait um I I would think that we should wait and give Dr Robertson time to you know to get to get into his new role before we I mean I feel like every time we get a new well most recently every time we get a new superintendent is something tumultous going on when they first get in the office like since he here for one time can we just let him get into his place start his job then I mean I understand what you're saying I know people have had the you know there's there's conversations that people have expressed concerns but I don't think that they're going to differ in the time frame of him getting through a probationary period of being

217our new superintendent so I know those were like three loaded questions but since I'm missing my nephew family D I'm gonna be here anyway go ahead um I mean I clearly I clearly Miss so your your first question about related to the school system um I I put it on here it would be you know you're out to prove someone has a kid in the district or a grandchild in the district or you know where do you draw the line is an aunt Uncle so I just said live in your their District you have the opportunity to pick two people if it passes I do miss Hill does Mr I mean you know we all have to live with who we pick on on the the thing um I think if there's concerns about who's

218on the committee it's an 18 person committee there's going to be a wide variety of thought processes on there um and that's why I didn't do one person I I think if you expand it you know I don't know exactly who I'm going to choose yet but that's going to play a role and you know do I get two people that are the same or not the same and two different type you know that kind of thing so I think I think that putting that on each individual School Board member um they have to live with that choice they have to pick that choice that's who they have to stand behind and say these are my two uh people on the on the committee um as related to the the question um Mr pre had

219and and you had about um Dr Robertson's first 100 days I was very clear in here to say he can appoint someone to be on and and co-chair of this committee um because he might not want to he might say hey I'll come I'll do this but I don't have the time to do this and regardless I don't know if a superintendent in all fairness to them has time to really dig in like a chair could so I was you know hoping that he would we just don't have authority to say you know whoever ever else is that so um conversations with him about who he will appoint if it's not himself um and I think that will relieve some of those concerns about first 100 days um and it of course the first 100

220days and transition period are critically important but I think given the superintendent the way to kind of uh appoint someone to it alleviates that you good miss thank you um so I've given this a lot of thought you know you you said when you brought it to us that you'd been traveling you kind of put something together relatively quickly and as we talked about it at the agenda session several different questions came up and so I started putting some notes on paper and unfortunately my printer ran out of ink and I didn't get to share it in time so I don't have one for everybody um so I'll talk it through and then if y'all want me to pass these out um I I will um so I think it's it's very important to me

221that this be an opportunity for Meaningful engagement for folks um and that the work that they do is useful um and that the time that you spend if if you volunteer your time to be on this committee um is time well spent um so I was thinking about some committee guidelines I'd like for you all to consider um first um just for the purposes of the public all meetings of the committee would be open to the public announced in advance in live stream so that people could watch them on Zoom you know perhap what I found is like for example with the um a lot of the the task forces that have happened like the co reopening task force it's most convenient for people to meet on Zoom um but not my committee so um

222prior to beginning the examination of the policies and procedures um the committee will receive training on school law with emphasis on First Amendment rights of students and teachers and relevant case law because it's uh you know we've talked already tonight about how complex some of this stuff is and there's been a lot of case law around this already um and so um I think that would be very important for the committee to have um a shared understanding of of the foundation from which you work um and then also receive training on the Professional Standards for librarians again so there's a shared understanding because people are going to come with a lot of different um backgrounds um so that's some committee guidelines I'd like to add um and then with regard to the committee members I've

223been thinking about this um first of all I um I'd like to assert that perhaps we don't have a Schoolboard member on this committee um I know You' brought up Rhonda chairing it because it was curriculum but then I thought well it's actually not curriculum we're looking at because curriculum we've already discussed that we're really looking at policies and procedures and so that really is policy I'm not sure who policy policy right now um but it occurred to me that well and then also Rhonda has a strong feeling about this um which could cause some people in the public to feel like well gosh if Ronda is the chair then it's going to head one way um and thus undermine that Authority so I would say if Rhonda then Kissa um kiss's like don't volunteer

224me so goes back to perhaps this functions without a school board member which is fine because then they're going people are going to bring us their uh their feedback anyway so my suggestion would be that the HCS superintendent or the superintendant designed the chair of the committee um I would also like the board attorney to participate on the committee um for the exact reasons I mentioned we the I mean y'all in in Schoolboard training which you might be interested to know that school boards are the only elected leaders in the state of Tennessee that are required to do ongoing continuing education let that sit with you for a sec um but there's a whole school law one and I mean golly you must spend two and a half three hours just talking about First Amendment

