001Good evening and I'd like to welcome you all to the January 12th, 2026 meeting of the Robertson County School Board. Uh at this time, if everyone would please uh silence any cell phones or electronic devices uh and also join me in a brief moment of silence. Thank you. All right, if y'all could join me in the pledge of allegiance. Wow. Attention. Salute. Pledge. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Let me introduce you to a few students here that were released in and these are some of the shining stars that attended the beta conference and I have the privilege to be able to introduce them to provide them with a
002certificate tonight. East Robertson's under the direction of Miss Young and Miss Shapton as their principal and assistant principal. Uh, first I'd like to introduce to you Riley Mink who participated in the marketing at the elementary school convention. >> I want to present to you Mr. Benson Wargo. He did sculpture. I also want to make a recognition that East Robertson was fourth place overall in the Songfest. So, a great accomplishment for all the schools that were there. I have Jillian Reed who was fourth place in onsite cake decorating. I have Hannah Stallman who is third place in draw. Not in attendance tonight, but also placing was Jackson Bryant, who scored second on the fourth grade math test. So, another shining star. And I bring you to Charlie Keith, champion jewelry for the entire state of Tennessee.
003>> Wow. and Macy Underwood champion solo performance and has also received a premier performer award which allows her to participate in the opening ceremonies at national convention. >> Wow. >> A so they are excited to be here tonight. We thank you for coming tonight. want to thank for bringing your children tonight and congratulations to East Robertson Elementary. >> We'll get your pictures across the hall. >> Thank you guys. >> Congratulations y'all. >> All right. Don't have any uh public comment items, so we will move on. Oh, I'm sorry. Dr. weeks. Can you read our mission and mission statement, please, sir? >> Our mission is to ensure that each student is prepared to succeed in life. And our vision is that we will enable all students to reach and exceed high academic and career standards while
004empowering them to succeed in a culturally diverse and technologically advanced society. >> Thank you, sir. Now, we do not have public comment items tonight. Uh board members, you do have before you a consent agenda that went out uh last week. I'm sure you've had time to review it. Uh, at this time, I will open it up for any uh, discussion or action on the consent agenda. >> Motion to approve by Mr. Jeff White. Do we have a second? >> Second by Miss Demetria White. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda as presented, please make no say by saying I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion passes 6. Recognitions. Dr. Weeks. >> Court members. Tonight I would like to ask uh our Crest View principal, Miss Jen Titner and Miss Terry Baird to
005come forward. We had a situation Oh, guys, we had a situation unfortunately earlier in the year and Miss Teachner brought this to our attention and I'd like to read the statement that was brought to us. Thanks to Miss Terry Bar for her quick thinking and decisive action during a lunch period emergency. When a student began choking, Miss Barrett immediately stepped in and successfully successfully performed the Heimlick maneuver, saving the student's life. Her calm response under pressure and her commitment to student safety exemplify the highest standards of care and professionalism. We're profoundly grateful for her actions and a positive outcome that she makes each and every day. Terry, we thank you for your work and Miss Teacher, we sure thank you for bringing that to our attention. Thank you so much. All right. On to item
006number five, personnel uh personnel reports. >> Board members, on pages 22 through 25 in your packets, you'll see the certified and classified uh personnel reports. Uh you'll see several resignations and transfers. As we've uh entered the second semester, uh you will see those from both certified and classified staff. You also see leaves of absence. You do see some retirements. We'd like to recognize those individuals. Uh Deborah Greer from Ransford Early Learning Center, Clifford Gregory from Transportation, and Peggy McCay as a title one assistant at Chrysler Elementary School. You do see other personnel actions that we have taken since that point in time. You've also got a report on tenure. >> Uh board members, one of the actions that boards are responsible for is uh approving tenure and granting tenure to the employees that are listed.
007So you will see item uh 5B on your report is on the bottom of page 22 carried over to page 23. Uh each of these employees has met every recommendation and requirement of the state of Tennessee. Uh they also had the recommendation of their principles and we have a reviewed sheet and a signature from each one of those employees saying they have met all requirements for the state of Tennessee and Robertson County schools so that they would receive tenure. Uh as a reminder to those individuals uh they their tenure actually goes into effect as they are hired and as they are employed to start the first day of work next school year. Uh but at this point in time, this group uh does meet those requirements and I would recommend approval. >> Motion to approve.
