001We're going to call this thing to order. We don't got the best sound system here, so hopefully we can talk loud enough for y'all. So, um, if everybody will, we'll stand, have our moment of silence, and pledge allegiance. Thank you for that. Doug, you here to lead us in the pledge. Flag back. Please face the flag and begin. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Oh, thank you all for that. I'm going to turn it over to the director for recognition. As far as trader, if you come up, tell us about scope and who you got with us right here. Good evening. Um, I've got two of my students with me,
002Mia and Lexi, that I took to the scope conference at Belmont University back in March. And They're going to tell you about their experience. So, first off, we want to start off with a thank you so much. So, when we got there, we um at the conference we debated the topic of the service hours. So, if students should be able requirement to complete 30 hours um by the time they graduate. And then these we put together this like cute little um pictures of us there. So this is like some photos that we took. Um this is an app we ate at Cheesecake Factory. And then this is our um lovely transportation vehicle that we took. Um we just also want to thank you guys so much because this was a very beneficial experience. Like Lexi
003said, just thank you for everything. [Applause] [Music] All right. Next, Mr. Steve Simpson. We got our golf team. Come on up. Come on over here. Come on. So, I'd like to thank Dr. Arnold and the board for having us tonight, recognizing the guys tried really hard this year. Our co-op's made up of all four middle schools in the district and all these kids and our golf team this year represented kids from all four middle school. So, I'm very proud that we have representation from all the schools and our district team made is made up of the top five boys and the top three girls from those four middle schools. And our girls team tonight we have represented I'm going to let her say her name her but we have Caroline Simpson and Berkeley Foss who
004are from Jefferson Middle and they weren't able to be here and our girls team they came in fourth place so they missed it by five strokes of going to regionals which will be next week. So I'm going to let her come up here. We want to do first. Come on up. Tell us where you're from and who you are. I'm Rogers and I'm from Middle School and I was the number one seed [Applause] in our boys team. They came in third place. There we go. Okay. They came in third place and so they will be representing us again next Wednesday at the regions which will be held at Dandridge Country Club. So I'm really proud of them and I'm going to let all five of them come up and say their names and where they're
005from. I'm in seventh grade. I'm Kale Seals. I'm in I'm Willass. [Applause] Hold on. Congratulations. [Applause] All right, that takes us down then to our public input. Remember, we got three minutes. Do we got a timer? All right, we got a timer up here. Kind of have to go fast. Who's our We only have one. All right. Sarah Montgomery from White is speaking about ally. I'm Sarah Montgomery. Um I have two girls that attend White High School. Um I'm also a CDC assistant in the building. Um my oldest Adeline is 12. She's in sixth grade. Um, Addie has been receiving services through Allied Health since 2020. Um, I talked before you in 2023, the first time this issue came up and we tried to do away with therapy inside of our schools. Um, Addie was
006diagnosed with general anxiety and OCD at 7 years old. She has struggled with panic attacks her entire life, mostly centered around school. Through Allied, Addie has become a completely different kid. just this year. She's brought her grades up significantly and um she hasn't had a panc. She was inducted into Beta Club this year. She gained the confidence to try out for both cheer and volleyball. Um and I'm proud to say she's a lady cyclone. None of these things would have been possible without allies. She sees her therapist once a week for 30 minutes to check in and discuss anything she's struggling with. I'm proud to stand here and say that she has anxiety and she's not afraid to show it anymore. I um was at the last board meeting purely by chance. I just happened
007to come that night. I had no idea that we were going to be discussing all at all. Um and I had a chance to hear what Mr. Hardy had to say. You raised several questions. So from here on I'm going to speak directly to you. You asked, "Why are the students still receiving services years after they were referred?" My answer to that is the issues that our kids are being treated for are issues that they have to live with their entire lives. They don't just go away. You asked why the door would be closed during a session and why that's appropriate. The issues that they're facing are not something that they want their peers to hear. It's embarrassing. And honestly, what is the difference between a therapist having the door shut or a principal and
008a teacher? the door's locked with a teacher. Um, you asked why there's so many behaviors um inside of our schools, even if therapy is being offered. And if you have to ask that question, quite frankly, you're out of touch with what's happening inside of our schools. I can suggest a few classrooms that you can go take a field trip to because I'm telling you, it's it's insane right now. Um, do these kids display these behaviors at home? Once again, these issues are that the therapists are treating are something our students will live with for the rest of their lives. Receiving therapy at a young age will help them better cope with the circumstances they're going to live with as adults. You also asked if kids were being pulled during during core subjects. They aren't. Kids
009are being pulled during specials, lunch, or recess. In my daughter's case, they ask for every single year what she would like to be pulled from. Um, and normally she rotates between specials because that's what she's comfortable with. She did go at lunch one year, but she wanted to spend time with her friends this year. Should the schools allow these services just out of convenience for parents? A lot of times um it isn't just out of convenience. The kids need these services. And if they weren't being provided by schools, most of the time the parents in our community couldn't even afford to leave work to go to these um sessions. In my case, I'd have to miss school um to get out of there every Friday. Um, and I quite frankly want to say if our
010school can offer this service for our students, why wouldn't we? It's free. We're not paying anything for it. And um, we're setting our kids up for the future. So, I ask that you put your personal opinions aside and think of our kids first. All right. That was it. All right. Yes, sir. Okay. That takes us down to items for information and director's input on items for information. So, I'll turn it over to the director here. Thank you. Uh I'm going to start out with request there for Sheriff Coffee to come up and uh Sheriff's in a good mood tonight. He had a good budget meeting. So, good good day. Go ahead, Mr. Sheriff. I was the one who asked Dr. Arnold to invite you to the meeting. I have some questions. Uh, I'm one of
011these people that I need to know what our protocols are right now before I can, you know, judge what our protocols should be. And there's been a couple of um there's been a maintenance committee meeting uh and a couple of other meetings where I am really not sure maybe we assume that everybody knows what the role of the SRO's are, what they what they are there for uh what they're there to do and maybe some areas that we're asking some things that we're asking them to do really it's it's not their place to do it. I mean I know in schools everybody wants to be a team m a team player and if they're asked to do something they go and do it but rather than me putting words into your mouth can you tell
012me what the SR what the core reason the SRO's are at the school or what the main purpose is. Well there are several but the the main one is uh is for protection of the students. uh the world that we live in bottom line their main priority is if there's a threat to that school or inside that school they are there to eliminate that threat that is their main responsibility u we do a lot of different things here u we know that's the the main core of it but we do a lot of stuff as far as investigating and uh and looking into things and pre-planning uh our SRO's are are constantly uh going down the hallways, checking doors, doing the prevention thing. Now, there are times of the year, some of them are air
013certified. They teach there to the students. Uh sometimes the uh teachers ask the SRO's to come in and speak to them maybe on some law enforcement matters and but the education part is not the main part, but they're there to do that. Um the SRO's I went into one um a school a few months back and the the janitor was in there and the SRO was helping them and a kid had got sick and they're you're helping clean that up. All the kids are in you know in the classroom and he said am I supposed to be doing this? And I said well we're doing this as a team. we're doing this at, you know, as as helping the the faculty, um, and so forth. You know, we we don't want to put them, we
014know what the reason is there, but we want them to be a team player with inside the school, too. Um, because the job that the educators have are a lot harder than what the jobs the SRO have. We're checking perimeters. We're making sure all the hard stuff that they do is in the summertime. Uh we do about 120 hours 140 hours of training and we use a lot of the school schools during that time which I know you came to Mount Wort last year where we're preparing them and also the the road deputies out there in the event something happens. Um so there's a lot of pre-planning, there's a lot of training on their on their side too. So, but the main part of what an SRO is there is to eliminate a threat if
015it comes in and there's other stuff too, but that that's why they're there. Are are there any again I don't know if there is a job description from the state as to things that they can do and specific things they cannot do. The reason I'm asking is um Coach Bradley had a maintenance meeting um there there was a question came up about SRO's going out and directing traffic during pickup and drop off time. Uh and and he mentioned and I tend to agree with him that that's really not their place and they shouldn't be out there. Their job is to be inside protecting kids. And I'm I'm just wondering if times people don't forget really why they're there and what their core purpose is. Again, I know they want to be a team player and