225and what can be on a T-shirt and what can't be on a t-shirt um so Schoolboard attorney and then as I said on Monday I'd like to have an elementary librarian a middle school librarian and a high school librarian on the committee and if these meetings are to happen during school hours I think that it would be appropriate for the school board to make sure that a lotted money is available to the school for substitutes to cover their um to cover their classrooms um and um then the 18 appointees so the two per District um and I would I I I can't remember if you said this in your original one Tucker but members must live in the corresponding voting district or work at a school within the voting district and at first I really

226felt like anybody that's on this committee ought to have a kid in Hamilton County Schools but somebody um brought up to me the point that you know I'm not an expert on how you choose books for a library or how you teach a kid to read I'm a I'm an expert on my kid and only my kid and so that just helped me think a little bit differently that you know if maybe it doesn't have to be somebody that's that has a child in Hamilton County schools and you made the point uh well taxpayers taxpayers so um so that's my thought about um the committee guidelines I'll tell you where I get tripped up though you guys is the scope of work and the deliverables for the committee um this what we have in the

227document right now is the special committee will complete a review of the policies procedures and standards regarding reading materials and Scott brought up on Monday that reading materials might be a little bit wide um and I I don't know the answer to that which is another reason why I want Scott on the committee um you know is does that count the any donated book I I haven't I haven't studied these policies just backward and forward recently so I don't know if it covers the slip of paper that gets stuck in a snackpack lunch that says you know have a great day Jesus loves you I don't know um I don't know if it includes the book drive books that come through read 20 um or come through the can you donate some books for our

228Christmas Market um there's a lot of ways books get in so uh which speaks to the why we want to have this committee right um so just feel like we need to make sure that the that the team that's going to do this work together and have this civil conversation knows what they what their scope of work is um so those were my thoughts and um I have four copies of this that aren't mocked up if anybody wants to see them and so I I I don't feel like what I have is a fully framed idea but I don't I know that what we have on the agenda is not a fully framed idea and so I don't know if we need to keep B you know working out the details now if you guys

229want to do that um or if we want to table this to January um or I could make an alternate motion to use this one marked up without the with the thing but it still doesn't deal with scope of work and deliverable so I I just want to us to do this right so that people's time is well used and that we as a board have the data that the the um the information from the team to really be able to implement something useful ofed by a board member it's going to be subject to the open meetings and open open records act so that that box is already checked um as far as who chairs the the committee by policy uh even a special committee is to be chaired by a member of the board

230appointed by the chairman um everything else and and obviously if the board creates a committee um per the my scope of services I I I would be obligated to help in any way that that might be necess I can't think of anything else I'd rather do well you're goingon to be talking to the state about the um turnaround project no I say that I say it factiously I actually really do enjoy First Amendment issues um that that's that's one of the things that you know whether you know it or not you sign up for when you become a school board attorney Mr Walker thank you sir I think the committee gives an opportunity for people in the community to speak obviously um and give good feedback I think it's a great idea I think the

231bigger picture and it's not even just the books short time I've been on here we started talking about the books and then we kind of look at each other and then we look at the Department of Education members and then we look at sky and then we look around I I think what the community wants you know we say well that's their vote and know that's and then know the state what the and and I hear Scott say this a lot what's the pleasure of the board and that to me always signifies well let's do something about it right now um I I think the bigger picture is when when things are brought to us on these board meetings at the very least by the next one there needs to be some motions and whether

232it goes yes or no or 5 to four or 10 to nothing whatever it's going to be I I think that we need to act quicker um in some of these in these some of these questions we're in these positions to make those decisions uh I think the committee I'm going to vote Absol absolutely yes to get it and I reached out to one of my friends who I have more disagreements with and we don't agree on anything he was stunned that I reached out to him and asked him to be one of my Representatives because we do not think alike come to find out he doesn't live in my area so if anybody knows Ron low y'all reach out to him he is an advocate for all of our students U around and I

