001finder if you would like to speak if you would fill out a card minutes finished all right i've got 5 45 so we will go ahead and call the meeting to order if everyone would stand for a moment of silence and then we'll have the pledge thank you allegiance to the flag of the united states of america republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all adam recorder if you call the roll chairman floyd president vice chair harrison president deborah deborah thomas jeremy burnett michelle childs here and superintendent here we do have a forum mr superintendent would you lead us through our agenda i will the first item on the agenda is the opportunity for public comment so this is a special called meeting we are going to
002have public comment each speaker will be limited to two minutes and i'm going to set my timer on my phone so if you hear something ding a ring it's me and it's the timer so uh we'll go in order with the cards that i currently have the first card that i have is a mr jake brown i believe if i'm saying that correctly i'll ask everybody to make sure you speak into the mic to ensure that it goes through the live stream as well mr brown welcome thank you very much i am uh the attorney uh representing mandy christopher and my understanding was that their potential speakers were allowed to yield their time i have a statement to deliver from mrs christopher and uh several uh several persons i believe who turned in cards did
003yield their time i wanted to confirm uh before i begin that that is acceptable i'm not going to be up here all night but it might go beyond two minutes how many speakers are willing let's see if i have cards from these people could you state your name right i'm shuffling through paper here saw that a second ago it's ivy right got it is there any objection from the board with no objection from the board we will allow it you are captain or no thank you just begin i want to emphasize that my client is not adverse in any way to the school board here we would ask we we know that board members are aware that statements some of the statements made with respect to miss christopher are false as a matter of fact
004and we we hope that if anything further is said that members of the board would would speak up on her behalf she she is one of your employees and agents we'll begin reading miss christopher's statement now sorry i could not be here tonight unfortunately i tested positive with kovitt on saturday it was my intention to be here at the meeting to show support for the people who also see that there is a need for an allies of diversity club at lakeland preparatory school i've worked at lps since we opened in my goal is and has always been to give my students a safe place to learn and grow i have heard many times throughout the past few weeks from public comments made it the previous board meetings the teacher's job is to teach that's it
005i disagree as the great rita pearson once said every child deserves a champion adult who will never give up on them who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be because kids don't learn from people they don't like you're educators we're born to make a difference as educators we should be welcoming of students of all ethnicities cultures genders orientations beliefs and religions we are the ones in the classroom walking the hallways monitoring the cafeteria during lunch time and watching to ensure students are safe during recess has been eye-opening to me to see that so many people don't realize the community we do have in our school system of students who need a safe place to feel like they belong positive student relationships are fundamental to success
006within the classroom students feel supported they're more likely to engage in learning and have better academic outcomes it is the teachers who foster positive relationships with their students that successfully create a classroom where they can meet their academic goals also their developmental needs as well it is a small community what i love about it are many teachers who are also personal friends with parents of students they teach for years i have seen teachers take students from lps to les to get the to get to their parents to and from football games to and from rehearsal and so on concern about a tick tock made by one of my friend's children as she was lip-syncing to a song after i took her to a football game blows my mind parents across social media platforms at these
007and at these board meetings have called me a predator i held groomer indoctrinating children for her own beliefs because she is allegedly openly gay that i make students choose between pledging to the american flag a pride flag in my classroom do you realize it or not these lies affect my job and how parents and students see me someone who is happily married to a man it really bothers me that if i were actually openly gay as people have stated how i would be treated within this community the assumptions about someone being gay being equivalent to that person being a sexual predator are appalling is it any different for me to tell my my classes about my husband and my kids than for someone who is gay to do the same thing that has been placed
008upon me just for simply sponsoring the club reflects precisely what makes this club needed on our at our school the end of the day the most important thing for myself and the other teachers sponsoring the student-led club is to ensure that we create a safe space for all children no matter their gender sexual orientation religion ethnicity or beliefs they deserve to have a place where they can feel safe to be who they are without judgment my hope people within this community will stop name calling and spreading false rumors about teachers in talking about how they can best support students within our community who need it most ask folks to give their address too and i don't believe i did that your address for the record uh my address is uh i think i put my
009work address on that's fine yeah it's 6 000 poplar avenue suite 150. thank you thank you for having they may have gotten out of order a little bit eric cruzan objection from the board to the hearing from ivy no objection from the board state your name for the record please ivy cruzan and your address 9586 salem terrace thank you you have two minutes okay so when i first came to lakeland in sixth grade i was very very excited because you know it's like a new start and everything like that very excited i was like i'm gonna make so many new friends but i'm here now in eighth grade being harassed and bullied in the hallway for simply being openly non-binary and gay so i have been at this like going i'm on the bus and
010in the morning i'm going on the bus i'm harassed and bullied by kids who are telling me that i am different or i am like creating an unsafe space for them which has taken a toll on everybody but i have experienced more bullying at lakeland than i have at any other school simply for being myself and simply for being different than what is the normal straight christian white insist agenda i know like no matter i have experienced so many so much hate and judgment at this school that next year i am in fact switching schools because of how much i have been bullied by kids everywhere in the school in the hallways on the bus in the classroom and what miss christopher has been doing is she has created this safe space for me which
011people are trying to take away the one thing that i have had in this school is miss christopher in her classroom and this allies of diversity club and people speaking about how they want to take that away from me the one thing that i had away from everything that could like could have happened and everything like that and the way they are speaking about her online everything like that it breaks my heart just because of how much she has with everything i have to go through at school um for your comments next card and again these are just in order i have a brian am i saying that name right i apologize if i'm not state your name and address please yes uh brian kruzan and i also live at 95 86 salem terrace so
012i obviously don't know what the comments tonight will be and the group that's here but i've watched the last few meetings and listened and based off those things the the the arguments against having a place a club an official place for students um and against miss christopher's involvement exact same reason that we you in lakeland um a lot of remarks social media um there's been some in these meetings that are i would consider slanderous to miss christopher very opposing to anyone who does not fall into an exact way of thinking i think it's symptomatic of the the attitude to the group now the allies for diversity mentioned um she has experienced bullying and even from the christian world view who is there's been a lot of voices from the christian worldview but my student my
013child has had uh ross put to her face and invoked the name of jesus just because she does not look i think we need teachers like miss christopher we need clubs that allow students to have a safe place because whether whether parents understand it or not it may be a safe place for specific students but it's not always a safe place for all students there's a lot of fear around fear around 15 seconds okay um a lot of fear around this i don't understand the fear nobody's trying to indoctrinate opposite of christian indoctrination this is just supposed to be a safe place our students need it for your comments next card i have and i'm going to mispronounce this shannon sami sammy sorry i'll tell everybody i've been called worse me too name and address
014please thank you shawhan sammy 2125 hilldale avenue in memphis first i want to thank you mr chairman thank you board for your time and the ability to speak here i serve as the shelby county committee chair for the tennessee equality project and advocacy group in the area of lgbtq public policy uh the reason i'm here is that i came after watching last month's hearing and you know i found it moving i come here as a shelby county and as a taxpayer as an advocate and as a former student of memphis city schools who i think i can speak to some of these issues as someone who dealt with this as a questioning youth and i'll start with saying all students deserve an equal crack at a good educa at a good education and a self
015and well a safe and welcoming space in which they can thrive and clubs like these they help students in order to have a space where they can be themselves and be safe and ask questions from a safe and an accountable atmosphere now these are not places for indoctrination as i've heard before these are places where you have a safe a supervised and accountable space from students who have who have questions that they're going to find these answers to from one place or another i came from a nascent internet generation many of us come from a pre-internet generation and i think we all found answers to our questions from places that were not our parents as we move into their teenage years developmentally that's when they shift from their parents to their peers what we want
016is for children to have a place where they can ask questions in a place where they're not going to get deleterious answers because we know there are plenty of those answers out there on the internet and elsewhere now when i was questioning as a youth i didn't always feel safe asking my mother or asking my family and i could have used more support from my school at the time to have had a gsa like what has been proposed or an internship for diversity is is i think important for young children and we know that nurturing environments help to support children's outcomes this board is about supporting children's outcomes so having a safe place like this helps to put children on a positive trajectory for a good outcome please support this gsa thank you for your
017comments i have a julie era per hour sorry go over how many other cards i have tonight so i'll join us in advance name and address julie 5055 adagio lane lake tennessee um i'm a newcomer to this city uh recently relocated from seattle washington and i am horrified watching what has been going on lately in the online forums regarding this issue i don't know much about it i don't know a lot of history what i do know is that um clubs are necessary these clubs have and i would like to pass this information out to the board when i'm done um and i have a copy for anybody to look at but the statistics speak for themselves as to why these supportive safe spaces are necessary for students as they are as other people have
018said up and coming questioning have the need for support from people who are going through some of the same same things that they are experiencing in their life the other aspect that i haven't heard a lot of people touch on lately but i did touch on in some of the facebook groups is the legal aspect here we're in a position where we're going to cut off our noses to spite our faces not disallow this club allow other clubs and well within the scope of not facing any legal ramifications because of it um the aclu recently decided a case in one state over had something to do with some religious mosque lots of money lost by the city and the board that's something that i don't want to see happen here in lakeland i think that
019we are a much i think that the people in the community in lakeland can make much better decisions than that financially and and just ethically what is right for our youth what is right for our community it's it's going to be a losing battle if we're going to fight this and i can't make it and i can't make any sense of the people who say well then get rid of all the clubs um you know to cut off our nose to spat our face let's punish all the children i am here as an advocate i'm here to say that this club is necessary and that there are statistics to back and support why we need this next name i have is and i'm going to mispronounce it elizabeth adele you see sorry again i'm going
020to go for how many cards i have okay you'll state your name and address please elizabeth ducey 9650 white spruce drive lakeland um i'm going to try to verbal diarrhea this greetings school board members parents teachers students in the lakeland school district i stand before you today with heavy concerns and an even heavier heart to discuss the pressing issue of inclusivity and fairness in our schools i took it upon myself to research the federal and state facts and rules of what can and cannot be done by the school board i also made sure to reach out to one of the only two individuals in the state that have first-hand knowledge of this rule of law and the personal experience of growing up and currently living publicly in the lgbtq plus community representative eddie manus of
021knoxville tennessee and representative tory harris of memphis tennessee received an amazingly insightful letter from representative harris that i will read now backlash to students efforts to form a gay straight alliance or gsa at lakeland preparatory school was disappointing and cruel students should be encouraged to express themselves their true selves at school we should work hard to provide a safe and supportive environment for lgbtq plus students who are so often targets of bullying and discrimination a lot of those who want to create a welcoming space for everyone regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity some residents asked the lakeland board of education to stop students from forming a gsa arguing the existence of a gsa would not align with our values if that is in fact the case the lakeland school district does not value