016if somebody needs to fill in and help out, they're, you know, just I think just they want to do that, but are there are there things that you would prefer that they not be asked to do or things that you'd prefer that they don't do? The Well, the directed traffic, I know we have two here at the high school. We have one inside the building and one's assistant out here. And then we have they're out greening students and other schools that come in. U this has been discussed before and I just go back to to these stats. Uh from 1966 to 2024 where school shootings weren't prevalent in the 60s and 70s until the until the later years here recently. But about 40% of the shootings happen at the very beginning of school and at
017dismissal. So that is a must that the SRO's must be in there greeting the students and being prepared. So that was one reason that I'm not for our SRO's directing traffic uh being out there greedy. But they are the most of all the times during school. If you look at the school hours of the days, they are the most vulnerable and they are the most dangerous. And that is the time that you will see a a shooting happen or some type of act of violence. That in the lunch period is a a third or fourth. But those two times we tell our SRO's be seen, be present and expect because that is the times through history that we've seen the most acts. So, so in your opinion, they should be inside the school or either
018if they're not inside outside the school but just outside the door, not out in the street, you know. Correct. Okay. Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And um sometimes I think the fact that someone has a uniform on um they tend to get placed where that uniform will be most effective whether it's their job to be there or not, you know. And I I just think we as a school district need to make sure we keep in mind why they're there and keep them in those positions for the exact reason you may. Great. Thank you. I know that every year we sign with the sheriff that has descriptions in it of what we will will not do. Just like whenever we shared keys, we had descriptions of what we will we will not do. And
019um so you know that's that's a lot of stuff. We had a conversation. I know that I had someone who brought up about the deputy directing traffic out on the high school and I informed them that wasn't one of your deputies. That was a school system employee with a car that you donated. Sometimes that gets and then also some people think sometimes that SRO's I mean anytime that you have an officer in the morning not on a call you encourage them to be at a school zone and sitting there to I know at any given time right here between Mount Horde Patriot Academy the high school there may be there's at least three there could be as many as six on a given today just sitting right here. They're people on in all the areas.
020We encourage them if if they're not they're not busy. You know, it helps that you know some of the schools are in the cities because the cities can take care of that. Our concentration on that is usually the D Valley corridor because that's where they're all out in the county. I'd like to thank you for this. Okay. I taught school well three decades can't remember but 34 years to high school and I was teaching there on coline and that's was an eye opener you never thought that much destruction could take place my two students and uh so I'm really thankful for your SRO's the only reason I brought that up is the end of the day at the high school was a very confusing time. They were kid going ever. They're kind of getting on
021the bus going hard. But I would guess and this is just a guess that 25% of student population was still in that school. And now you got kids wandering around. You don't have to really have teachers. I mean, I finished my hall duty because I had that certain spot to watch kids get on a bus and that was in a few minutes. and you have all the pathways, sports. I mean, it's it's just a lot of people wondering around and uh but that I wasn't trying to talk about it. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate your SRO's immensely and it took some pressure away from going to school and had a lot of pressure there. Uh uh I always like to say I went to school whistling but I sure didn't when I left and
022the end of the day and uh y'all went I always went with a good attitude and tried to uh but the SRO's are really appreciated by I know by the teachers what we can afford to put there is great okay but thank you M and your deputies I know I know they're trained very professional I've seen them in action you be proud of. Okay. Thank you, SH. And I appreciate that, too. Got a couple questions. Do they go through training? Yeah. They're actually required by state to do 40 hours in service. ever every officer is required to do that, but the SRO is required to do 16 hours on top of that train is what they're required to do. So, actually, you know, they're they're mandated to do about 56 hours. What we try to
023do is about 100 110 140 hours training. We give them as much training as we possibly can. We take them to the fire range four to five times a year to make sure that skill is mastered with it because we understand if that comes to that in school, we need them to be getting what they're getting. And so, uh, we do that. We've done one thing we're going to look at maybe this summer is maybe getting them some management training so they can have that in their tool belt. And then a lot of it is just situational training where we take them into schools. There's nobody in here in the summertime. And then we set up a scenarios and we've set up scenarios from someone's enter the other end of the building to a parent
024that's in the office area and something happens there. We put them in all these different scenarios, training their mind to to react to them. So, we do a lot of that in the summertime. We have simunition weapons, which they mimic the weapon we have, but they shoot off a uh I guess you could say a paint bullet. Don't feel good when it hits you, but uh but you wear protective head gear and all that, but we try to make the training as realistic as we can so that they're prepared in the event something like that happens at our school. since I have you. You brought something up. You brought situational training. My I've often wondered and and this is something that Dr. Arnold, I guess you probably could respond to too, you know, what what
025our protocol right now is in classrooms, for example, and this is something I'm very familiar with. Um if if there's a classroom and there's a child in there who goes into some kind of convulsions and I had epilepsy when I was a little kid so I know what it can do to a kid and how destructive it can be to the kid and to you know people around him and that kid all of a sudden just out of the blue starts flailing around and kicking and and everything else. I I I'm wondering maybe Dr. Arnold could answer this. What is our protocol for taking care of that until that episode passes? Where does the SRO fit in if at all as far as constraining the kid so he doesn't hurt himself or others and kind
026of what's what's the situation for things like that? Yeah. Within so we leave the SRO out of that. If they're there to help then that's part of it. they may be part of the medical response team or emergency response team. So we have that within a school for various scenarios that go on. Um we had one at Mari today and u reoccurring I sent you all a text this afternoon and it didn't go through. So I noticed that before the meeting. So it's good that I get to inform you all now. But u you know seizures seizures and medical emergencies um happen almost on a weekly basis um within this number of students. We had a student la Friday who failed broke both arms. Uh we had a student today who had to be transported
027by ambulance for a medical emergency. So that's a reoccurring thing. Um unfortunately within within our schools um we average probably one ambulance a week or so schools and but we do have a team in place that's trained for various things. uh AED drills, um medical response drills, stop the [Music] bleeding, then for illnesses like a seizure or allergic reaction, those type of things. Now, how again another situational things when when a a student gets up all right and not just disrupts the classes screaming and yelling and things like that, but actually begins to threaten teachers and threaten students in a classroom. Does a SRO get involved at that? They did today. Uh I believe there was an incident here uh where for whatever reason I mean you know we we for whatever reason I I
028don't know the reason but a a student got violent today um with slinging stuff breaking stuff just various things happening so SRO got involved today so sometimes you know you try to talk a student down Sometimes it goes, it just depends. I mean, sometimes it goes so fast it's immediate police present response. Um, you know, sometimes we have what we call crisis intervention teams um that respond whenever a student is upset for whatever reason. And that team is trained and and helps to deescalate the situation, bring the student back to a calm state where they're hurting themselves, threatening to hurt others, hurting others, whatever it may be. So that is you know that is something that we look at on a regular basis too as far as trainings for that. So it's not actually in
029this situation an SRO would get involved in this one. It's just kind of whatever needs to take place at the time based upon what's taking place is what happens. Is that right? Yes. Um, so you know, a lot of times a uh a student who frequently gets upset, the crisis intervention team is maybe used to them and and they know to talk them down and what to do and but sometimes it escalates so quickly and so much that nothing Can whatever happened here today was, you know, warranted a an officer getting involved in having to take the student into custody type situation. Was that an SRO officer? It was okay. It was good. Thank you very much. Yeah, I was actually juvenile in that situation and the SRO explained it to me and it was
030one of those situations where I think the staff here did an outstanding job trying to control it. But when the SRO got there, it even escalated further. So there will be no no work as far as service that already been walls and so forth. So I mean in those situations I mean I mean they're they're not common but when you get to that point you got to remove that from the building from the for the protection of the staff and the students on the uh What comprises that principles? Yeah. So, a lot of times it's people who have the ability to leave at a moment's notice. So, might be a administrator, some type of special area teacher. For instance, if we have two or three PE teachers, one of them may be on the crisis