233think he lives in North Chattanooga uh but anyway um we got to be able to make decisions while we sat here and live with them while we're there I agree we got to take some time and talk about some things well we're here one time a month to get the ear and the voice of the people that are in here and and we need to kind of step up and make some votes and and and live with them right then I love the idea of the committee it gives some input from the community and the parents and the grandparents and and community members uh but I think it's a bigger picture about how we address things that are brought to our attention when they come up because it'll be like seven months since I first

234heard about the books so anyway that's my piece Miss Thurman uh yes the purpose of this com committee I mean this committee from what I understand and what I felt like because I was the one who brought this up had it not been brought up it this board still would not be talking about this and I was the one who brought it up so um so I don't understand what you say you know how I feel about it well yeah that's okay but some people know how other people every board member has a feeling about something so nobody would ever be able to chair a committee if we had to go by the way they felt uh because everybody always leans one or the other about something but the main thing about this is transparency

235for the parents because I tell you I have copies of some of the reviews of some of these books that I have handed out and people are astounded uh they do not know what we're talking about because you get so much misinformation on the news you get so much misinformation on Facebook you get so much information in editorials that you're wanting to ban books you're want to do no no I want them to just see I just just want to put it out there I think everything that we do should be put on the school website and if it's too vulgar and it's too vile to put on the school website that ought to be your first clue I think that everything that this committee does should be put on the website so so parents

236can go in and look at the conversation can go in and see see it in writing so they will know what we're talking about uh so they will know what their tax dollars are paying for uh also as we found out is this board when this first started we did not know what the procedures were to get books into the library we did not we were not clear about our policies about exactly what was there we also found out that there are people putting in Reading centers that we have no idea what these books are um we need to know this Board needs to get control of that to find out exactly what is in these we're not saying there's a problem with them we're just saying we don't know we don't have any idea

237but y I've heard people talk about you know black authors well when I talked about this Jeffrey I didn't know there was even this was even a black author I I had no I had no clue I didn't know I had no idea who wrote the books I didn't really care uh just some of the content of it was a problem for me uh so uh you know and then they talk about it being about slavery I'm like what in the world does this have to do with slavery I have yet to figure out I just don't understand anything about that um and then some people holding up sign saying you know treat to teach the truth about history what does this have to do with history I do not know uh this is just

238about informing parents about some some uh books that are in available to our students that their tax dollars pay for I just think it's important that parents know an informed public is a good thing in my opinion and parents need to know what their children are being taught I am not and I'm not saying what your kids can read and what they can't read cuz I really don't care what you get your kids to read that's up to you you but uh I just think that par like I say just information is the main thing I want parents can make choices themselves if they have given all the right information and not all of the garbage that you see in print and online and stuff like that that has absolutely nothing to do with what

239we're talking about this is about policy procedure transparency and the truth that's all I want Mr Smith um I want to move forward and and I I think we need to to appoint this committee and and move forward and you know what I have found in there's not a there's not a process Mr chairman and all schools are doing it different all schools have a different way of vetting things and of notifying it's everybody's different so this committee is needed to take a look at what people are doing and there the the committee is not going to decide anything all they're going to do is bring back to us some information and then and then this body will decide what we do with that information we need to move forward number one number two I'm

240not opposed to having Librarians I you know I let's have a couple Librarians but it needs to be parents it needs to be taxpayers they don't have to have a kid in the school they they pay their taxes they ought to have a right to to be able to make recommend ations to us and how we spend their money on books or whatever it is but guys let's move forward to this we we we don't need to kick this can down the road it's people want us to do something on both sides so let's move forward M Jones I just want to know that there will be a process I mean I'm not saying don't hold I'm not saying my voter whatever is my vote but what I just want to make sure that whatever

241happens that we have a process like if you're going to go ask somebody to commit their selves to a committee they need to know what they're going to be doing you know like you just I mean you can't I can't I can't imagine any me any parent or I I can't IM nobody in this room saying yeah I'm going to do that and not know what time commitment that looks like not knowing what the actual process is I mean I just I can't imagine that I know everybody in here I get it in the audience there are a lot of supporters for this and so that's fine but I just think that I mean I've never I'm not I'm on a whole lot of committees 2.0 early matters a whole lot of stuff and everything