022student safety kindness and understanding or the courage of self-expression students have since withdrawn their request to establish a gsa they should not have been pressured to do so moreover had the lakeland school board acted to stop the formation of a gsa the district would have violated federal law under the equal access act of 1984 schools that permit any non-curriculum student groups must provide 15 seconds access to all such student groups and courts have repeatedly affirmed that this includes gay straight alliance organizations i can't read the rest i'm going to say in lawsuit after lawsuit advocates have successfully prevailed against school districts that tried to stop students from forming the gsa i have a package for everybody thank you for your comments you would like to you can just leave that on the desk and then
023we'll we can get them at the end that'll be fine next i think i'm going to pronounce this one right i have mr chad reynolds first name i've gotten right tonight maybe name and address please sir chad reynolds 2971 shadow green lane um so i just wanted to say real quick uh first of all i appreciate school board and dr harold coaching the kids on moving away from the gsa uh the far left organization that from what i've read online it's just not appropriate for our school for any district so um the from what i read online about this uh allies of diversity i like what it says i am completely against bullying it is not appropriate it happened in school i was in i see it daily in the schools we have now there's
024no way around it but yes the kids need a safe place to be and so i support that i'd still have my concerns we still have the same sponsors we still have people with an agenda i'm not saying that that's necessarily what's happening here but we see it all across the country making these kids say mx mix or whatever and not approach like you know it's just confusing and it's it's not appropriate for kids because you're you're teaching them from a young age we're talking about 10 year olds here that's not appropriate for 10 year olds to be confused about what their what their gender is so um again whereas supporting the kids as far as bullying i'm all about giving them safe space that's mr reynolds next one i have is mr wyatt bunker
025you want to think about wyatt bunker 45-96 mount gillespie i had to i spent half my day memorizing my new address over there i you know i don't have my dover and stuff like that appreciate y'all uh working with us on this um i you know there's some fear out there that you know you got the same product same sponsor same product under a different name uh i i do expect us to monitor that uh closely use especially dr harold to make sure that we don't end up with the same product just under a different name that organization that gsa organization was a it was positioning itself that that club was going to uh was going to be used to indoctrinate our kids i know a lot of people here uh denying that and whatever
026but that's exactly what it was going to do but appreciate you guys addressing that i really wasn't even going to make any comments and i i do have a concern though if there's this much bullying going on i'm obviously opposed to bullying it sounds like it's out of control it sounds like saying it's happening on the bus and the hallways and i assume since they're reporting this and they're experiencing this in such a wide scale then is it being reported to the school and if so what are we doing about it i'd like for you to follow up with some comments on that as uh when you guys have you know your opportunity um that being said i was one that spoke about uh miss christopher not here to demean her to fame her or
027anything like that i just spoke about was on the tick tock right the tick tock said it all uh you want to lay these hands uh you want to feel these hands you want to fight you want to meet me in the street those type things i just feel that's inappropriate 15 seconds yeah i just feel it's inappropriate and that's all i spoke to uh and disappointed to learn anybody made any kind of accusations about maybe doing something illegal with the child never would i condone that so just want to clarify that thank you thank you for your comments next name i have is david cranford thank you if you wouldn't mind name and address david cranford 9537 gigi cove institution that should uphold science logic and reason to facilitate such unscientific illogical and irrational
028ideology as shameful and immoral promoting this hateful ideology as a beneficial thing for these children is intellectually dishonest how can this type of diversity do anything other than further divide the students into a marxist suppressor and a press category based on never-ending diversity with no absolute moral framework and no true truth is foolish logically be objective marxist ideology seeks to further divide these children who at this young age need to be guided by truth not subjective self-fabricated ideas about what it truly means to be human asking you please reason reality there is true meaning and purposes life the creator defines his creation he is there and he is not silent he can do us in his word for the wrath of god is revealed from heaven and all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by
029their unrighteousness suppress the truth for what can be known about god is plain to them because god has shown it to them for his invisible attributes namely his divine our nature have been clearly perceived ever since creation of the world and made so they are without excuse although they knew god did not honor him as god nor give thanks and they became futile in their thinking which hearts were dark and claiming to be wise they became fools i'm in no way claiming to be out of here not at all to begin objecting not subjective comments the next name i have is kyla cranford kayla i had a street going too i'm sorry name and address please uh kayla cranford 95 37 chichiko thank you hi everyone i just want to say that this club is
030not going to unify this kid it's going to divide them this cloth is about sexuality and this ki this our kids we're talking about it's perverse and it's going to confuse kids minds we must protect our kids sexual propaganda we are seeing so much prevention inside the classroom children start being sexually offended in the classroom our childrens are on their attack this serious issue remind yourself then you're the body schools are a disaster and it's costing our kids minds this is propaganda and it's sexual sexualizing them immense the next name i have is mr randy white please randy white 4455 mount gillespie hello my name is randy white my wife susan couldn't be here tonight because her mom had a stroke sunday and is caring for her but we are the proud parents of three
031children our oldest is morgan who is 25 our middle trevor who would have been 23 and our youngest luca who was formerly known as molly is 15. we are here tonight to talk about luca and our experience with being a first-time parent of an lgbtq trial while we always suspected luca was different from a young age it was when she started fifth grade at lmps that she began to question the fact that she was different than most of her peers she was part of the apex program and had several friends surrounding her but when she voiced her questioning to peers she was met with resistance and even bullying from some bullying became so bad she attempted to take her own life before she was not successful in doing so she felt very alone at this
032time because we as parents were uneducated about it ourselves and had in turn contributed to her mental harm as well let me tell you parents when you find out your kid tried to take their own life knowing you could have contributed to it because you chose to downplay and dismiss it it rattles you to your core fortunately luca joined the drama club in seventh grade and thanks to mandy christopher's clear and unconditional respect for all students luca began to flourish again when we heard about miss christopher starting an inclusive club for kids who tend to feel very isolated and alone during their most vulnerable years luca remarked that she was so happy that other kids like her would have a group of supportive people to turn to for comfort during challenging times parents if you
033love all children please love ours and others like her and allow these kids who know way more than we'd all like to think to have a safe place to turn when the going gets rough there are more of them than you probably realize and we'll never want another family to go through what we went through oh in full confidence that mandy christopher will provide unconditional acceptance which is sometimes all these kids have and will keep them hopeful just like it did ours thank you for your comments the next name i have is molly quinn name and address please molly quinn 892 south cooper memphis um thank you so much for being here uh the parent that just spoke thank you for sharing your story honesty um i'm here i'm the executive director of the lgbtq
034center that's here in the mid-south i work full-time all week long working with young kids who are lgbtq plus or have questions about it and i'm i want to oh and to the people who are in this room that when these kids don't have adults in their life or peers in their life to ask these questions they come to my organization so every day all day those kids come through our door and they come to our door the vast majority of them because they're experiencing thoughts of suicide or they're living on the streets gentlemen sitting behind me talked about science there's an enormous amount of data over the last decade of studies showing that gsas and the presence of gsas can decrease suicide by half amongst young people who know that the gsa is at
035that school regardless of what you believe about the function of this group those are just facts that is what we know about these particular programs it's true to me from listening to these people that they love their school district and they love being engaged that's commendable it's amazing by having a school-sponsored program and a dedicated avenue where parents and kids can go they have this opportunity to ask those questions and also to know that they can hold their school district accountable for the group being appropriate you know where your kids are asking their questions who they're asking their questions to you're allowed to go to the group you know when your kids are asking questions you know where they're going to be that is what you want if this is something that gives you anxiety
036is a real intangible place and i i just want to urge you and to tell you that i talk to these kinds of students every day and this is what they need thank you for your comments last card that i have is robbie stevens i'm an address please a little bit more prepared than i was last meeting but i'm here 100 to support mandy such a personal friend to my family and yes my child is in that yo there is no predator there wasn't anything like that i had broken my back and she took her to the places that she needed to go really really tired of people saying that my child was the object of a predator because that was not true after the last meeting an individual said to me god does not
037give birth to abominations it is totally a choice my granddaughter when she came out at 10 was no pressure there was no choice and my granddaughter is not an abomination he has said that anybody is gay is an abomination there he is playing judge this supposedly christian man you know god didn't put us here to judge he put us here to love love conditionally everybody as if they were their brother so i have to say that um i'm really tired of hearing about this video yes my granddaughter said an inappropriate word she shouldn't have and she's 13 and she posted it and she shouldn't have only because of the word on that you know i just is there not any other subject y'all can go on my granddaughter and i know everything that went on
038this club is necessary i don't get the name change i thought it was illegal to change the name the article says the students withdrew it i don't believe that for a minute i think the adults and parents made these students withdraw for another name it's like a roses roses rose it's gonna be a club i thought if they asked for gay straight that's what you were supposed to give them if you approved the club so in my mind you've completely turned it down and it shouldn't have a name change thank you thank you for your comments all right that's all the cards that i have dr horrell we'll move through the next item on the agenda the next item on the agenda is presentation of legal opinions on non-curricular clubs promotion to get this item
039on the floor we have a motion is there a second second we have a motion and a second dr harold would you like to kick us off i would uh this is uh as has been noted by the speakers um to give a little background a club was uh requested to be formed by students at lakeland prep this request was made to the principal ms martin and ms martin made me aware of the club request and made the board aware of the club request and um we also consulted with our attorney eric plumley um to confirm the understanding that uh the club request was uh valid and uh that the club should be approved based on the law uh mr plumley shared that opinion after the club was announced with the school board and um
040in response to some concerns brought up by community members regarding legal options the school board requested that the school system solicit two additional opinions on the the laws uh around the approval and uh the the sponsorship and basically the running of clubs in schools so we as a school system reached out to two additional attorneys one is scott bennett uh both education attorneys scott bennett um with the firm of bennett in decamp and chuck cagle with the firm of lewis thomason uh both of these individuals are very experienced education attorneys they are not from our area they do education work education legal work statewide i was familiar with them as are a number of people in this room because of their frequent presentations at educational public development and uh and and conferences and things and
041if with with the board's um approval i believe mr bennett could not i know mr bennett could not be here i believe mr plumley is prepared to share mr bennett's um findings on curricular and non-curricular clubs add a few things to what dr hall said scott bennett was asked to give this opinion he was happy to do it um mr bennett's a lawyer in chattanooga at his own firm bennett de camp he's been practicing uh primarily school law for close to 30 years and i think he's had to address this very same issue several times during his long practicing long career as a as a school lawyer he drafted a opinion letter addressed to the school board that that has um dated i think it was january 7th that letter has been provided to the