031intervention team, a school nurse. Um, usually we have some one with the office staff, a school counselor. U, so we are also a lot of times not just dealing with the situation, but there's somebody there documenting the situation whenever we have to um sometimes restrain a student. So those are timed documented, reported through the state regulations for that. But it varies, but usually an administrator, a nurse, teacher, office staff. So how about the same that is like the same type of people. It is. It is the same type people. Um but both of those situations we reached out to. So we called 911 on both those got EMS in route and and so just like you know the SRO works for the sheriff. We claim them. We're proud of them. We like them. But we
032we also know that like Miss Julie Allen's back here. Where is Julie? She wait Julie. Julie's SRO's back here working with us tonight. She I mean they're a great team. Julie knows that's not her employee. I have to remind her sometimes. She loves her to death. So they build a relationship. It's tight. You know, you put a lot of trust in those people that's put in place in the event that's outside of school employees, but there, you know, at times there's a lot of things going on in the background that's outside the school that investigators do. I know that the the last time that a few weeks ago when we had a threat that we thought was a threat, you know, we took some kids into custody for making that threat and I think I
033pulled in the house at 5 a.m. along with my chief and chief and we're not going to stop. We've got the technology that we can start tracking the phones and we we it was about 5 a.m. we got in the next morning when I got home, but unequivocally we knew we had done it and they were accustomed to me and and they they were students but there's no time that we won't ever put oursel in that we have a thread overnight that we're just going to sit there we'll start on it the morning may be too late we're going to start aggressively going at it right then and and trying to figure it out and there was one occasion where we worked all night didn't get anywhere but we got there schools started, we was
034able to find out and identify and sometimes that stuff happens. But uh but if there are any more questions, I just want to say this one thing, the decision that you all made to put a master key in the hands of every law enforcement officer in this county is unbelievable. when that I know I have the master list there of everybody, all the deputies that have it, the constables, TWW officers, the highway patrol, all the city police officers have that key in their possession. They don't have to go look for a box. They can pull up on this side of the school, enter in, and go in, find that threat, and stop that threat. There ain't there ain't no other school systems around here I met in a meeting with all sheriffs and all police
035chiefs in Franklin a year or so ago when we sat down and I was in there two of the major cities and two three other departments that were bigger than Jefferson County and they said you know what's they put us in work groups and they said what is your some of your wish list they're like we wish we had this and I'm Okay. And then you got one over there. It says their SRL don't even have a working key to the building. When he gets there, the janitorial staff looks in. I mean, everything that was on their wish list, we' already accomplished it. Our 911 center has access to the cameras. They can pull them up and start giving dispatch information. But it was unbelievable to me. And I'm sitting there and they said, "What's
036some of your goals?" And I'm like, "My goals, I'm just thank God our goals are already complete. I mean, you all are at the they're at the draw, but I think a lot of it's about relationships between the the school board and the sheriff's office and the county government and everything else. But here, if you went to other school districts and ask them, "What are you doing?" I think you'd be surprised that they got outer doors that don't even lock that the draft goes through them and then they've got some kind of chain on them. That's not here in this school system. It takes a team effort to keep the 7,000 kids safe every day. That's that's our goal I know as well as surely and but anytime anybody has any questions about and if
037you got ideas how we can do things better we're going to have open ears and shut mouth said listen because that is the main goal is keeping our future safe and they are absolutely our future but thank you all again for allowing us to to have access to that and we just hope that we never have to get in that situation. But if we do, we're going to be hand sharing again. Next on my report um was a request about mental healthou. So, we currently have, as we talked previously, two mental health agencies that uh serve students within our schools. And based on last month's meeting, um the board discussed wanting more um say so within what the group does and approving anou. So, I reached out to Scott Bennett who joined us tonight. Um,
038and Scott kind of created a Scott created. Um, he's also seen the um RFQ that was proposed to bring in mental health agencies that the board picked from and chose a mental health agency. And then um Helen Ross McNab serves a small portion three they have three Helen Ross McN. Yeah, they have a room for three three schoolbased health leaison within or district and an ally service schools within the district also but I know that you all kind of wanted some say so in thatou and Scott's here if you have any questions I'll comment briefly on theou while y'all are looking through it. Assuming y'all had it up there on tape. I can project but I don't know that check that part. So, uh the document you have in front of you, you've got two.
039Uh one is anou that I drafted and the other one is the RFQ for uh behavior and mental health services. Uh, I had a had a conversation I think a month or so ago with with Mr. Hardy. He was asking some some good questions about the role of of counselors in Jefferson County Schools. And um, it's important to understand that that when you let someone into your school system during the school day that their mission needs to be to support the mission of Jefferson County Schools. So as a for instance u the the the mother who was commenting on on the services that that Allied was able to provide for her child so her child can can access a program of the school. That's what we're talking about. Uh on the other hand you don't
040want to turn your your campus into a a medical model solely just for the convenience of folks. So you so you want to have a a service that's tight that supports the program of the school. And so your FO your uh RFQ actually speaks to that. At the very top of the RFQ, it talks about the purpose of of what this board was trying to accomplish when when y'all went out to try to to solicit proposals. And what you write here is you're looking for folks who can quote strengthen the existing services provided by school counselors. And I think it's my understanding, Dr. Arnold, that you don't have an existing with your service providers. Is that right? We have anou with Helen Ross McNab and we have a contract agreement with Allied Behavioral Health. Okay.
041So what I proposed under consideration here is thisou the purpose of which is to to establish the the parameters whereby counselors are in here. They're they're working with students but they're doing it as part of your overall school health your mental health program with which your school counselors are already doing. But there's recognition that as mental health needs of kids have evolved over the years, they're more complicated. Uh it's not that school counselors aren't trained. They're marvelously well trained. But there's a line between what a school counselor can do and what a a mental health professional needs to be doing. Where that line is, I'm I'm just going to tell you. I am not qualified to say. Um, I think our school counselors know when to to raise a hand. I think our teachers are
042increasingly see a lot of folks in the audience. Our teachers are increasingly attenuating to that. And so what this memo here proposes to do is to set the these boundaries. Um, have you have youall had a chance to look at the memo? Yeah. Go this a little bit. Okay. So So um, I'm a lawyer at the outset. What I want to be sure is that is providing mental health counseling. The board is protected. Whatever happens, I don't want the board to be accused of any kind of wrongdoing. So, if you look at uh page, I'm sorry, paragraph 13, they have to have insurance. You look at paragraph 14, they have to agree to indemnify us and to hold us harmless. So, if something goes ary, it's not on us. Their their professional insurance covers us
043against any kind of arise. Um if you look at 21 under school district responsibilities, basically what we do is we provide a place. We also arrange for scheduling. Uh we're also responsible for if we see a need, we make a referral. That's all we're doing is making a referral. This is a very important point because this past year, uh the Tennessee General Assembly enacted the the parental rights and responsibilities act. Um, what that says very clearly is that parents have to agree to any kind of mental health counseling. Doesn't matter what it's for. It could be because Susie feels bad about bullying that's going on. Feels terrible about bullying that's going on. Maybe Suzie is is grappling with some suicidal ideiations as soon as he hears voices. Doesn't matter what the rationale is. we have
044to get consent. That's just straight up Tennessee law. You'll also notice that there's a lang there's language in here that that varies from what most mental health counselors are used to. Most mental health counselors are used to being able to consult with with individuals who are over the age of 16. Well, if they're going to do it in Jefferson County schools, they have to comply with the laws that govern Jefferson County schools. And the agent consent for us is 18. So that's specifically baked in here. Um anyway, the purpose of this is to provide the guard rail so everyone understands what they're doing and why they're doing it. If you have any questions, be glad to answer this answer those questions. I'll say that Helen Ross McNab has agreed to this already in another district.