242I commit to they tell church youth ministry whatever they tell me what my obligation is so I feel like we we have a due diligence to these people that we asking to commit to tell us a recommendation when you do an evaluation or a scope of work you got to tell people what they evaluating how long it's going to take and what it's going to look like we can't keep flying by the seat of our pants and the words of my grany like we got to have a plan and I'm not saying procrastinate but I'm saying before we say this committee is going to start on January 1 because I'm pretty sure they don't want to start next week cuz they're getting ready for Christmas baking cookies and putting up Christmas trees that's what we

243doing at our house so what I'm saying is you got to have a like when you starting on January the 6 you got to say we would like for you to be available beginning January 6 for every second Tuesday of the month or every third because these These are parents some of them and they have children that are engaged in things they have spouses and if they like my mama they caring for their Mas and they Grand Mama sometimes and it gets people have lies although they want to be an advocate for their children so all I'm saying is get a plan together like I I get it and if it's the pleasure of the people it's the pleasure of the people but give them something to go by and I I it's fine Rhonda

244ask for it you got here it's about to go to a vote just like with everything else but we have to have a I'm sick of dealing with this insane stuff of just doing stuff we have to have a process and Scott ain't and I love Scott the dev but Scott ain't the Bible all the time we got to have a process we are elected to have a process we create our process and run it by Scott it ain't no Scott in the Bible it's 66 books and it ain't no Scott just like it ain't no Kissa just saying I thought Genesis and Revelations ain't no Scott in there but we appreciate his but like Ronda side of time Scott's just the lawyer I don't speak to King James and I don't write and I

245don't write in red right but I'm just and I get that I know we need Scott for things but I'm saying we need to have a process in place and I think we have been elected and we're capable of doing that and then presenting that if we need Scott to look at it for legality purposes but we need to have a plan in place because we are dealing with people's uh Bill of Rights or amendments their right to do certain things we have to look at all of that I don't want to infringe upon anybody's stuff trying to make everybody comfortable Mr wi gate um so I think just a couple things real quick we've been here a long long time and um in a public school system you're going to have an infinite number

246of opinions about what's appropriate and I have close friends who have children the same age as ours and they let their children watch stuff on TV that I'm not going to let my children watch on TV right um but I know when they go over there if they go over there that that's a possibility right I'm informed about that um and so I'm for the committee simply for um uh the fact that there there there are in the school systems in our school system there are inconsistencies uh in how supplemental reading is identified how it's Monitor and how it's distributed and I'm I'm not saying it's just willy-nilly but as Mr Smith has already spoke spoken to it's done differently um in different schools and so all I'm saying is if this helps us come

247to a place where everyone's clear on regardless of whether you you think what's in the library or what's available is appropriate you at least know the process for how a student goes about acquiring a book and then parents have to make their own decisions after that um and and that's that that's now the other thing I would say is I'm not an advocate for for hurrying up and getting it through um because we do need to be clear on what what we're asking or tasking these people to do and what that work's going to look like um and and uh I love the saying if you don't have time uh to do it right how will you have the time to do it over so I mean I'm not for kicking it down the road

248but I want to make sure that we you know everybody's clear on what they're going to be tasked to do do and so that um you know so I'm for it uh I would I would like for us to stop and and and just take a breath and make sure that you know what we're doing mean we we've already admitted hey I put this together pretty quickly right already admitted hey I I I looked at this and tried to print something off and put it in your hands I mean let's just let's be sure that that what we're doing is going to be beneficial and productive that's all I'm saying Miss Hill thanks so sounds like uh the desire of the board overall is to move forward and to do this well so um it's

249910 um 12 on mine 912 thank you Marco Okay I'm GNA hand these out if y'all would be so kind as to just take a look there's three just share them down that way well if we're going to not Kick the Can down the road but we're going to do it well let's do it well so this is the expanded idea that I brought um nobody else brought anything so let's start looking at it um does anybody have any issues with um the committee guidelines anything we want to change on that so so are we really doing this at 9 o' tonight well I mean and thinking we gonna have sense of this I haven't eaten all day I'm just being honest like I'm about to get the shakes I think it would be well