042board read the letter i'm just going to sort of give a very broad and brief overview of mr bennett's opinions on the issues that were presented to him to to consider and uh ultimately what he reached was a conclusion that if lakeland created a limited public forum which it has for for for school clubs um it found it would it would be in a position that if it was um going to have some non-curricular clubs it was going to have to have allow all non-curricular clubs he reached that opinion both under the equal access act as well as a fairly lengthy first amendment analysis discussing essentially viewpoint discrimination in in other words not only this federal law the equal access act um students the right to have this club in a setting like lakeland where
043there is a limited public forum but the first amendment the united states constitution would also protect their rights as well to have a club and prohibit the school from discriminating against a club based on a viewpoint and uh also gave a explanation of uh what would be a curricular club versus a non-curricular club um the opined that a club is curricular participation is required by a class participation results in class credit or if a club is directly related to the school's curriculum a club does not fit neatly within one or more of these categories and it's probably non-curricular meaning the school will have opened its forum to outside groups by allowing non-curricular clubs i think all this is pretty consistent with our the the working knowledge we had at the last meeting but i did
044want to share those two key points um the letter addresses a lot of sub issues that the school had i don't know that we need to get into them right now has the letter so there's any questions from uh the board about uh opinion letter i think that addresses the things that are pertinent to the issue before the board tonight only for your comments we do have mr cagle here in person and it might be better if we address questions we can address to the the guy who's here tonight and that might be the best way to handle this uh dr hall would you like to introduce mr cagle i would i want to bring up chuck cagle with the firm of uh lewis thomason um i i can tell you that mr cagle is
045um is easily one of the most recognized and um i think uh and admired uh education attorneys in the state um we really appreciate you uh not only being willing to to offer an opinion on this uh but to be here in person um and in fact that that was the the reasoning for moving uh the date of the meeting so that we could accommodate mr cagle's schedule uh he has um he has dealt with similar issues in the past uh has dealt with most issues i think in education but if you will mr cagle could you also just offer the board and the public uh maybe a further idea of your experience in education law prior to giving your your opinion thank you mr superintendent mr chairman ladies and gentlemen the board i'm chuck
046cagle i'm most important thing that can be said about me here tonight if there's anything that important that can be said is i'm from sweetwater tennessee i live in nashville i've been misplaced in nashville for 35 years practicing law i'm from a little town not much larger than this one that's halfway between knoxville and chattanooga i went to public schools like university went to and didn't get into private school that i went to until i went to law school but i'm from i've worked for the law firm of lewis thomason in the room may be familiar with them we have an office here in memphis as well knoxville and nashville i chair the education law and government relations practice groups at the firm and we represent somewhere between 65 and 70 boards of education in
047the state also represent five private universities in the state uh in legal matters related to the operation of those universities uh as i often say about these these uh will uh on subjects uh like the equal access act uh sometimes your personal credentials get called into question uh when you have to deliver a speech like this let me say let me just say this out up front i'm not a member of any organized religion i'm southern baptist and we're about as disorganized a bunch as you that you've ever seen in fact this board's meeting here tonight on tuesday night because i chair the deacons at first baptist church in nashville tennessee so if anybody wants to take issue with my religious credentials i'll be happy to chat with you after this meeting beyond practicing law
048i have uh taught for 14 years taught education law for 14 years at vanderbilt university and peabody college there lecturing on public policy issues it started out as a three year appointment it ended up being 14 years and it was the best 14 years of my life i've also lectured on school law topics for tennessee tech lincoln memorial university university of tennessee knoxville tribeca nazarene college lipscomb university university of memphis and lee university in cleveland i make annual presentations to the kentucky association of school administrators on on a variety of issues i do get to wonder outside of tennessee often ruth i've spoken to on on issues and also include the special ed group the tassie organization business officials the tasman organization personnel administrators attendance and data supervisors the tennessee sros the school plant managers
049transportation directors and the tennessee organization of school superintendents where i serve as the as the general counsel to that organization the i wish i could say this is the first time i delivered the speech it is not it is not the last time i delivered the speech i had 400 people stan sitting behind me i don't feel nearly as uncomfortable tonight as i did at that at that one but it was you know it was a fairly divided audience some of the folks were for it some of the folks were against it the proposition i'm here to tell you what the law says based on many years of court cases and studies and when i was asked to speak i went back to my file dragged out this little book that's from 1984 after the
050equal access act was passed you can tell it's fated equal access act in the public schools has questions and answers by the national school board association after the passage of the act under the spending powers clause the united states constitution the congress has the power to add any stipulation that it wishes any monies that it appropriates and it's an example of that not only in education but how many of you wore a seat belt when you came here tonight because congress passed the law that says if you like federal transportation dollars you will pat your state will pass a law that says steve seat belts are required that's just an example of the the kind of things that congress does well as a as as part of the education appropriations in 1984 congress passed uh
051the uh the education the the equal equal access act excuse me i'm trying to get this out the equal access act and it immediately affected education funding and it said because it limits this to school systems that receive federal dollars so private schools are not covered here because private education is not affected by this act public schools are i don't know that this district is different from any other district in the state usually between somewhere about 20 percent of your budget is federal money that comes into a school district and that that may be more maybe less depending on the wealth of the district and the number of students that are here but that's uh this act certainly can affect education dollars that's the only hammer that congress actually has they they can withhold funds
052uh another example of that is the family educational rights and privacy act the act that says all student records are confidential if we purposefully violate that act congress has the right to withhold funds from a school district that does that if we release that confidential information so there are numbers of times in in the law where congress has made it very clear if you violate this act congress's answer to that through the u.s department of education is to withhold funds the the united states code chat uh title 20 the section 4071 contains the equal access act and i've given each of you a copy of it i've got some copies like them uh you can pick them up after it's over the equal access act is reproduced in its entirety uh in this and what
053it says it literally says it shall be unlawful any public elementary school or public secondary school which receives federal financial assistance and which is a which has a limited open forum now take these and clauses it applies to secondary schools secondary schools are is that's a term that's not defined in the act however tennessee law does define a secondary school at 49-6-4-10 and it says secondary means education normally available and required by the state standards to be taught to children enrolled in grades seven through twelve a secondary school is a school that provides secondary education so if you have any any of those grades in your in your configuration of grades here then you are covered by the equal access act so it's it applies to secondary schools and it says it's unlawful for us
054to deny equal access or fair opportunity to or discriminate against any students who wish to conduct a meeting within a limited open forum and we're going to talk about the types of forums here in in just a minute within a limited open forum on the basis of religious political philosophical or other content of speech at such meetings let's let's talk about the history of this act for just a minute this act was passed under the reagan administration uh they tried for months and months and months to pass a constitutional amendment about school prayer and that had been unsuccessful to get that through congress several groups several religious groups were even opposed to such an amendment when the equal access act was introduced into congress almost every major political religious organization supported the passage of this
055act it passed congress by voice vote it was i mean it was it was so popular there was there were no descending votes on the floor so they called for a voice vote on the on the equal access act that it passed it was sponsored by the senator from alabama oh and there were there were also liberal co-sponsors on the bill uh from from other states but it was but the prime sponsor was a senator from alabama limited open forum for this act is a public secondary school has a limited open forum whenever such school grants an offering or opportunity for one or more non-curriculum related student groups to meet on school premises during non-instructional time again break it down into closets you have non-curriculum related groups meeting on school premises during non-instructional time there
056have been opinions about this act that say that at certain times if you allow students to meet during instructional time this act would apply then as well but it's basically non-instructional time fair opportunity criteria schools shall be deemed to offer a fair opportunity to students who wish to conduct a meeting within its limited open forum if such school uniformly provides that the meeting is voluntary and non-student and and student-initiated excuse me is voluntary and student-initiated i'm going to hear the phrase over and over again student-initiated student-directed and student-led this this club cannot be directed by anybody from the outside it has to be clearly made comprised of members of that school student body and nobody is allowed to come in and speak to the group nobody's allowed to come in and and i've heard the
057word indoctrination tonight nobody's allowed to do that from the outside this is a student organization it's student organized student-led and student directed and it's voluntary there's no sponsorship of the meeting by the school the governments or the government or its agents or employees the agents or the employees or agents of the school government are present at religious meetings only in a non-participatory capacity and that applies to every eaa meeting equal access act meeting our our staff are just there to make sure the place is safe they're not there to direct the opera the operations of the club we provide safety measures we make sure that if it's a religious type meeting that that that thereby is still abiding by the rules of the school and the students health and safety uh and the other thing
058the other big thing is if the club happens to be one that for some reason raises money the monies have to be deposited according to the internal school financial management manual in tennessee so that's that staff person would assist in that process other than that they are a non-participating member employees the meeting does not material and materially and substantially interfere with the orderly conducted education activities within the school and we would not allow any club to exist that would do that uh non-school persons may not direct again non-school persons may not direct conduct control or regularly attend activities of student groups and that's directly out of the statute with regard to the rights to certain rights nothing in this law has construed to authorize the united states or any political subdivision thereof and the lakeland
059board of education is a political subdivision in the united states to interfere with or form content of any prayer or religious activity remember this act was passed primarily as a religious access act they included the phrase in the top some about religious political or philosophical fault this act was primarily passed as as to guarantee bible clubs in school that was that was the primary if emphasis of the act when it was passed to require any person to participate in prayer or other religious activity to extend public funds beyond the incidental cost of providing space for student initiated meetings or to compel the student the the school or agents or employees of the school to attend the meeting if the content is is offensive to them to limit the rights of groups of students which are
060not specified in new uh of us numerical size and we'll i'll talk about that in a minute or to bridge the constitutional rights of any person so remember this act was passed primarily as a bible club act and then it it because of the language that's contained in the preamble of the act it also has uh it also has application to other philosophical and first amendment speech related organizations uh not notwithstanding the availability of any other remedy under the constitution of the united states nothing in the sub-chapters shall be construed to authorize the united states to deny withhold federal financial assistance from any school unless it violates the act we need to put that in parenthesis that's that's added in a parenthesis but if the school violates the act and there is a possibility that
061funds could be withdrawn however before you ever get that far let's let's bring everybody down a notch or two if you're feeling some fear it's the office of civil rights the united states department of education would work this out i withholding federal funds would be a very very last resort uh and that would uh and there are several intermediate steps that would that would occur with the office of civil rights before withholding funds would would occur as i've already read the definition of secondary schools under the tennessee and the tennessee code i have broken down for years and i've been doing this 35 years i've broken down student organizations since the passage of the equal access act into three groups not just two there are curriculum-based clubs and we can the act talks about uh