008>> Motion by Miss Connie Hogan. Do we have a second? >> Second by Mr. Steven Ays. All those in favor make it known by saying I. >> Any opposed? Motion passes 6. Moving on to item 6 uh A expense comparison report. >> Page 6A. Page 26 uh shows our revenue and expenditure reports for the year through November 30th. You'll see revenues at $50.9 million or 35% of our budget. Expenditures at 60.2 million at $39.7% of our budget. Revenues have started coming in for property tax. You see property tax coming in at $2.0 0 million and sales tax a little bit over last year but roughly the same percent of budget $7.3 million. The expenditures we track regularly those related to personnel and those related to uh energies you'll see those listed at the bottom. Our
009highest one electricity at 49% of our budget. Uh we'll have to be careful with that number and making sure that we uh watch that category carefully. Uh gasoline considerably down at 25% of our budget. So, we feel those line items are in uh in line with where we need to be. I've met with Miss Kleiner and I've also met with county personnel, county finance personnel, and if you'll recall, we did budget approximately $8 million out of our fund balance if we needed it. uh the number up there is a little higher than it was last year. But again, we've uh we've paid several contracts up front that we uh still feel comfortable at where those numbers are and uh both county finance and miss Kleiner have assured me that they're not worried about those and
010as long as they're not, I'm I'm not as worried. It kind of causes me a little uneasiness, but I'm not worried about where we are with those numbers tonight. Any >> questions on the comparison report? Moving on to item 7A, school attendance report. >> Page 27 in your packet shows the November and December comparisons. And again, I want this report to be what you'd like it to be. We've uh we've started adding a couple more columns and a couple more items that uh that you'll see on there. Uh for December, we'd like to recognize Green Elementary School for the highest elementary school in attendance. They were at 94.8%. 8% and our highest high school middle high white house heritage again I think they've had that all three months that we've looked at these 98.6% 6%
011in attendance for the month of December. Uh you'll see the totals that we've added at the bottom. Those are new uh 94.1% for the month of December and that's an excellent attendance. And you'll see that we've also added the district total for last year. So you can use uh use those to compare. Again, anything that you see that you would like us to continue to add to this report, we'll be glad to do so. Uh I think we started talking about this report because of the number of students that have received 20 or more absences which creates u in our accountability model. It creates the situation of what is defined as a chronic absentee which is a mark against the the school and the school system in terms of our um accountability model with the
012state. And so you'll see the following schools with 20 or more absences, students with 20 or more absences. Uh, Coopertown Middle has 26 students that have 20 or more absences. Green Bear High School at 16. Green Middle at 14, Joe Burns High also at 14. And Springfield High at 13. So there are 135 students in the district that have missed 20 or more absences. And Mr. White, I think you made that statement last month. Uh, 20 days is an entire month of school. And so we have 135 students in our district that have missed one month of school or more. >> And I guess it's conceivable if you've got a dozen or more missing 20 days that that pulls the school average down considerably as well, wouldn't you think? >> Yes, sir. And u that
013is calculated on a daily basis by our attendance system. And so each and every day we know what our chronic absenteeism rate is. uh it does assume that students will be enrolled for the full 180 days of school. So again, we're we're watching that uh that number very carefully at each school. Uh we are trying to intervene by sending letters. We're trying to intervene by uh connecting families to social services that we have access to both uh those social workers that are employed by us as well as other social services and intervention services that are in the community. uh we are trying to uh utilize every uh lever that we could manipulate to help students understand the importance of being at school and help their parents understand that. Uh we talked about that last month
014as well as we talk about approving a school calendar and knowing when breaks are and so people trying to schedule appointments and other home activities around our our scheduled breaks that we have. Uh but yet we still um while we understand there are sicknesses and illnesses and things that happen uh again it's um when you're talking about a missing a month of employment or a month of work, a month of school, uh it does make it difficult for students to learn when they're not at school. >> Any other questions on the attendance report? >> All right, hearing none, we'll move over to item 7B, schoolboard policy revisions. Miss Dickerson has updates uh pages starting on page 28 in your packet. >> Good evening board members. There are three policies included in your packet for consideration