045So I don't expect them having any kind of problems here. Yes, sir. So uh despite the comment that I had made. One, my intent was to get rid of mental health. Okay. Um I just have a lot of questions as to how they do business in our buildings. And that was then and that was exactly the conversation you and I had had a month or so ago. You from what I heard from Mr. Hardy, you weren't interested in getting rid of them. You just had questions as a new board member. Yes. And um so one of the comments that was made to me just a little bit ago was um that I questioned uh why a door would be closed and locked. I think that's let's just put it this way. That was never the
046comment that I made. What I questioned, and I didn't find it in here, was why on earth we would allow somebody to take your child that does not have a background check done and allow them to go into the room. I don't Is that in here at all? 5A contractor agrees to comply with with TCA 495413. That's the background statute and it's the same background requirement that is on teachers and anyone else who works with kids. Okay. So, moving forward, this would this would satisfy that anybody that came in to do therapy. Absolutely. I'm confident you're already doing that, but we have but it's required in this interview. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Because I don't think we are right now. Okay. for my conversation with an employee went on and that's my concern. Um
047he made another comment too that one of the reasons we should not be doing this is just for the purpose of convenience for parents. Yes sir. And then let me expound on that. So anything that we do needs to be in support of the mission of the school. So we have lots of mental health issues that impact the child's ability to access the program with the school. As long as we have a uh as long as our mental health program here supports our existing program school counselors, I think it's very worthwhile. Simply doing it for convenience because someone has an issue and I don't and I I'm out of my depth. I'm going to go see I'm out of my depth here. But if we have a a counseling issue where the child is not
048facing it a problem accessing the program in the school. Let's say there's a let's say that there's um counseling that's being required by circuit court because the family's going through a course and there's some ill feelings by a child towards one of the parents and it's not impacting school. That's the best example I can come up with off the fly. It might be convenient to have that done here at the school. And I'm not saying we shouldn't, but to me, this is a resource that's better reserved for the crisis situations that we were talking about, the things that would otherwise impair a child's ability to function as a student at Patri. That's my that's that's the best example I can come up with. There may be others. We maybe have school counselors out here who
049can say I can think of four more. or we maybe have some some people who may say well you know some good reasons why that example Mr. Bennett just used a great example I think we should prioritize because what what you're doing is you're you're blessing one or two vendors to come in and have access to your kids I think that makes great sense where it supports program the school all you're doing is making it convenient and I think it becomes a little harder to explain why you're blessing one or two providers when there's so many more out there. Does that make sense? It does. And and when we've chatted, I hadn't seen the the u the RFQ. U language that the purpose is to strengthen the existing services provided by school counselors. That gives
050me a a measure of confidence that that that the referrals let me come back to that that the referrals are consistent with why you were referring to school counselors. The point I wanted to come back to is because I haven't seen your existing arrangements. I don't really know what kind of gatekeeping we have. We may have really good gatekeeping with this. We I see I see someone nodding his head. We've got good gatekeeping. I hope that that's the case. This this sort of cements it that we have good it's for school based reasons not so will this that you've written up here will this basically still have a therapist capable of being in every school all day every day or is this more based on more of a meeting or session that is already set
051to come in. So the contractor under uh paragraph 22 they're to provide staff to conduct all program services at the school. Uh under B they're required to ensure the staff is available in the premise of the school. Um, so if I understand your question correctly, what they're supposed to do is to have folks who are available whether there's a need. Um, we're also supposed to provide them with space. So see what rather than me ramble, why don't you ask a question again? Be sure I'm tracking. So start of the school day, all the employees come in, therapist comes in, sits sits in the room, waits for child to lock the door, waits for maybe a therapy versus uh whatever therapist they decide to use or company, they say, "Hey, I've got an appointment 9:00 whoever,
052you know, in high school, whatever school That's a big difference. Sure. So you're talking about availability throughout the whole day at any given point versus a set time dis. So the the agreement says JCS agrees to provide a space for therapeutic services intervention at each school as well as access to the school's Wi-Fi etc. etc. So my uh my assumption is that and this is probably where you look at the gentleman who's out of his head. U my assumption is that the availability will match the need. Now if I'm the principal I'm going to tell the the contractor um Dr. army. I can't predict when I'm going to have a when my kids going to have a crisis. So, I need you here first thing in the morning because I don't know what's happened uh
053in the overnight. I don't know if Johnny uh stayed up all night because he was listening to somebody yell at his mama. I don't know if he was up all night because he was listening to the sound of gunfire. I don't know if he was online reading about threats or about accusations against him doing something where so he comes to school and he is that close to losing it. So if I'm the principal, I'm probably going to say, "I need you here when the kids get here because when they when they unload off the bus, that's when they unload problems." If I'm the principal, that's what I'm going to say. The agreement allows them to do that. The agreement I think also is organic enough that there's a flow where middle of the day they
054don't have appointments. Well, and see, you know, middle of the day, this when you're going to have your specials, you're going to have you're going to have lunch. This is not intended to be so brittle that it can't be molded to fit the schedule of the school. My assumption if I'm the principal is I want a counselor here during crisis times maybe towards the end of the day. You know, if you need to go and do something else, I I can I can look for that if I'm the principal. But if I'm the principal and I can't find my counselor, why have we given you a place that's reserved for you? I'm going to have a problem with that. I'm going to call my boss and he's going to call the vendor and and we're
055going to have a sorting out. That's how I see that. Leave it open for them to be here. The the agree Let me answer this way. I just figured out what you're asking me. You're asking me is there anything in here about office hours? There's not. Not per se. Okay. Now, could that evolve over time? Absolutely. Okay. Now, with the the multiple vendors being in here or we'll just start with situation happens and you know one child is already being seen because they said hey you know you come out on Tuesday morning it's the best time sudden so a kid child shows up what do you What would you do at that point? Because now you've only got one office space, two needs. That's a that's a a good question and it's an operational question
056that this lawyer is not qualified each. Okay, that's fair. Um, now let's go back to your premise. You got two vendors. I don't know what the plan is, but my assumption would be that that based upon staffing availability, maybe Helen Ross NAB gets this school, Allied gets that school, and the assumption is you develop relationships with the kids at that school. Yeah. Sometimes they like Allied is at the high school, Helen M is at the high school. They both have space at that location. um and there's plenty of students to go around whereas, you know, new market or tal at 275 or 300 students may not require just like it doesn't require a full-time assistant principal, you know, it doesn't require full-time staffing of somebody. I'll I wasn't quite but if you want it I