062clubs uh and the in the court cases all talk about cl uh curriculum-based clubs based on cl uh based on the uh academic criteria at the school for courses that either are being taught or have been taught i mean i think if we had everybody to raise their hand in the room right now who is a member of what club there was a science club in most schools there was a there was a there were foreign language clubs of certain sorts there was fha and ffa those were the big ones in east tennessee those had the largest following uh there was an english literature club uh there there are certain other honor societies that are curriculum-based clubs and and you can just the list kind of goes on and on i imagine if we took
063a poll and hear many people were probably members of those clubs well those are curriculum-based clubs this is the first type that there are the curriculum-based organizations there are non-curriculum-based clubs and this is there's one here that catches everybody by surprise the beta club the national beta club is a service organization it's not a curriculum-based club so it is a non-curriculum-based club if you have a beta club you're all that you already have one club that status have a limited open forum you have a chess club i talked about carl about this you have a pokemon club a chess club you can have various athletic clubs uh those all open those all place you in they move you from a closed forum where you only allow curriculum-based clubs to a limited open forum a limited
064open forum where the the board or the school itself according to board policy approves approves these clubs for operation and those those non-curriculum-based organizations are authorized by the board of education to further the goals and objectives of the school they will have a faculty sponsor assigned by the school leadership and will be subject to all the policies and operational procedures of the board of education and again we've got we've got a list of those then the there's a third group that i put in here the equal access organizations in this set of organizations they're they're they're authorized by federal law if you have a limited open forum that's one of the requirements to have the equal access act active you have a limited open forum and then the students the students approach they want to
065direct for well form direct and lead a club they're allowed to do that difference here is the big difference here is we can't assign a faculty sponsor to that club we are absolutely forbidden under federal law to do that so we have somebody who monitors again the federal law says that we can have somebody monitor the activities of the club to make sure that they're not doing uh what uh what they want to do uh at the club and that students are safe and that their you know the building's not having any harm done to it but other than that that person's there just as an observer so we are absolutely forbidden from having a faculty sponsor of that club the second is the second big one is we're not allowed to put significant financial
066resources in this the reason i use that term that way is because uh we allow them meeting space we have somebody there monitoring the club that costs some money we're not allowed to finance that club or any of that club the equal access club's activities as we would a beta club or a french club or a uh you know the pokemon club or some other club these clubs that are formed under the equal access act are not financed by the school district hence they may have if they want to have activities they may have a need to do some fundraising which again would trigger uh following the internal school financial management manuals never heard of right so that's uh that tells how we receive how we collect and receive money and how certain officials at
067school approve organizations so those are the three types of organizations the curriculum-based organization non-curriculum-based organizations but approved for operation and then the equal access clubs themselves there are three types of forums in public schools and i'll let me give you an example of a club that we i i got a call from a former school superintendent i talked to dr carl about this former superintendent uh at the time was in knox county schools at a high school and uh she seldom ever called my office but this this time she called it she was rather excited she had a she had a religious organization that wanted to meet in her school and i asked her about you know what kind of what kind of forum do you have there we're going to talk about that in
068a minute uh you know what other clubs do you have there and she and that school met the definition of uh of a limited open forum and we'll talk about the case law that surrounds that as well uh but during the conversation she said well they want to meet and i said we got to let them meet here are the parameters under which they meet student-led student directed uh student originated just take it and let them and you let them pick a time make sure it's that you have room available and other things she did all of that she did all of that and then she came back to me and said well they want to burn candles during their meeting i said no fire marshal will not allow that the only open flame we're
069allowed in school is a bunsen burner our marshall will not allow that and i checked that without the fire marshal's office and they sort of frowned on that so that club chose not to meet because they couldn't have they weren't allowed to violate the law again it was a club that was authorized had they wanted to have their meetings they could have had them but they had a part of their meeting that was that where they had a candle ceremony and i said they can't have an open flame in a classroom and they chose to have their meetings elsewhere so that's the kind of detail we have to get into into with some of these clubs the types of forums is a closed forum uh no only clubs that will be allowed to to exist
070or those related to the curriculum of the school i don't know of a single closed forum in this state of 147 school districts i don't know of one that is a closed forum because that also means that you don't allow other outside organizations there's lamb's chapel versus senator school district decided by the u.s supreme court where they actually looked at the school looked at the school district the center mauritius school district is in new york they took a look at the folks who used the the building the the lions club used it the kiwanis club used it the women's garden club used it the summer the southern harmonized gospel barbershop association used the school the supreme court of the united states said you have a limited open forum i think you have a closed forum
071but because of who you allow generally to use the school i don't think the curriculum-based clubs of who you allow to generally use the school you've created the limited open forum well a limited open forum is that clubs is one that where clubs will be allowed to exist that are approved by the board or the school leadership in compliance with board policy these clubs will follow all the policies of the board have a faculty sponsor adhere to the operational guidelines pertaining to organizational content bylaws constitutions school system policies related to the deposit of funds meat times and other and other matters open forum similarly to to similar to closed forms i don't know any of the 147 school districts in tennessee that is at a an absolute open forum now we've had two examples of
072this that have been proposed in tennessee that we created an open forum both of which failed in court actually one was withdrawn uh before it before it was tried uh but we had a place where the the school system had built a wall around the construction zone students just started going up there and riding on this wall imagine that happening nobody ever writes on the wall in school right but students had started going up there writing on the wall well people visitors to the school started going up there and riding on the wall well as you might imagine something offensive things offensive started occurring on the wall and they blocked it out and said you can't write on the wall and somebody said well that's an open forum had it allowed to exist it would
073have been an open forum all would have been an open forum but the school board has the right to close a an open forum right to close that that was what happened in the school dist the second school district i'll talk about we had a school newspaper that would actually accept letters to the editor from people who lived in that town school-sponsored school paid for newspaper would accept letters to the editor from anybody well as again as you might imagine a couple of the letters got out of hand and we had an opportunity to to see one version of the paper before it hit the street and we said we can't have this this letter is not appropriate for students in the seventh and eighth grade c and the newspaper was distributed down that far
074so we pulled a run of the newspaper and under the supreme court case of hazelwood versus cole meyer the student editor of the newspaper said we have a right to publish that and we said no this is not an open forum we're not going to have the school board changed its mind at a meeting said we will no longer allow letters from just members of the general public to be published in the in the newspaper of the school so they closed that forum uh an open forum is one where if you'll pardon the phrase from the 70s anything go anything goes we just we just allow most things most the most participation of any kind in the school system and again i don't know of any school system in the state that does that at
075all so there we have zero open forums which i'm aware considerations for student organizations student clubs should be during non-instructional times to be in compliance with the law and i think that's your policy here dr harl is that the students organizations do meet during non-instructional times before and after the school day have an an outside organization that wishes to use a building i'm going to i'm going to hope that you i've not looked at your board policy but i'm going to assume you have a board policy that dictates how that's how that's done including the required the court requiring of certain deposits and insurances and other things for the school school board and school administration approved organizations a faculty sponsor should be assigned to those and all board policies concerning the approval of such organizations
076should be followed equal access organizations faculty sponsors should not be assigned in keeping with the federal law however these club meetings should be monitored to maintain order and discipline on school premises as well as to protect the uh well-being of students and faculty and that's language that's directly lifted out of 20 usc section 4071 go outside intervention of any short any sort should occur at an equal access organization the law says that those just those clubs are student organized led and student directed all organizations regardless of legal basis should be required to follow the policies and mandates concerning fundraising and the handling of organizational funds the organization may be disbanded disbanded for violations of school board rules and policies all organizations should be afforded the opportunity to use bulletin boards both physical bulletin boards as
077well as electronic bulletin boards have announcements published have access to meeting space have the opportunity for fundraising activities and have community service projects approved regardless of the status under which they were formed two cases that uh come to mind that are that are decided but have decided specifically on the basis of the equal access act the first is the most the more famous of the two and that is the board of education of west side community schools versus morgans this was a plurality opinion by the u.s supreme court nevertheless the supreme court interpreted upheld the constitutionality of the equal access act against constitutional challenge based on the first amendment establishment clause but what you're actually doing is promoting bible study in school and the supreme court said yes and under this act that is allowed
078it is allowed the second is prince versus jacoby and this is the bessel school district uh asked to have they were asked to have a student bible club called the world the changers there and that their that organization still exists only with only some of the rights available to other student clubs considering the challenge the ninth circuit first addressed the statutory issues it included that under the eaa the bible club was entitled to participate in various fundraising activities to have a club photograph appear in the yearbook at no cost to post hours on bulletin boards and use the school's public address system on the same basis as all other clubs however relying not on the ea but on the first amendment the court allowed bible club to use the school supplies and audio visual equipment
079at the same as the same as any other club the united states supreme court denied certiorari of that case in 2003. now regardless of what you want to call a club if they're going to form under under the equal access act they have a very specific set of rights i that club existence would which certainly is as one speaker has said here tonight would certainly cause a lot of heartburn because you you're going to have to explain that to a federal judge about how how you've chosen to violate the law they're i'm a little bit alarmed too to because i know the administrators of the system i know them to be very very responsible and very careful individuals and i don't know they're responsible except for several of them walked up tonight so they've heard
080me speak several times i said and you came back for this uh but uh you know it it's there's certainly good folks and folks we have if we have any evidence of bullying at all please report that to administrators please report that to administrators lawyers spend some time on that every day in their practice and it's one that we are duty bound to to relieve uh but folks we don't need to resort to bullying and to any or any other uh any other aberrant behavior in order to in order for this club to exist peacefully in short mr chairman ladies and gentlemen they have a legal right to do so legal right to do so and if to deny that right is certainly one that you're going to have to answer to to folks who