250I mean we can I I move to use this amended version you have a motion we can't which I have read verbatim to ad we just approve the committee can we approve the committee and then yeah then can we improve the committee and then then put all figure out what's in it no we know what the committee is going to do with the particulars like this I mean I mean you just come in with this and say approve my stuff well that's what we got on guys real quick I I want to explain why I didn't put a certain amount of guidelines on this because I don't know what it looks like and the committee needs to decide because I don't know if they're going to say there's 18 of us let's have a committee

251of six on this a committee six on this and I can't say hey y'all are going to meet twice a week or once a week or whatever else well I haven't yielded my time if you'll let me finish then the items that I have under committee gu guidelines are very important for us to determine tonight if we are going to create a committee we need to know who's going to be on it okay um so who do we want on it I want more than two people from each per from each system does anybody else want any Librarians on the committee to evaluate our books Scott how can I get a second to add well we have a motion on the floor already to use this one no we have a motion on the floor

252already to approve the original uh committee Scott what would it would not need to be a substitute motion well it would be a motion to amend a motion to amend your your proposal so that that's it all right so you just so I have this clear you want to have a motion to amend I motion to amend using this committee guidelines in this right here what's under the highlighted committee guidelines the guidelines toope work can I ask a quick question Mr pres just a very quick question uh I understand that we will have to have a uh special meeting to discuss the contract of the new superintendent correct correct next week most likely correct I will be out of town the following week it'll depend on how quickly the chairman and I can get something

253done okay as usual I will I will discuss with you as as quickly as I can how the process is going but I think next week would be very ambitious okay I I'll be out of town the following but hopefully it won't be them but that's fine okay here's the here's the exact motion I would like I would like to to make an amendment to the motion as follows that all meetings of the committee will be open to the public announced in advance and live stream that's already that's in our okay well I'm just it's we don't need to put that that's in our policy what happens prior to the beginning of the examination of the policies and procedures the committee will receive training on school law with emphasis on First Amendment rights of students

254and teachers and relevant case law and Professional Standards for librarians gen committee members will include I don't understand why any of this would be objectionable and this is my Amendment no Jenny we're just saying that to be perfectly transparent we have had a long meeting okay so we're about to make a decision that's going to affect 18 plus lives including the nine of ours so at this point 27 lives would to be affected it's 9:00 at night we call work sessions for everything else can we not call a work session for this well we are in sound mind and body Scott can go home and pick his brain and figure out the logistics with Tucker and whoever else is going to move forward we're cheering it and then we come back we can talk about

255you know he can pick his think about it so when we come back with these things if it's not legal then Scott can say hey guys it's not legal I think that's a great idea that's what I actually said when we began this conversation so yeah can we just do that I'm just we have a motion on the floor that's say don't we have to we have a motion on the floor that's already been seconded Miss Hill is making a motion to amend and she was in the process of doing that so we will let her do that if she has a second we will move forward with a vote on that Amendment if we do not we will move to the question on the previous motion which is what we have in our agenda

256so miss Hill can thank you chair um committee members will include HCS superintendent or superintendent design HCS board attorney HCS Elementary librarian representative HCS Middle School librarian representative HCS High School librarian representative so the only material changes that I've added there are the additions of the board attorney and the Librarians 18 appointees two per District each School Board member will appoint two members to the committee members must live in the corresponding voting district or work at a school within the voting district that is not a change that is what Mr mcclinon had in his original uh document and that is the extent of the amendment that I would like to make will someone please second that do I have a second Jones second sure yeah why not okay so so now we move to a

257vote on the amendment the amendment okay the amendment is just adding this people to the correct corre yes roll call please Mrs heel yes Mrs Jones yes Mr Perez no Mrs uh Mr Smith yes Mrs Thurman yes Mr wer no Mr Wingate no chairman mcclinon no motion fails motion fails four4 vote okay we will call uh M Thurman do you have your light on oh no okay okay so that brings us to the original question roll call please Mrs heel no Mrs Jones yes Mr Perez no Mr Smith yes Mrs Thurman yes Mr Walker yes Mr Wingate yes chairman McLendon yes so that passes uh that will move us to uh yall have the legal services report um in uh your agenda then we have a list of uh events and announcements it's long so

258I will not bore us we've been here already ready um as was stated by Mr pres and Mr Bennett uh we will start contract negotiations and uh we'll have a special called meeting at the time of uh when we're ready to approve a contract with that we're adjourned