057can you come back to me. Okay. So, um, another question I have is, is this just set to or is this up to school district, school board, who is this set up to to allow, you know, say a parent decides that they don't want to use Ally or Helen Ross for whatever reason, maybe they haven't already therapist, and the child needs to be seen or, you know, Dad can't be in the evening. So out of convenience, they're going to make that appointment during the daytime and but this office space is already being used up. Is this just logistics that the school has to do? Is this I mean I'm I'm starting to see a really a big conflict. So let me let me rephrase your question. Be sure I get it right. So, we've got
058vendor arrangements with Helen Ross McDan and Ally and um let's see there's a there's a third let's say Cherokee because I know the difference. Cherokee I I was going to say Tommy Arnold consultant. We'll go with Cherokee. Okay. So, uh so Cherokee uh has services and let's suppose that that Miss Smith sends her child to Cherokee. Um, we don't have a relationship with Cherokee. Miss Smith says, "I really want my child to see Cherokee. There's a problem. I need really need get my kid in the Cherokee." That's not going to be a reason to add additional space. Now, the board is the gatekeeper. Obviously, if the board said, "Well, you know, we like Cherokee's um services," but they didn't respond to the to the the RFQ. They didn't respond to the RFQ. Um but mama
059says, "Listen, I really want my kid to get in to see Cherokee. Could you open the door and let another vendor in?" We could, but again, at some point, we're going from providing for the immediate needs of kids to now we're kind of turning into medical mall where it's exclusively for the convenience of of the parent. To your hypothetical, if the child is in crisis, maybe not um maybe not a huge like like hanging on a thread today, but there's this longterm struggle with with weight issues with with proveration on on various things. Paint the picture however you like. In that scenario, that's where the the school counselor needs to develop a 504 plan with that child's family to address the larger issues. Okay, Miss Smith, I understand that your child needs some additional supports
060and you're for whatever reason not comfortable switching over to our our current vendors. Child's not really in crisis. Um, how about we draft a 504 plan to address these issues and maybe during certain parts of the day, we allow for a release so your child can go get counseling or we maybe you arrange for the counseling at the end of the day so you can still get your cords in. There's a way to solve almost any problem, but this is not a recipe for opening up our schools to every possible vendor that might want to come in. So, I kind of feel like we kind of said these are the two vendors you can use because it's convenient for parents or you say we don't do that and parents figure out like other people a
061lot of people who have a lot of medical teams and figure out their 10, 15, 20 different specialists um and make it work. Uh you know, I I I kind of find it hard to imagine some I just think that Let me get to another question. I I don't want to let me let me let me like respond briefly to what you just said. So, not discounting the the complexities of of medical needs, but one of the challenges with dealing with mental health issues is that there's this really impossible to graft lineup between child's mental health the child's ability to access the program of the school, not necessarily just grades, but also that child's behavior. And that behavior could affect the learning of the child, but also people around the child. And so the genesis
062of the school counselor program besides giving kids access to other opportunities for the education program that they weren't wouldn't have been aware aware of. It was also to get in front of potential disciplinary problems to get in front of truency issues. And so it the genesis of this was to keep kids in school behaving so that they can learn and grow in the poor and contribute to society. In the last several years, what we've learned is that student discipline issues are sometimes that the kids just don't know about. But a lot of times it's because the kids behavior is off the chain for reasons that have nothing to do with how the child is raised. Has lots to do with the environment that it brings to school with them every single day. Now, I'm out
063of my depth. I'm I'm I'm a lawyer, not a sociologist or a psychologist. I'm certainly not a counselor. But I can tell you that most of the problems that I deal with in the school environment deal with student discipline. This is a strategy that boards around the state have embraced to try to better address student issues. I'm looking around the the table and I see two people who remember a very very very tragic case a long time ago where a young man was very imbalanced. He know someone nodding his head and he went home and he shot someone with 12 shotgun and over a cat. What we're talking about here is you think about Coline, that's terrible. You think about um Covenant, that's terrible. But there tragedies that occur in this community all of the
064time. And this is just a strategy for addressing that. I said I was just going to interrupt you for just a second and lie. I apologize. No, you're okay. He brought up another. So, so really this has been kind of promoted to bring mental health into the schools which would correlate to bringing down the discipline problems. Yes, sir. strategy watching it go up and we can't determine what it would have been but for these magnitude you can't I'll leave I'll leave that part of my discussion for sure and Mr. you're raising good policy questions. Um, and I'm ill equipped to to answer those. I can tell you if you want to do this, and I can I can articulate many reasons why you why you might want to. If you want to do this, this
065is a safe way to do it. Right. Well, and so I'll try to keep my questions to Sure. Um, I had another question, but I will I'll let coach Am I going uh I'm sitting here uh and you brought up something close to uh uh M the chain of command and I'm sitting here as a teacher. What do I do? This this came out huge. Great. What's the change commission if we're thinking of the same person what you mentioned earlier I had suspicions but he was no discipline problem no nothing and but I never thought that so at what point in time I guess I'm ask when did the teacher make a decision to move up the change chain of command. I know the principal is going to be dealing with referrals, right? This one
066uh in my teaching experience a lot of time this one was kids acting out. some of my worst problems. Uh those students today are doctors and lawyers that they grow out of uh you know but uh you know I'm just really confused. So what is what is the teacher role in all this? Well and then and the liability involved. You know, you you think you you take somebody uh and a student, you don't have anything. It's all abstract, but yet you set it up the chain of command. Uh and what happens? Let me let me be sure I understood that last part. You send it up to chain of command and what happens? Okay. Well, let let me first describe the what the chain of command would be as I understand it. And this is
067where I look to the principles and say this is where you and your your inservice training are going to need to be able to explain the resources that are available to your faculty so your faculty is aware of what to do in the case of what right? So my assumption is that the principles in their their inservice training talking Their teachers are going to say, "Here is our school counselor. You understand what our school counselor does? School counselor has time on the agenda to explain the resources. This is a resource. Now, it's an outside resource. I sort of envision that um probably a teacher like yourself, you know, may go down the hallway to Mr. Tibbitz there and say, "Hey, Doug, you're a counselor. I have a question for you. What do you think about
068this situation?" I I sort of assume that a that a teacher who sees an issue and has concerns because of her prof his or her professional obligation for the child may ask someone who has a little bit more expertise and then based upon that what happens next is you do a referral you refer and it doesn't say that it has to be done with the school counselor but you get parental consent that's state law and you make a referral to Ally or to Helen Ross. Now, but let's suppose you're like, you know what, I've known Doug for 20 years, but I can I can look at little Paul Harvey down the in my in my first spray class and that guy needs some help. So, you may decide to go ahead and do a referral
069without talking to someone else. But the the lynch pin there is your professionals who are mindful of their duties under the teacher's code of ethics are watching kids and you are alert to what's going on in the classroom. And if a kid's grades suddenly drop or if he's suddenly withdrawn or if he comes into school and it looks like he's wearing the same clothes that he wore the night before or and I'm looking at him watching I'm seeing eyes because you're like I've seen that kid and there's a little bit of panic amongst some of you. You know in your gut when you need to make a call or you need to go down the hallway and talk to a colleague who's maybe a little better versed than you are to translate what you're seeing.