081sit in high places in black robes if you don't mind i'd like to give the board the opportunity to ask you any questions that they make dr harold has the final exam over there too uh some questions he just forwarded to me and i may have not answered all of them i think i think you were very comprehensive and the board put those questions together um that were the basis for the presentation so certainly board members if there was anything that i would say that he did not hit upon that you'd like some follow-up on miss childs first you mentioned about sports clubs is your because we also got another attorney's opinion is does it matter what kind of sports club are those all considered or any of those considered non-curricular like a swim club
082all sports clubs are generally considered non-curricular clubs they're just they're formed uh yeah as a result of participation in an extracurricular activity so it's uh unless you unless you have a sport for which a person receives academic credit and that's i don't know of one but if you have a sport that the student receives academic credit and that would be a curriculum-based club other than that the very largest share i won't say all clubs but the very largest share of those clubs are non-curricular based non-curriculum-based clubs you made the comment that the non-curricular clubs they should not be assigned a sponsor what should you call that person because obviously you you know mentioned they've got to have someone there to monitor it um you know so what's the word the legal word i call the
083monitor the person that that that faculty member that staff member is assigned to monitor the club uh they're not going to intervene intervene in the meeting that you know if they they're not going to make a determination about whether there's a quorum there to take any official action uh they're they're just going to be there to maintain order and discipline and make sure that the children aren't harming themselves or others or are posing a threat of any of any sort jack that's for the equal access organizations right is that that third category burnett um mr cagle thanks for being here tonight i've got a couple of questions i think i've written down four i'll reserve the right to ask more later maybe move we adjourn so um the first one is is specifically for you
084i think i heard you tell us broad categories of clubs first being curricular which i think we understand spanish i think i also heard you say and i'd like you to clarify for us there are two types of non-curricular clubs those that create that limited open forum in which there is for our own policy non-participatory involvement by a faculty member to ms child's client be a not a sponsor but a monitor those that would be sponsored and i think again this child's example of swim club would be one of those where that faculty member or beta club is the sponsor us involve themselves in helping manage that need to make sure they're following the national beta club rules and all of that so we really have three or two with two subga and one of
085them has two subcategories that's that's correct the first of course is curriculum-based clubs that that was an easy one that if you have only those you have a closed forum the the non-curriculum based clubs and the equal access clubs form a two separate groups which you can merge that way the difference is that the uh the non-curriculum-based clubs the key clubs the uh the swim clubs the pokemon club the chess club the beta club although the school has the right to assign a sponsor and i'm and i hope you do uh actually assign the sponsor that could include the school newspaper or the yearbook club if if you have that for if unless there is credit given for the publication of the newspaper the yearbook so it could include those and i and the school
086board has the right and i would say the obligation to appoint sponsors for those some other subcategory there are the equal access clubs and the federal law states specifically we cannot we cannot mandate a sponsor for those clubs we only apply the term i use as monitors we only have monitors there to make sure that but they don't they don't direct the club in any way it's student student organized student led and student directed my second question is you mentioned on curricular clubs that we teach or have taught given that we are moving to open one grade at a time starting next year also consider those courses that we're planning to teach yes the federal law does okay the federal law doesn't in the comments on the statutes uh and the directive we get dr
087carl and i and his staff get dear colleague letters all the time from the u.s department of education a lot of the times we only read three or four paragraphs until we're just glassy eyed but we get a lot of dear colleague letters and those are because those are considered the official positions of the u.s department of education and those clubs have recognized that those some of those dear colleague letters in the u.s department of education interpreting federal law and federal rules needed that if you intend to teach a course move to one that you might look at in two years from now you want to start a latin course from a latin club now and it'd be a curriculum club the answer is yes if you either have taught that course are teaching it
088or intend to teach it you can do that or but i'm going to wait on those if you don't mind i have one for mr plumley maybe i don't know if you had a chance to look but mr plumley we we currently have a policy about non-curricular clubs right the equal access policy just federal law to the best of your understanding right you just say that i've read mr pumley's opinion to the board and he's exactly correct in his opinion it's not i'm not here to i'm not here for that purpose but uh i enjoyed reading so i got that that was just a quick question to to reaffirm will you will you get the mic or just grab it just follow me that's correct thank you sir i have two more i'm considering but
089i'll wait till later maybe miss harrison um i do have a question about equal access organizations you said student organized student-led student initiated all of that so and we are not to we there's a monitor in place so does communication from those organizations go directly to the principle about formation or is there a enter does the monitor communicate with the administration of the school how does that logistically look well you don't have a monitor until you have a club if students wish to form a club they should petition the administration of the school and then follow the school board's policy i don't know whether the board approves all clubs or whether the school administration proves approves them in most of the cases of which i'm aware the school administration approves them and they just move
090on from there and it's understood that they have to follow all the policies of the board so if you have the students who wish to form the uh you know a club of any sort they should petition for recognition uh to the principal of the school that's where it would start and at that point we'd assign a monitor just to make sure that you know that meetings start that they're that they're following all the rules and the safety standards of the school questions um mr bernanke let me [Music] this is not something that starts with a faculty member had to we've had that uh we've had that discussion in several school districts that i represent can a faculty member actually petition for uh the existence of the club the answer that question under federal law
091is no ask about this has to originate with students i can maybe follow up on that thought what happens if the monitor gets involved in the club process well the monitor should be cautioned against it because again in order these clubs are basically independent agencies operating within a school and when it says that the the monitor is not what is is to have no input at all into the operation of the club that's exactly what the law means and what what the long-running battle there is what happens if the monitor does become a sponsor sponsor and suddenly they're taking in the club in the direction that students never intended or they're taking it in a way that school board never intended or the school administration never intended then you've got a problem so the monitor
092needs to be a neutral in this in this uh in the origination of the club may i be so bold to ask you how we would solve that problem if the monitor gets involved uh yes under 495511 suspension from service would be something you could consider disciplinary action against the monarch against the monitor who does overly involve themselves in the in the operation of that club i would i would put that in writing i would make sure because again we're dealing with we're dealing with federal funding here folks this is not something that's where somebody's just off on a frolic of their own you know they could be we're dealing with federal funding if they get too involved in the club and suddenly we have complaints from club members that the monitor is saying well
093no you you know you can't you can't believe this you have to believe this or and that's just the worst example then we have federal funds that are in jeopardy that could be jeopardized by that i've heard from some members of the community about questions around grade bands grade levels for clubs so i know that um in what you handed us and what we got from the other attorney secondary education or secondary schools you see by statute defined secondary yet as seven through 12. for lakeland we probably are unique in that our middle school has through eight and and soon five through nine in one building um if if the board so desired or school administration correction would it be appropriate what would your thoughts be if we limited certain of those clubs to certain
094grades or certain grade levels equal access clubs so i think that's that's specifically authorized at statute uh the congress in in a whole history of acts and if you look at the supreme court in a whole history of acts they they take great care to protect young children lots of care rules change a lot in a lot of circumstances under federal law and federal case law about uh you about the seventh grade and they change again after they graduate from high school when they go to college they're supposed to be as we'd say in sweetwater tennessee fully grown and mostly educated uh you know it's uh it changes again so if you follow the history of the case law and the history of the rules and regulations there there are strata of grades that have
095different uh different rights and responsibilities and obligations the equal access act specifically applies to whatever our state defines as secondary education if you say an equal access act club is not going to exist in sixth grade you're well within your right to say that childs understanding is the clubs would have to be treated the same so if you said for this club that it would only be grade 7 and up would that be the same for any other equal access class about the beta club with the beta club fall into that category or not the club is the beta club is a non-curriculum-based club that's what gives you the open your open your limited open forum and you're going to you're going to have a sponsor there if you want to limit beta club activities
096there is and by the way i looked at this there's a national honor society an elementary school honor society that's authorized you folks may participate in that that is a curriculum-based club because the first the first one of their uh issues in their uh constitution is scholastic ability is academic ability and then there's a national honor society for secondary schools as well that that clearly is a curriculum-based club so both of those are but beta club is a service organization you could limit the grade level of the grade bands within which beta club operates i candidly don't know what grade levels they operate in is there a beta club for elementary schools i don't clearly i wasn't a member i guess my question would be could you limit let's say fcs to seventh and eighth
097grade in a club six through eight if that's what you wish to do yes and it's a curriculum basically it is a it is a non-curriculum based club school sponsor club yeah it's the school sponsored but it's not an equal access club so then the question becomes you're treating all equal access clubs the same for example fcs and allies and diversity would have to be treated exactly the same is that correct yes or no so my final question really is when we talk about advertisements and and again you specifically gave us that bulletin board electronic means decided to limit non-curricular clubs to grades seven through twelve or seven through eight and eventually seven through twelve you'll be advice on those advertisements given that sixth grade is also in that same building in fifth grade so
098would we limit those bulletin board postings to specific areas so that only members of those grades could see them you don't you don't make those determinations based on grades you make those determinations based on where the club applies so if you remember the beta club beta clubs from 7-12 the beta club has access to the bulletin boards the electronic bulletin boards public address system free pictures in the annuals you'd write to have newspaper articles and things like that so base it on the club itself not on the grade itself and you just that way you're that way you keep it nice and clean for example at our elementary school if we said that equal access organizations are seven and up would that mean that you could not have one in elementary for example like a
099beach club or bible club in elementary tennessee is a dylan rule state and all the lawyers in the room just groaned because nobody thinks about dylan rowe except guys who practice education law but the dylan rule states that agencies only have those powers that are granted to them by statute and if the agency does not have that power that's granted to them by a statute somewhere by or by a rule or regulation the agency doesn't have it it just doesn't have the power and i would make it i think i would make the argument that you don't have any statutory authority under federal or state law have an equal access club in a grade lower than than secondary school you just don't have that authority uh and i think that would be a valid contest
100to a an equal access club that's in the sixth or the fifth of the fourth grade you don't have any authority for that the federal law says secondary schools i'm not sure i totally understand that that answer like i i hear what you're saying that there's not necessarily an authority to do that but frankly like lots of elementary schools have had i mean they have had things like that but you're just saying well it's just to clarify you know beach club is you're saying the religious club yes i want to make sure yeah and if you know if somebody calls my office tomorrow my first answer my first answer to that question usually is do you want me to answer that question uh and then the second is the second answer is let me tell
101you what's about to happen to you because i figure when i say that i've got your attention then the third is what is the law what does the law allow you to do what does the law say you can do if you don't have any statutory authority for that then in words that we use in east tennessee you're on your own you you've set up a bible club in the sixth grade which is outside the equal access act how are you going to deny the existence of any other club it's also an equal access club because discrimination is treating similarly situated people differently you get yourself in a position of having to take uh take a a hard look at the clubs that you're allowing to exist and those are not allowing to exist what