070So the legs of this, the operationalizing of this I think happens in the school building where the principal say talk to the counselor or just go down go down and make a referral but make sure you get parent consent. That's the change. Now what happens if they make the referral? You want to talk about liability and I could write I don't have to care what I what I do now. Okay. Has found out that I've made a referral. Parental consent. They're not happy. So parental consent required. Parental consent required. We don't counsel a kid without parental consent. Now I know some people were out there and they're thinking about those situations where the parents the issue. I can't help you with that. uh state law and this and this was one of the points that
071was raised heavily during the legislative session. What about those scenarios where the parents don't want their child to get counseling for their own reasons or maybe the child is a victim of what's going on at the house. What do you do then? That's an open question. But you can't refer to counseling without parental consent. In that scenario, my advice is always you talk to your professional colleague. You try to word game out how can we support this child without providing counseling that would be illegal and if appropriate you make a call to DCS if appropriate. Now let's suppose that you approach and I'm not going to pick any board member but let's say you you appro you're concerned about about about young master Paul Hardy and so you want to talk to his parents Paul's
072dad is living I can't believe there's nothing wrong with Paul I am livid how dare you cry that's not a liility issue. You may have a barrier between you and that parent that you as a professional need to figure out how to work around if you're going to serve the best interest of the child. But you're a professional. Sometimes sometimes you don't get along with people. You got to work with you got to suck it up and you got to figure out how you want that person. I'm not worried about the parent suing us because whether you make a referral or not is discretionary law. We're going to be immune from the six. Now, don't lean too much into what I just said. I'm not saying that you do something or you don't do something
073because you're worried about being sued. Okay? Always do what you need to do for the best interest of the child. Okay? Go like this. Go. Yes. All right. So, so you'll never hear me say not to worry about the lawyer. I am I'm worried about being sued. I want to protect y'all as best I can. But generally speaking, under tenency law, if if you're doing what's best for the child, you're not going to be facing litigation or at least liability. Now, here here's the other question, and this is to Mr. Hardy's point. These folks are behind closed doors. We make a referral to someone and that person either does a lousy job counseling and the kid goes from bad to worse or or worse still the counselor takes advantage of a vulnerable child. Well, just
074as our parents have to rely upon the professional ethics of our teachers, so too the parents will be relying upon the professional ethics of the counselor who providing services in our buildings, which is why we have requirements that they the licensed certified counselors that they have appropriate insurance that they agree to indeed. Again, my least significant consideration is the liability. I'm worried about taking care of kids, but I wouldn't be taking care of you if I hadn't buttoned up the liability side. I tried to do that. Well, you know, still uh if I was a parent maybe and I found out my child had been deferred, first question out of my mouth would be who first? So is that name privileged information or you know what I'm saying is you got a teacher uh teachers
075I don't know how to describe I don't want to use the word abuse but uh how many teachers we got out here parent teacher conferences you ever had any of those you know you know what I'm talking about right uh and you can get a good talking to you understand so once apparently they find out I referred their child to them for some reason, but I don't have concrete evidence about then boom. Yeah. So, so I'm the principal of the school and the parent comes to me and says and I know that that coach here has referred Johnny to a counselor and I approach Mr. Smith and say, "Hey, we have we've got some concerns about Johnny. like to refer him to allied mental health. Mr. Bennett, what are you saying? Ally mental health. There's
076nothing wrong with my son. Who says that he needs to Well, that's where I as the principal need to step in and say, well, let's take a step back. Here are some things that that we see in school. There's nothing to be ashamed about here. There's there's here's some resources. There's nothing stigmatizing conversation and that's where I as the principal become the customer service manager. Principal y'all know that y'all are customer service managers and that's that's that's what you do. So I become the customer service manager and so I as principal going to protect my my employee coach. Now at the end of the day if Mr. Smith says I want to know who I tell you what I'll we'll set up a conversation. I'll sit down with the three of us. Three to sit
077down and talk about it. At the end of the day, they'll be able to find out who made the referral, but as a principal, I would direct text. My professional employee can sneak in. Yes, sir. I just got a question. You were saying Mr. Smith says nothing wrong with his child. And this goes on and on and he says, "No, I don't want counselor send my child, but this this kid is getting worse. What do you do? I mean, if the parent says no, in in Tennessee, we have the constitutional right to parent. And that's where we as the educators have to respect the authority of the parent to raise the kid. As educators, what we have to do is we have to explain our concerns, articulate them well, but respect. Parents says, "No, thank
078you. I get I understand everything you're telling me. No thank you." Parents have right spirit. Now, I'm making an assumption here that what we're talking about is, I don't know, body image. uh peer-to-peer conflict. Um nothing that is implicating the the the life of the child. Now let's suppose let's let's change the facts and say Johnny comes in and Johnny says I'm seriously considering taking my wife. If I'm not here Monday, you'll know what happens. At that point, we have a different set of circumstances. At that point, we call crisis. At that point, we've looked in the SRO. At that point, we're no longer trying to get consent for services. That point, we're moving to a different posture. That's when we bring in the crisis response team and we've amped it up a bit. Okay.
079Now, what that requires is coach here. He's working with the kid with counseling. Coach stays engaged. stays engaged. He's fulfilling his professional duty. Maybe he's not sending the kid to counseling, but coach is staying engaged in speaking grace and polite that child teachers do. Coach starts to realize there's something else going on. That's when coach. So, this is a tool. There's only one tool. The board decides not to use this tool. We have other tools. If the board decides to use this tool, the parent says no thank you. We have open, Mr. Chairman. Um, um, I've got kind of a sequential question here. Okay. It's not and and Dr. Arnold, maybe you can correct me. My understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is In the past, we have determined that a youngster needs
080help. So, we then we again this could be wrong. We refer the youngster to a behavioral health service and then they get the parental permission. they actually approach the parent to find out if it's okay with the parent that they see the kid. Is that what we've done in the past or do we do what Mr. Bennett has in here? Do we approach the parent first, get the permission from the parent to refer the kid to the behavioral host service? And so right now counselors make referrals. So in talking to coach um teachers do not make the referral, custodians do not make the referral, kitchen staff, they may talk about a child to the counselor, but the counselor makes the referral u to the parent and the principal makes the contact to the parent. Uh
081an administrator reaches out. Sometimes the counselor may be there with them but that occurs prior to so there is that outreach. Um so the referral may be that the the referral meeting counselor the school personnel reaches out to the parent first first. Yes. All right. That was my question. Yes. So the parent before the behavioral health service even gets involved the parents has has to opt in and say yes I want that behavioral health service whomever it might be yes it's okay with me that they get that's correct they they talk to school person personnel prior to talking to a outside contractor and what kind of information do we give the parent about the service that we are we suggested they refer their kid to. In other words, if we say um we uh have
082Helen Ross McNab here, um we would like your permission, your written permission, I can to refer your youngster to them at that point. What other information about the service provider can you give them or is it pretty much on their own to find that out? So we we do um give them we have a list of of course partners within the school outside agencies that is available. Um so a lot of times too we may not know um if they seek that outside or that mental health help and unless they get called out of class and go to Ally, we may not know that they go to wherever else outside they may go. So I guess I'm I probably not making myself I guess I'm asking if when we determine what through either behavior or
083through ongoing observation that a kid needs help at that point somebody tells somebody in the school I would presume a teacher says you know Sally's acting a little strange we might want to alert the parents and let them know that you might need some All right. The teacher would then tell somebody in the administration, either the counselor or the principal that, and then the principal would reach out to the parent or who, whoever would reach out to the parent and say, "Here is a list of providers in our area that we think Sally, we think you should, you know, any one of whom we feel confident could, you know, council Sally on her on her problems. Then is it up to us to if they say, "Well, who do you who do you suggest?" Could
084do we then suggest somebody or do we say ma'am? It's really up to you to we don't tell you what dentist to use. We don't tell you what, you know, uh neurosurgeon use. We really can't tell you what behavior of health. That's really up to you to determine that. But your kid does need help. I I I mean, I'm just trying to find out what the kind of scenario. I I I feel that by referring somebody, again, I'm not worried about liability. I want to make sure that the kid gets the best help. But are we to get to give a dumb analogy, we had a gas stove put in our in our uh in our home. We went to Appalachin Electric. All right. Did we did it and we said, "Okay, you're going to