102statutory authority do you have to do either of those following the law is is always a good remedy it's better than role aids we may be beating a dead horse here but as it relates to made an interesting interesting statement i don't know if something just clicked or not are equal access clubs only allowed in seven through 12 grades secondary school according to tennessee so even though the school itself provides education five through twelve the club itself is only allowed seven through twelve that's correct okay we have something yeah we have several unit schools in tennessee i don't know if you are are you familiar with the term unit schools pre-k through 12 right right i mean all 13 grades are actually 14 grades in one building and we have a school system in tennessee
103richards city special school district that is a pre-k through 12 district down on the alabama line i represent the school district they're all in one building their equal access club applies only to the secondary school part of that of that school system school system rogersville city schools the same franklin special school district is the same they only have these clubs if at all in grades seven and eight because they don't have a high school in franklin special school district right so we have to have to take a look at the configuration of grades that we're dealing with so what we're and again i'm just going to say this to be clear but the club an equal access club would only be appropriate in grades seven through twelve it's only authorized and grades only authorized by
104law that's correct okay charles said dodge so your legal opinion is we should only have this club and any other equal access club for grade seven above 7-12 yes helpful any other questions for mr cagle 39 it was a pleasure i know we all are smarter there's no doubt about that mr chairman maybe a little sleepy but all smart uh i've stopped every one of these speeches and i've made a bunch of them and these people right now this over here going to go to sleep when i say this we've come through 20 months of like we never thought we'd ever see before i want to publicly thank this school board and all the parents and others for upholding public education and making sure that it worked during the time that we've had and i
105hope we can get past this little this little controversy move on because education of children's what this is all about the education it's it's you know we can get caught up in a lot of other things but let's let's remember our goal is education thank you very much for what you do thank you for taking the time to be here mr cagle all right dr harold let's keep going through the agenda i believe we're on on item two we were on item two we now move on to item three discussion action on non-curricular clubs i'd like to discuss this item who moved we have a motion for mr burnett is there a second second we have a second for miss harrison floor is now open for a discussion mr burnette would you like to speak
106sure you made a motion so having heard mr cagle's well-informed opinion and answering our questions chairman i don't know if we don't want to consider either um adding to our current policy or or asking the superintendent his opinion on enacting that given that non-curricular club should only exist grade 7 through 12. that specific grouping actually clarifying it's not i just want to make sure we're clear it's not non-curricular clubs it's equal access clubs the 7 through 12 non-curricular school sponsored are different and thank you thank you clarification ms harrison okay she'll keep me on my toes for language all day so non-curricular open access um clubs equal access clubs as defined by the act i know we'll clean this up later once we put it in writing and then we also may need to consider
107a separate policy for school sponsor clubs so that we can have a process that's very clearly outlined for what school sponsored clubs are currently have some that exist but we may need to have a policy to govern those and any additional ones as we know we're going to be opening 9th 10th 11th 12th grade soon i'd like to make sure we have a clear policy that goes to both ends of the spectrum to support those i would like us to consider that um i do have a brief statement i'd like to make um in december a lot of you are in the room tonight they were here in december in both meetings several of you who were here tonight that weren't here last time i'll say the same thing again i appreciate everyone being here
108those spoken whether whatever i agree with you my beliefs or not opinion your opinion is valued i will tell you a book that i read read every day tells me to love everyone unconditionally you should love all of our children unconditionally as i think i've heard several of you speak tonight should not be allowed it should be reported there are mechanisms to report it i promise you that the school administration will act on it administration does not act on it the board will act on the school administration i want that message to leave this room to parents administration that that will happen and and we can be held accountable for that i know i'm not saying anything that i haven't talked about a lot in the past several months for being here we are all
109open and accessible to you in fact in one conversation with dr horwell this past month all want to email the school board prior to today or prior to this month you had to learn all of our email addresses and send an email address to all five of us and if you mistype one name wrong then i don't get it or miss childs doesn't get it um starting as of i think this week we now have a school board email address you can email school board at lakelandk12.org and it will go to the entire school board as well as dr horel we all receive that communication you don't have to worry about all of us getting it you know that that's just one more step in our attempt to be open accessible and transparent so let
110me go off topic that's right thank you mr mack good comments ms thomas email that address for some reason i'm the problem child and it's not coming to me yet so um you may wanna we wanna check with dr terrell i think she's trying to work that out i wanted to clear up a couple of things that were said someone said that the teachers i think coached the kids to request the name change and i wanted to clear that up the the student leaders who brought the club to uh miss martin were the ones who saw the what happened in the december meeting and who i believe did a little reading and decided that gsa some of the nine tenets were not what they were in favor of and they put together a request for
111a name change and their name change sent from miss martin they wanted to promote a safe and positive environment for all students at lps they wanted to explore equity diversity and multiculturalism as it relates to students lives within the lakeland community they welcome all people cultures genders orientations beliefs and religions and i said this in december and i'll say it again and the letter from miss christopher hit upon the same thing in december some people were saying well there needs to be a guidance counselor assigned to this group well it may be a while it may have been a while since some of you been in a school but that's kind of an antiquated idea of what a guidance counselor does now a guidance counselor and we have three terrific ones they do career counseling
112um they yes they do you know all kinds of um students having different issues and yes they they help us with angel tree i mean they really do a lot kids bond with inside the school and they're teachers assistants and that's who they go to and they feel like they want some unconditional love because guess what every kid walks into lps and every kid who walks into les you our teachers love them all they shepherd them all they shepherd them all through seven hours a day that's what they do because they love it and so i wanna i wanna say yes this this is what the law says what we should want treat all of our kids they're all of our kids not just some but all of them we need to love all of
113our kids we need to provide a place for all of our kids and the fact that these kids came to school leadership and said he need this is powerful and i wasn't going to share this but i think i will and i've told some board members so i taught um i thought here's my very first year of teaching back right after the earth cold in the early 90s was at a an inner city school and i had freshman english i had juniors and seniors and i was just uh an animated person if you can't tell the way i talk with my hands um but my kids were my kids and i referred to them as my kids the entire time that i was teaching because i felt like they were my children one of them
114one day and gave me a note and if you're a teacher you have a box or an envelope or a can or a jar or something where you keep all those mentos that are precious to you that note is in my little box that note told me because i hugged this boy all the way out of my class he decided not to go home and kill himself tell you all what kids go through in school it's real it's not just bullying about genders it's not just bullying about um you know sexual orientation none of that it's every little thing and if it's been a while since you've been in middle school it is real and i would hate for us to think this group wants to get together and talk and maybe share their parents
115are going to have to sign permission slips i think that's part of our process now parents are going to know but sometimes not be the ones provide that love and support as much as somebody who says i get it get you i got you come here let's talk schoolers someone else said they're talking about this stuff guys they're talking about it whether you know it or not they're talking about it you should keep in mind we have 1900-ish kids in our school system and they are all our kids all of them thomas i believe that mr burnett made him i just want to make sure that we all know what we're talking about just for me i believe that mr burnett has made a motion is that what i don't know that i made a
116specific motion but i would i think we should consider so i can after miss harrison's comments i will be happy to make a formal motion the motion needed to follow the equal access or we just follow equal access according to the law that it's 7 through 12 is there any formal action needed by the board or we just follow the law and i want to if i can comment on what doctoral i want to acknowledge that all this conversation and the sharing of the legal opinion have been illuminating to me as well we frequently say in the school system that if we find that our practice is not matching policy then we either change our practice or we change the policy in this case i think it's clear based on some of the information that's
117been presented and clarified we do have some situations where our practice is not only not matching policy it's not matching our law i mean i'm just acknowledging for some of the the descriptions of the clubs and uh the membership in the clubs and and and the uh um you know sponsorship versus monitoring so there is um clearly based on this feedback there's some cleanup that um regardless of emotion uh will need to happen um so i'm acknowledging that and and what i've heard um as the superintendent i don't need emotion or i don't feel like i need a motion from the school board to say i'm going to go back and get with the school administration um at both schools if necessary and make sure that we are following our policy um which which is
118based on federal law that particular issue ms childs two things first i wanted to see if dr world could clarify a couple things um first there was um a couple speakers one one speaker mentioned dr world head coach um that was the words used um something to do with this student this club proposal speaker said that someone must have coached them on changing the name i wanted to see first if you could clarify that the initial approach and the rename came from the students because i know us said anything to any of these people we just waited for this meeting and followed the process and then secondly there's been some information shared about the level of bullying by some students and if you could share a follow-up on that and then i had something else
119sure um i have not had any contact with the students as relates to the clubs or the club name so the initial request for the club as i described came to me um through ms martin and the change uh the request to change the club's name and direction came to me through ms martin as well so while i'm sure i've said hi to students that are interested in this club um i have not spoken with them directly about the club so to answer your question did i did i coach the students on the name or make any requests like that i did not in the second i i am always i'm always uh bothered disturbed concerned about any reports of bullying um so i definitely echo everything else that's been said um certainly if the
120the young lady who spoke or any other student in this school system feels like they are being bullied for any reason at all i assure you i take it seriously i believe we have an administration that takes it seriously we happen to have a brand new administration at lakeland preparatory school who i know um wants to do everything she can to make sure that uh the rules are being followed and and the culture is what we want it to be so i would echo every previous comment that says if your student is being bullied let us know if the the students themselves are being bullied i hope they feel like they can go to a guidance counselor or a teacher or martin directly we also have an anonymous tip line um that students and parents
121are able to use to report bullying we do i monitor that as well um and in some cases we have had some situations where i do feel like that's been a life saving very directly where that's been a life-saving app that we have used and been able to intervene with students so it is it is absolutely a concern and something that i hope we can improve upon did you have another comment yeah i just wanted to say that being a social worker i support us having clubs because i think that students have bore the brunt mental health-wise in the pandemic and they've had the most restricted for any so um we just like i think every profession we also have a school board code of ethics and where we sign on saying that we'll represent
122the entire school community and this was a student request that was asked upon i have no evidence to my knowledge that it wasn't done properly and it wasn't put forth by students and i think you know i think schools being open in person having these nurturing teachers in front of the student and them having a sense of normalcy of clubs whether whatever the club is and especially one that's going to discourage bullying because as ms thomas mentioned middle school um so i just wanted to um make that comment sarason um i said at the last meeting i'll say this i've said it online first thing i want to say the stop it app is something you can download please download it for anonymous reporting i know people worry about retaliation um if if they're the
123one reporting bullying or anything the stop it app is done anonymously so you don't have to worry about them knowing it was you or them knowing know that it was your kid i know that some people have anxiety about that so that's the first thing i want to say i encourage anyone and i have offline and i said it in the last meeting please use the stop it app to report um anonymously you certainly don't have to report anonymously but if you want that avenue to report anonymously so that you feel some level of so that you aren't retaliated against or your child is not retaliated against for reporting bullying it is available in there for anonymous reporting so please please report any of that um and i will continue to march and preach it
124um sorry real quick that that that app is available on the lakeland school system website if you go to parents useful links stop it it's this anonymous reporting app just and i've actually used it um for reporting um small things big things whatever so it is very easy and user friendly um so i certainly want everybody to know that it's out there um the the second thing is is i sent um dr horrell i know we've talked about this such an action on non-curricular clubs one of the things that i would like to request potentially for the policy committee to review as i've sent some example policies or model model policies about school sponsored non-curricular clubs i would like to see if the policy committee could review those and make some recommendations on how to
125bring those to make sure we have formal procedures for those non-curricular clubs and lastly i think we have all been enlightened here about so i think we all took an oath i think the school system dr hull signs paperwork every year we are going to follow the law so regardless of um what are our personal opinions are or what we might want to do or not do personally or what we think or what goes on in our personal life we took an oath in dr hall's sons that the school system will follow the law and i think like he said we do have some shoring up and cleaning up to do some things to make sure we are adhering to federal law and i think we we will enact those very quickly and i think
126you know this has been very important for us to go through so that we are following the law of what we should be doing um and i'm very thankful this this board took the initiative to get very in-depth with this so we knew the right direction and knew what we should be doing um relation to the different types of clubs and how to handle this i want to ask for clarity we don't need action to follow the law i mean is that is that my understanding that we don't i mean certainly i'm not saying we shouldn't take action but we don't need action to follow federal law correct i think you're right but i also think we need to modify our policy to reflect it i think regardless of what our policy says we're required
127to follow federal law so i think you're correct in a sense that we need to follow it but we also need to amend our policies to make sure they actively reflect it so that's my expectation dr harold would be to see a policy in february probably separates equal access clubs and says they're only allowable in secondary bandwidth grade bandwidth which would be seven through 12 and then a different category for school sponsored non-curricular clubs in a different category for curricular clubs um yes and my understanding is just even from from this point forward my role would be to make sure that effective immediately equal access clubs are in grades 7 through 12 through 12 right at this point and follow the other specific existing policy rules of equal access clubs and we need to clean
128up our language on sponsor versus mentor because i think monitor monitor sorry monitor i think we meant when we said sponsor the idea was it was actually a monitor but we've been using the language that needs to be cleaned up we have as well mr burnett um and and to that point um i was going to ask the name of the app because i had forgotten it until ms harrison said it's also available on either the stores either the apple or google store stop it app stop it app so i was able to download it after the last meeting so it's available through the link on the website or in either the app stores policy 4.0 4.802 is the equal access policy and just for clarification it does not say sponsor the employees of the
129district are to be present in a non-participatory monitoring capacity so while we may have an opportunity to further edify that through some policy modifications i think we've been using the term sponsor some but but the policy doesn't say the words and i'll take ms harrison's guidance or our opinion too um i know i volunteered to take over the coordination for the policy committee i said last time i may regret that but i think what we can do is work with dr horrell to come back together as a group for a policy in february two is the policy report on today section three is the policy is the section for next month so we'll we'll do that but then also add the sections that would go into four for those clubs i wouldn't i wouldn't make
130a motion what i would say is i got the commitment from the policy committee and dr harold to make that happen by favor again any other discussion on this topic ain't none dr miss childs but just just to clarify because i know a lot of people are interested in this um so the the newly formed club allies of diversity would be able to have whenever their next meeting would be for grace for grades seven through twelve and that and fairness i don't think we need to be talking about any one club we need to be talking about all equal access clubs so they'll all be limited effective as soon as dr horrell can convey that message 7 through 12. speak with ms martin about it immediately any other discussion on this item 39 next item
131and if i may are we able to uh invite uh mr cagle to go wherever it is you're going if you're headed home to nashville have a safe trip uh if you're staying here have a nice visit mr cagle thank you everybody just a minute okay all right i think we're we can continue dr exciting his approval of minutes from the business meeting from december 13 2021. is there a motion to get this item on the floor we have a motion is there a second second we have a motion and a second any discussion on this item no hearing none all in favor any opposed motion passes next item next item's discussion action on approval of fy 2122 budget amendments is there a motion to get this item on the floor we have a motion
132is there a second second we have a motion in a second dr harold would you like to speak to us these are changes to federal programs they're nominal any discussion on this item you're none all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion passes next time next item's discussion action on approval of health and safety plan addenda promotion to get this item on the floor we have a motion is there a second second we have a motion in a second dr horrell this concerns the uh public reporting for our esser public plan uh the board and many community members and staff members participated in some surveying as well as other opportunities for uh public feedback and this is the reflection of that feedback in our federally required public health and safety plan agenda any discussion
133on this item ain't none all in favor any opposed motion passes next item next items discussion action on approval of esser public plan addendum promotion to get this item on the floor i moved all right we have a motion and we have a second dr harold very minimal changes to this this also reflects uh federal requirements for updating on a regular basis our esser plan any further discussion hearing none all in favor any opposed motion passes next item next item discussion action on approval of school support organization handbook we have a motion is there a second second we have a motion a second dr horrell i do want to know this is a very thorough overhaul of our school support organization handbook this was not a matter sometimes they are certain things we update annually
134are just a few changes ms rosales primarily led this work and did a really comprehensive job of making sure that our school support organization handbook reflects the latest guidance from the comptroller there are some changes that are going to impact our school support organizations we are already in the process of working with the schools to schedule meetings that we intend to be required for both the officers and the sponsors of those organizations we want to start doing a better job of coordinating those efforts we're we're not looking to disrupt anyone but we're looking to as as we did with the previous conversation make sure that we're in compliance with the law that we're in compliance with our own best practices and taking accountability for making sure that um what those processes are are very clear
135so i've been through this i i think it is clear and i think it'll lead to improvements at just the right time particularly before we start expanding the number of school support organizations uh and i appreciate everybody on this board who had any any sort of just feedback along the way it does reflect conversations just from over the years regarding school support organizations i will note that in some cases we are more restrictive than the law which is why this requires um board approval if if it's not more restrictive you don't have to get board approval in some cases in the interest of clarity and consistency and making sure that we have access to accurate reporting uh we are requiring some things of school support organizations that we didn't before so i do just want
136to note that brother miss harrison i just have one question one feedback i have gotten from some school support organizations is it's very hard to get a credit card in the name of the school sport organization that most banks will not allow it and then i know we discourage personal purchases um for reimbursement so i just can we and i'm not speaking against it and i'm fine with approving but can we investigate if that's going problem or if that's going to be a hurdle to them using a credit card and is there some other methodology we could use to make those expensive because i certainly think that they should make it directly out of the booster account instead of doing reimbursements um because i think that's cleaner but if they can't get it in the
137booster's name which i've heard at least two banks so far won't allow it in the booster club's name that it has to be in a person's name um and they won't even put the booster's name on the credit card like it won't be you know lakeland touchdown club or whatever they won't put that on there they will only do it in the person's name and i don't understand why that is um can you know can we figure out a way i don't know what that looks like but to make it where the transactions more come out of checking account instead of the reimbursements because otherwise i feel like that forces us to reimbursements let's follow up on that and then maybe i can talk to the person who's having the the issue and maybe i
138can well one of them is trustmark trustmark won't allow them to i mean so that's like a bank i think that a lot of our boosters use we will uh and i appreciate you saying go ahead and approve it i think if we could go ahead and approve it i will absolutely chase that down yeah okay thank you for the feedback it's thomas so there was an issue too something about using the square using square to for donations right i think that got approved in this version you can use it through paypal you can use paypal and square that interacts with paypal and paypal it basically gives us the best opportunity to review okay transactions okay i just wanted to check on that because i know we talked about that with angel trees yeah but
139for clarity drills we talked that's that's um you're to use paypal or square for collections only not for any disbursements not for any payments that's correct it should be done through the bank account and i don't think i've ever read it in here but i have a kind of a logistical question i know they do like a cash box or whatever at events um so when they do it a check for cash and it's you know you've got two officer signatures that's that's an okay process as long as it goes back in the checks are always okay yeah i just want to make sure that okay yep any further comments or discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion passes next item next time is discussion action on high school job descriptions the
140motion to get this item on the floor we have a motion is there a second second we have a motion in a second dr harold yes following our practice we are bringing any new job descriptions to the board prior to them being posted we have several listed on the website health sciences teacher band director uh high school band director high school theater teacher marketing and business teacher and stem teacher these only have slight differences really from the when i realized was left off and that's the law of government and public administration all governments refresh it's there um these are they're very similar to the the overall job descriptions reflect the existing teacher job descriptions but there is some specificity uh to these particular positions and thank you to ms martin and ms decker for doing
141the lion's share of the work on these and for your approval any further miss harrison so these aren't necessarily being posted like for the ninth grade would be posted for later grades for for the ninth grade coming on board because i i was trying to think of the classes we'd be offering that would have some of these and what we're what we're trying to do is is cast a wide net both in terms of what we might post we've had some conversations about possibly posting all of these positions and seeing what kind of applicants we get back and seeing if those applicants qualifications might be a fit where they could be hired now but but definitely board approving them doesn't necessarily mean that we will hire one for each of those positions essentially we could
142have where we if we get an applicant for the health sciences we could start the nursing focus area or health sciences focus area next year if we have the right applicant or whatever waiting a year until we have ninth and tenth graders to start like a health sciences focus here that that's correct for example and if you get the right candidate who may also have a nursing background that candidate may teach health sciences one or two periods a day and assist in the clinic other periods of day so as we as we grow this thing we're just going to kind of who's out there see who's interested and see what's a good fit for our program but yes okay so this is the most exciting thing i've seen all night it's very exciting any other