085sell us the gas stove. who you suggest to the connection. They gave us a list. They say, "We cannot and will not recommend anybody on these list." These people all are in that business. It's up to you to make that choice because if something happened, if that gas code because of what they do blows up in your house, we're not going to be on the the hook for that. We're not going to be, you know, told us to use Ajax Gas Company. we used them and now we're on the hook for what the damage has happened to your house. Um I'm just concerned that by us referring anybody in particular rather letting the parents make an open choice from a list we could have problems that way. And maybe Mr. Barrett you could you could
086address this. That doesn't really concern me. I mean that there is an endorsement aspect but that's what we do in RFQ who is interested in in in supporting our school health program. Our school counselors are already involved in moving along with this. I I'll give an example where um it isn't directly with the school environment but it's not it's not purely external either. kid loses a sibling for a parent, child still needs to come to school, but you can't say that that's not going to impact the child's ability to access the program or the school for some period of time. in that scenario and and I've been saying teacher but it could be any school employee goes to the school counselor and says hey do you think Johnny or Susie would benefit from Ally or
087whomever else and that's when you then make the contact with the with the parent back to your first question what do we involve or what do we share um we share enough information to get informed consent once we make the contact here to here. What ends up happening is Ally or whoever's at that school shares the information with the parent. So it's like tag you're it. It's up to Ally to share the information and say here's what we do. Here's what that looks like. These sessions are like you understand this is more or less confidential etc etc. the parent even gives informed consent but doesn't. So the the the scope of the information is between the provider and the parent. It's our job just to make the connection and then we step back. Okay. So
088that's the first that's that first question as this question that you just asked. Is there a problem with it being allied or Helen Ross McNab but not charity? I don't want to see that as an issue. You only have so many schools. Um certainly at Cherokee had responded to the RFQ. Did they respond to the RFQ? They didn't respond to the RFQ. So it so it's kind of a moot point. I'm not particularly worried about um a hypothetical where you know Cherokee says I would have liked to have bid on that didn't. So I'm okay with that. Uh now to your other point, what happens you talking about with the stove installer? Uh someone does a shoddy job and there's a liability issue. That's always a possibility, but we are ill equipped to judge the
089qualifications of mental health providers. What this board has to decide is are our kids better off with having these providers in the building than not? That's your question. Yes, sir. But from what I understand, the one thing that you seem absolutely adamant on is no referral can be made without parental consent, without parental optin for their youngster to see whoever. That's state law. That's state law. Yes, sir. All right. Do you see any difference between having a provider on premise to take care of emergencies versus versus having them on premise to provide long-term ongoing therapy? I do. Um the problem is I can I can articulate that difference. I can't tell you where that difference is. So, I'm I'm very familiar with one particular district where I'm sorry, it's not it's a provider that is
090an operator. They make regular referrals because this particular district has probably a serious suicide ideation every week. There's no plan. So, it's not crisis. Well, if you think about this, for that child to have those suicidal ideiations, have so many kids having what you're talking about is more systemic. There there is an ongoing issue. So it may be a crisis today, this week, this month, but at some point does it become more of an ongoing relationship that should probably belong out there so that our resources can be freed up for true emergencies? Probably. But I can't give you more than probably because candidly on this particular issue, I don't know what I don't know. That's where our our school counselors are going to have to have a good relationship with with your providers and ask
091the question, okay, on your case load, are these people who you should see in clinics or these emergencies? And and if you think about the number of referrals that school counselors are going to be getting, you're going to know is is Susie needing to see a counselor because the chancellor said, "You know what? get ready for supervised visitation with parents. Kid needs counseling. It's nothing to do with school. I think that's something that should probably be done outside of school in my opinion. But if you've got the counselor there and if the alternative is that Susie misses half a day of instruction, I can make an argument that I mean this is a convenience issue. I don't think that's what you lead with. I can make an argument that in that scenario, save the day
092of instruction if the counselor is not busy. But my real belief because of because of the disciplinary work that I do and because of the special ed work I do, because of the crisis I see, my belief is that this is a tool that should be addressed for those kids who have a real schoolbased like the the story we heard earlier about the child who was afraid of school. Anxiety, anxiety about coming to school. Well, that's a 504 issue. I can imagine I can't think of many more examples where the child can't come to school. It's going to have a school related impact. Well, so here's Susie. I get to go to Miss Smith. I keep I need to think of different names. I go to this nice lady who's the counselor and she helps
093me with my anxiety. And if I'm having a really bad problem, then I get to tell the teacher I've got a note and I can go see I get to go see the counselor and talk with her and and she calms me down. That's a school-based issue and that's practical. I guess what I'm talking Yes, I understand that. I guess I'm talking is that if a youngster begins seeing a behavioral health counselor and then has a set appointment every Tuesday at 100 p.m. on an ongoing basis. That's what I'm talking about long-term therapy. I'm not talking about when they if the counselor is there and the kid happens to need to see them. I consider that kind of almost crisis intervention or an emergency situation. But somebody is in an office and the youngster has
094her appointment with him every Tuesday at 100 p.m. Is that something that a scheduled therapy session should be going on in the school? As far as your legally, now I'm talking about behaviorally or psychologically. There's no legal barrier to it. There's no legal barrier to it. What we're talking about now really is a policy issue about best use of time and space. But I'm going to give you the standard lawyer answer to your question. It depends. So, let me give you a a practical for instance where I think it actually really does help to think about the school impact and long-term counseling. I'll give you two. Let's suppose that we have a child who has been bullied for years and because of relatively small nature Jefferson County schools he may be with his bullies 12
095years maybe walking across the stage at graduation 12 years I can see I'm sorry at the end of 12th grade I can see a practical ical situation where you've got a schoolbased problem and an ongoing need for counseling. I'm not saying that that that's always the case. I'm just I'm thinking of something on the fly. Let's think about something else. Let's suppose that your that your child with autism and as as many board members know my adult son has autism. Y'all many of y'all have met him. Uh so I'm I'm not I'm not picking up a particular group. I'm speaking from experience. So you'll have a uh young man with autism who is having a tremendous difficulty processing the basic social structure of a high school. The things that you and I may take for
096granted, the subtlety of language, the nuance of expression, all lost in this child. I can see a world in which for that child to access the opportunities of the school that child might need regular counseling if it's available here. Are there other examples? Possibly. Um but but again this goes back to when I was answering questions from coach. My my thought here is that there's going to be an organic relationship between the provider and the principal. The principal is going to have an idea how this resource is being used and if it's being used in a way that is arguably convenient and there's no connection whatsoever to school. It's not ideal, but it's not impacted the service delivery where there is an emergency. Does it matter? If it starts to impact service delivery where there
097is an emergency, I think it does matter. It's in that middle ground of it's related to the school and it's ongoing. And those are the questions that you and I were just talking about. Mr. Tson, that's where you're going to have to have an understanding of what the council's case load looks like. You have this back and forth. Uh gosh, you know, you seem busy all the time, but ever when but whenever I have a a kid with an emergency, I can't find you. What's up? That's that's part of the back and forth, the ongoing business relationship. Final question. This is for Dr. Dr. I know u our behavioral contract background checks. Do we have copies of those background checks on file at our school or in our district? We we do not have background
098checks on file of any contractors to my knowledge on file. Maker, do we have outside contractors? Uh do we have those background checks on file? Yes, for sometimes for private duty nurses, we do any other there's a couple of RBTs. Student teachers, do they just verify? Yeah, the RBTs is a PBS is the name of the contractor. Um, student teachers know because that's requirement with the state that the uh college university has to start that process. So, we do not have those on file. Thank you. And generally, unless we were the ones running the background check, we wouldn't have those file. Those are supposed to be confidential and the agency that runs it is supposed to keep it. Now, do they have any requirement to turn them over to us if we require them? Did
099we ask for it? Well, so there's actually a a federal regulation that says, "Thou shalt not disclose this." period or you lose your access to the database. So when whenever someone but we also have a state law that says that you're supposed to share the results with the person. We're kind of the answer to the question is we may share with the person who's been checked but we're not supposed to share it outside of that. Can the parent ask request if okay if if Jill Smith is seeing my kid I want to make sure Jill Smith I want Smith see my kid sure so my suggestion would be you need to talk to Allied or Helen Ross McNav and see if they'll share it that's not something that we would get involved with okay thank
100you yes ma'am um you had mentioned earlier blessing two agencies over all the others. Now I remember now I know this is this is only coming to my mind tomorrow and during our first meeting um it was brought up during that concerning here um that about putting anything about not putting anything in theou that elevates one organization over other organizations. Yes. So good memory. So yeah, so if you have one or two of them, you need to have them all at all. So So great question. The the difference is that you're talking about the Professional Educators Collaborative Conferencing Act, which is which is its own species of law versus whether we can have a contractual relationship with one or two vendors, but not everybody. So over here under PEKA PE again professional employees collaborative conferencing
101act. PEKA gives professional employees the right to conference with with the board of education but it also gives them the right not to conference. It gives them the right to join an organization, but it also preserves their right not to join an organization. And so the general assembly has said with regard to PEKA, if you want to join a JCA, you can. If you want to remain independent, you can. But you get no greater rights for being a member of JCA than by being independent. It's just straight up state law. And so for that reason I have I have recommended that in the language of the preamble of ofus and this is this is unique to Jefferson County. This is every district we represent that we take out any kind of endorsement language that might
102suggest that the people who are part of JCA are extra special. I'm not trying to be pjorative. I'm just I'm just I'm saying any language that says that we are conferencing with one group that would necessarily imply that other people don't have similar rights I would suggest violates the language in Pekka. Okay. So to recap, Pekka explicitly preserves the right of teachers to be independent or to join other groups. And so any endorsement language that that would water down the virtue of independence. I would suggest needs to come out here with the businessou. It's a recognition that you can't turn Patriot Academy into that medical mall I was talking about. You only have so much space and so necessarily you got to find out who who can come who can establish your qualifications through the
103RFP process. And so if you want to limit it on that basis, you can. Now I said you can. If you can figure out a practical way not to limit it, you could. But the logic of having multiple providers in one school, it becomes unworkable kind of quick. Does that make sense? contract, statutory rights, different comparison. Mr. Chairman, y'all asked me what time it was and I told you how to build a clock, a big clock. So, there questions I do got like I don't know if you can answer this. If I can't answer it, I will make something up. Well, that might be been told that before. So, students being pulled from classes. Yes, sir. We get told they're not they're not getting pulled from core class. All right. Real life scenario here. Student
104is in my class, not a core class. Misses 30 minutes a week, which winds up being third of class. At what point or who does the teacher need to turn to if there's already some sort of, you know, the that this is okay or whatever. Students not doing good in class. This is becoming an impediment. I care about the student mental health, but I also they need the credit for my class. What's the teacher to do? That's a great question. So, the principal by statute and world policy is the educational leader of the school and you've got about a 35hour bucket that you got to cram everything that you can into. If you're going to put counseling in there, something else has got to come out, right? And Mr. Cameron, what you're suggesting here is
105that suddenly this student who've been doing fine in your class isn't doing so fine. That's where you need to talk to the principal and say, "I understand your view is that my class is not a poor class, but he still needs my credit to graduate and he's not doing well. We need to think of a plan B." So, you got to be able to have that conversation with your principles and principles, you need to be able to have that conversation with your staff. If you see a problem, you know, let us know when maybe we rescheduled this. And also, you're touching on on something that Mr. Ibson was asking. How long is this going to go? I don't know. I mean, if if you're missing 30 minutes of a class all semester long, two semesters,
106it is going to impact the child's ability to access that academic program. I asked that because student had English, math, science, me. Okay, I know I'm the one on the total poll, but after a while, it's like, does my class matter? I I want the kids to succeed because if they don't, it reflects badly on me. I know there's other people that are in that situation. You know, I don't know what all entails specials in school, but you know, if I'm teaching music and I've got students that are not going to be in music class all the time, does my class matter? I'm kind of person like all classes matter. Yeah, I know there's state testing with these others, but at what point do you do does the teacher address the situation? That that's a
107a good question. It goes back to what I said a minute ago about the teacher always has to advocate for the kid. You always have to think about the the teacher's code of ethics and ask yourself, okay, I need to advocate for the kid here. And maybe advocating for the kid includes he can't miss this much of my class. You said voc. Okay. Well, let's think about some of the lessons that you have in Vog that relate to safety. Which safety classes in Vog are unimportant? You see my point? It's all important. And so what you have to figure out here, you as the as the teacher, you've got a program, you need to let folks who are scheduling know, look, he can't miss this part of the class because it relates to safety. He
108may as well not be in this class. Or if it's music and he's learning some core aspect of music theory, my daughter's going to can go into great detail. I cannot. But it's easy for me to to imagine if you miss a core aspect the your ability to access that entire class has not been compromised. That's where you as the teacher have to advocate for the kid by saying we can't do it here. And again it also um gets back to that again back to Mr. Hibbitson's point. How long is this going to go on? Miss a little bit a little bit more. You're missing the the beat of the class, man. This is I don't know how to phrase this. We're mandated reporters. If you see something, you don't say something, you there's trouble
109for you. Yes, sir. What What point? So, let's just say there's a student where you feel the situation. I don't know if the if I should contact ECS or if I should say something to the council. Well, that's easy. You just asked the question. I don't know if I should report to DCS. You report to DCS. That that that's what I always felt, but I know there are people that have that question. Then they Well, I don't want to go that route. I've been there. You know, it's you know, you're on the phone people and all this stuff. Maybe it'd be easier if I just let somebody talk. What kind of liability is there if a teacher made that decision? fails to report. Well, I mean, if they were like, maybe I should let somebody
110talk to them and see if the situation's as bad as I think it is or Well, all right. So, let me be clear. There is no liability under Tennessee law if you report and you didn't need to. There's a lot of liability for the individual teacher if you should have reported it to not only is a I think it's a class C misdemeanor. Yeah, it's a class C misdemeanor, but you can lose your teaching license for a year and you could be individually liable under state law for any any harm that befalls that child because you feel important. So is that also for I mean the mental health or they fall into that. So the DCS statute says that anyone who uh is called upon to render aid to a student uh who may be
111the victim of brutality, abuse or neglect has a duty to report. So you know the other problem with that is so if you rendered a so you're that could be you know coach says hey Mr. that as I'm talking to coach and I'm thinking so I have now rendered aid to him in terms of counseling I talk to him and at that point I have an obligation to report if I think he's the victim of brutality abuse neglect the other problem of that is if you have reasonable cause to suspect a child is a victim of brutality abuse for neglect. Now, that is the squishiest legal standard you'll ever find. Reasonable cause to suspect that's not knew or should have known reasonable. If if you're asking the question, do I have reasonable cause to suspect?
112You you need to make the call. The reason that standard is so squishy is that the general assembly did not want people debating whether they should or shouldn't make the talk make the call. Never ever ever ever employees never use your school counselors as a gatekeeper to ask the question, do I need to report? maybe have, you know, go to admin, have a witness, but but if you're asking yourself the question, you need you need I just have one quick question. One quick question in here. Does it have anything the therapist should be restricted to their office as in class. They're bored. They don't have nobody. I'm going to go see the back of science class and just check out things, you know. I don't think so. But their duty is to be at that.
113We'll ensure that staff is available on the premises of the school. This is that their office. We'll adhere. Well, okay. C 22 C. So this is where principles come in. Contractor staff will adhere to all school conduct standards while on site. Any concerns that arise should be reported by the principal supervisor. So you know my thought there's I would make the case that if you got someone who is wandering around looking something today. The principal should probably talk with the supervisor give me but but if they're wandering around they shouldn't be doing that and and think about why I'm a counselor. I'm licensed to counsel people who haven't given me consent. If I go wandering through the school, these people haven't given me their parents haven't given me consent. On top of that, if I'm
114wandering through the school and I see this lesson or that lesson, well, those are Furba issues. I'm now accessing educational information that's outside the scope of my lensure. I kind of need to know that. So, I'm thinking out loud in response to the question. I'm thinking if I'm a principal and I see somebody wandering up the hall, I'm gonna ask the question, what are you doing here? Get back. Is that something we could put in the MOU? We could put it in there. I don't know that it's necessary because of what I just described, but we can certainly put that in there. I've spoke with teachers that have said it's actually more disruptive because they have therapist in the back of the room and the kids are going Well, and that's and and we certainly
115have seen outside therapists all over the state going into schools and setting a camp and that can be disruptive because this is not something I'm intimately familiar with. Let me explore that. I'm a firm believer in the law and the consequences. I want to regulate something and create another problem. But let me let me talk with with Dr. Arnold and others and figure out how we can tighten up. That's an interesting point. I think you might land a lot of questions on a fivepage agreement. Thank y'all. Um before Dr. Al goes off, there's been a request to have a bathroom break here real quick for five minutes. So, it's 8:27. I'm not good at math cuz I didn't go here. I'm just kidding. Well, 8:32 will be back in here. So,