143comments or discussion how exciting but my heart monitor told me my heart rate was up on agenda item one and two once twice all in favor aye any opposed motion passes next item next item is discussion action on election of school board chairman and vice chairman per policy 1.200 this is something we do annually we'll take these one at a time are there any nominations for school board chairman i have a nomination for um mr floyd is there are there any other nominations i mean that there are no other nominations all in favor say aye aye any opposed passes thank you it's my honor to serve so it's it's a pleasure to be here and i'm honored to be here and i don't say that lightly at this time it would be appropriate to nominate
144a vice chair are there any nominations for vice chair a nomination for miss harrison are there any other nominations ain't none all in favor miss harrison say hi hi any opposed congratulations miss harris thank you i'm very blessed we'll move to the next island next item's discussion action on approval of fy 2223 budget calendar is there a motion to get this item on the floor i'll move we have a motion is there a second second we have a motion and a second any discussion on this item dr horrell per policy this is approved by the board every year ms rosales coordinates with the city to make sure that our planning schedule uh is in line with the cities and the state's requirements for budget reporting any further discussion just for clarity this is i mean
145i'm looking at the dates and it looks very similar to previous years there's no changes we yeah it looks very similar yes by design any opposed motion passes next item next items discussion action on lss legislative agenda miss childs is there a motion to get this item on the floor we have a motion is there a second second we have a motion in a second miss childs would you like to speak um okay so i previously had sent you last year's um legislative agenda and extreme draft that just threw together some ideas of what different members have mentioned in the past i also looked at the tsba agenda and the toss agenda and sent you those as well so um i will mention um from last year's agenda the teacher licensure um part of that
146was accomplished last year yay off that we wanted so um it was uh for the out of state and the increased flexibility and retired teachers that happen but the alternative licensure pathways has not been done so you will see that was on my list and then um the virtual learning that actually was done as far as the um beyond the when we were in the remote pandemic there were there are now circumstances that it can be used for such as homebound education alternative school and such so that was removed because that was also accomplished [Music] so the ones that were mentioned that got a lot of conversation at tsba i know ms thomas was there for it was having a different option for the third grade retention beyond the tcap which was not designed to
147be a literacy test because as you know the law will change in the future where quite a number of third graders may be held back the way the law is currently written so so we may want to have something regarding that and then at one point mr burnett had mentioned about a statewide grading scale because the states is 10 point i think it's been brought up before but nothing's gained traction and i i don't know the whole history but i suspect it's just due to money which of course is always attached to these bills because the i believe the seven point scale goes with the tennessee hope scholarship on qualifications so um so i will open it up at this point for discussion on what you know what we have on there you know that
148we've had in years past what i just mentioned which again are very tentative based on feedback and um and then of course if there's anything else that you're interested in adding that you know someone else's or tsba or toss discussion on this item is thomas one of the things that we voted on at the delegate assembly i think it would be great to add that and it's about um of assessments um or measurements of um growth and achievement benchmark well yeah it could we use benchmarks now but using them as a way to measure growth and proficiency i mean we're using them now give us feedback on what kids are being taught if they're learning what they're being taught but the tsba's position was step to use them teacher evaluations because 50 of teacher evaluations
149come from 15 as achievement data 35 is growth data both of those do you remember those that we yeah no i'm just specifically looking at the tsba one i'd print out so yeah so they have one that's under teacher evaluations tsba urges the general assembly to require the state board of education to create a teacher evaluation system kind of land on the exact one that you're right and and and the reason is you know right now with um all the or they're doing case 21 they're trying to figure out okay i've taught this how well did the kids respond to it how well it there are two different kinds of assessments there's the end of the year but then there's how are they doing with what i'm teaching them now and i feel like that
150needs to be validated you know they're in there teaching certain standards and we have data on how the kids are responding so maybe this is just a question i have about it um know that summative testing is high stakes and the reason it's high stakes is because there's accountability attached to it and the reason that the kids are under pressure to perform well on those tests is because it impacts the teacher evaluation and it impacts the school's evaluation evaluation i guess i'm just posing the question do we risk informative of assessments into your now linked equation whereas currently we we say these are formative we're just trying to figure out what you learn this is not high stakes do your best you know um it's just a thought like i mean it's sort of on
151the philosophical approach to formative assessment um well and in fairness i guess it's hard to get an authentic really authentic measure no matter which one you use i mean if they know that those are the ones that count then talked about uh field test things before if the kids know it's a field test they're not going to really take it that seriously because they know it's field tests but if they know it's a something that counts i mean it got a lot of support at tsba um asking this so a formative assessment is it then change would they then my concern is this i'm not saying i'm against it but my concern would they then try to change it to like a summative assessment where it counts as a percentage of this grade because that
152one is available during the school year whereas the other one like right now we have if you get the tn ready back within a certain amount of time then it counts as a percentage of this grade whereas if you don't have it back you can't count as a percentage of the student's grade well these would be through the year so then you potentially are forced into counting them as part of the student's grade you just could have i'm just the caution is you could open pandora's box make those where oh you're going to take a test now the first nine weeks and the second nine weeks and the third nine weeks in the fourth nine weeks it all count towards the percentage of your grade by state mandate instead of understand where your learning is
153at or not at and where we need to work with you on the standards so there's just there's there's a risk reward that we probably need to more information that clarify i mean where it would enlighten they might because the last thing we have is what we voted on in the adult i'm not trying to gum up the works y'all discussed it and we're familiar with it and we're part of the conversation and i i wasn't i was just kind of listening and trying to understand so it may be i'm not in favor of having a test four times a year that kids are graded on or that as opposed to just the tests we have to deal with now i'm not in favor of is my stake so if it leads towards that or
154it could open the pandora's i'm very cautious to not go down that path but i don't know the intent and like i said i wasn't there so i don't know the intent and i don't know where they're going with it and were they talking about could y'all were they talking about tests like the case test or were they talking about like easy cbm like where they're the benchmark testing and that's that's where i'm concerned because i just legislature when they get up there and it goes so fast and everything i don't want them to open pandora's box for us that the ripple effect is we have to we have something else we have to come up with to take the place yes and it could be that then and again it is kind of vague
155and you know i think they're trying to take off of the one you know i get the intent but i'm i'm not sure if they'll then tell us what benchmark we have to use either not sure if it might it could change if um legislature does this i'm not really sure so i will say um you know it may not be able to be done tonight but we don't meet again until february so if it is possible um that we could approve it just so we have it when we go in february to you know that we can give our legislators a little bit advanced notice of the legislative agenda um i do want to ask you um about the other the other pieces um i guess my my comment to that one would be
156philosophically i'm on the same page that dr horrell is order of assessment by definition is formative it's not a summative assessment if we switch it to that it by definition goes from being formally summative even if it's not a part of a student's grade it becomes a part of a faculty member's evaluation definition it goes to somebody in high stakes and then what ms harrison said adding in what pandora's box have we opened much as i love some of our state legislators of them clearly need some education about education or to legislate something from natural and or maybe a lot better of it too for similar reasons and my second one on the teacher licensure is our draft that this child's put the urge lss urges the tennessee general assembly to adopt legislation to increase
157pathways for alternative licensure or to address the growing teacher shortage i noticed the toss one mentions two businesses in comma especially in career and technology well any comments on about the dude yes yes because i know arlington and germantown they even submitted their own um adopted it into one representative of tsba and there was a lot of board members at that we've advocated for that as well in our calls last year even that's true um so do you want to add it or hold off on a different year but it was mentioned by mr burnett at one point about the grading scale and i'm not sure that there's support for it but i just was p i mean at the legislature but i was just trying to put down anything people have mentioned like the
158grading scale add that to a list of things but um i think we've addressed the rating scale here policy i don't think that's something we need to try to lobby for and also as childs and i discussed this they're expecting this to be a very short session of the legislature and i i feel like what miss charles put together with that addition i mean it gives us the flexibility we need to talk about the things we tend to want to talk about any further discussion so where it talks about school counselors social workers and mental health providers increase funding i i do like tosses where they include more items like in school nurses like they have a specific one for school nurses um i like that that to the list just another category of increased
159funding i know they have a very specific for toss um and the other thing that i'd like to see there is increased funding for technology infrastructure hardware and software because those costs are not going down it seems to be more technology costs especially for infrastructure things related to technology so i'd like to see that added as well um so i'm fine with replicating the toss language and just adding that list of any nurses that you want to put a metric for school counselors social workers and mental health providers so that wasn't so to incorporate it into our existing language lss supports increased funding for school counselors social workers mental health providers providers and nurses so that just oh gotcha okay and then adding a line for support increase funding for technology infrastructure hardware and software
160reaction to those changes as a fourth bullet under education any further discussion on this item and all in favor of approving the legislative agenda as amended say aye aye aye any opposed agenda's approved next item next items discussion action on the tsba legislative and legal institute this is one where we just make sure we're all on the same page in terms of who's going that's good right okay mind is when the deadline is so that the board knows if i said meetings with all the legislators but i have i've gotten um i haven't got any firm schedules i've gotten like half of them have responded that as soon as session starts we'll get back to you because i don't know you know what's going to be needed and session did start today um so i'll
161follow back up with them um but i don't actually have anything scheduled yet but um i know that they were not really sure you know when i asked in advance of what their schedule very second so if anyone has any changes he is currently not going anybody has any changes get them to miss mill spa before just say february 1st so she has time by the end of the month january 31st it's harrison and just later can you send me an email make sure i've signed up to go i don't know i've even i i have registered everyone and have secured hotel rooms further comments or discussion i guess i didn't update my account we already updated there any other business that needs to come before the board on our agenda i missed one policy
162a review of policy manual section two thank you yeah is there a motion to get this on the floor move we have a motion is there a second second mr burnett um we have no changes recommended at this time we're good not need to take any action on this item are there any announcements cory martin we didn't get to do that in public so congratulations yes thank you correct thank you well deserved well deserved everybody left but yeah that's right i'm sure it's a shared you know sentiment is there a motion to adjourn well i have another announcement the pta auction date has been announced so that's important the lacrosse coach was hired and so they've started practices which is great the ball is um coming up it's a play-in game on saturday i think
163right is that right all west we had they had auditions for somebody i don't remember which organization recently and then the vandal west is coming up so there's lots of activities for students it's really exciting time and we had lots of art winners yes the art winners yeah so there's lots of lots of wonderful things lots of reasons to celebrate right now and the lakeland education foundation brick brick fundraiser is still going on i'm going to start shaming people i know by sending you individual emails to say i don't have your name on the list yet it's me um and then draw i need to send you a link um we can do some for those companies that you mentioned more than one brick for them is there a motion to adjourn we have a
164motion is there a second second emotion is second all in favor any opposed we are adjourned since there's no national championship tonight let me stop him hey guys