015of approval on first reading. The first policy rights and responsibilities of students number 6.301 and the second policy student concerns complaints and grievances. uh board policy 6305. These simply have some uh language revised to align to model policies from TSBA. The third policy, student fees and fines 6.709 has um just a clarifying word added or a couple of words. Sorry about that. And that and that's it. Do you have any questions about those three policies? Okay, thank you. >> Thank you. We've got three policies in front of us uh for approval on first reading. Uh do we have any discussion or action? >> Motion to approve policies as presented. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Steven, second by Mr. Scott Rice. All those in favor make a known by saying I. >> Any opposed? Motion
016passes 6. Review of LEA non-public and homeschool report. Well, members, I think we took a look at this report last year. Uh, schools that fit into what the state defines as categories one through five schools. So, these are private schools as we know them, uh, or some homeschool organizations. They are required if they meet certain definitions to report to us uh the names of students that are enrolled in their facilities. And so you will see this report is sent to our student services office. Miss Kathy Watkins prepares this for us each year. Uh this is submitted to the state and then returned to us. So you will see on page 34 uh we have 1151 students who are reporting to a private or other homeschool organization uh that meets those definitions. Uh just thought that
017would be of interest to you. Uh you do see at each age uh the number of students that fit that category. Again some of these are online schools, some of these are private schools in our area. Uh some of them are private schools all across the state of Tennessee. uh you will see the number of in the far right column uh the number of independently homeschooled students 135 and so those students have uh their parents have come in appropriately withdrawn them uh from our school system or they've entered them as kindergarteners as an independent home school which is different than the category schools that you see in the far left column just for your information. >> Thank you, sir. Any questions? >> All right. On to item 7D, legislative interest. >> Members, uh thank you
018for your time last week. We had an opportunity to meet with our state senator and our state representative and uh those of you that were able to make that meeting, and I realize it was middle of the day, and some of you couldn't because of work obligations, but we had a a good conversation with Senator Roberts and Representative Kumar. Again, much of that discussion uh I think centered around uh the equities or inequities of the uh school voucher program and uh kind of we asked for some previews of upcoming legislation and we shared our legislative interests with them. So again, no action needed tonight, but we do have a list of our legislative interests that uh that the board and uh our administrative staff have uh we we focus on. We share thoughts and feelings
019with those legislators and we work through organizations like the Tennessee School Board Association, the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendent, uh, TEA and other groups that, uh, might provide some influence to those legislators and watch out for, um, bills that that are brought before the House and the Senate so that we can take a look at those and see what impact they would have in Robertson County. Uh, so you do have a list of those. uh we will post those on our website and make sure that uh as we have opportunities we'll continue to share positions with you. Uh I think Mr. Ays you're representing us as a legislative liaison this year and I would remind you there is a legislative conference sponsored by TSBA coming up um second week or so of February. And if
020you'd like to register for that, Miss Trice will be glad to register you. And if you need rooming for that night, we'll be glad to get that taken care of as well. >> We have anything for transportation facilities today? >> No, sir. >> All right. Going to communications. >> Four members. During our legislative um meeting last Monday, uh I think the state senator and state representative uh had some information that they shared with us related to um the the the voucher proposal that uh has been implemented by the state of Tennessee uh last year. And I found I knew I'd found this I knew I'd read this report somewhere, but I wasn't sure where it was. I did run across that. So item 9A in your packet uh shows that the state of Tennessee has
021reported to us that 384 students from Robertson County uh had taken advantage of the educational voucher scholarship for this year. Uh they have not provided us any other demographics. So, we do not know if these were students that were uh in our school system previously or if those are ones that might have uh seen that as an opportunity to take advantage of that uh freedom scholarship and to enter that. So, again, we're uh we're hoping to find information. Uh I think the office of educational research and accountability out of the compilers's office I think is digging into this a little bit more and uh attempting to get some more data but at this point in time uh that is the only number we have and again we don't know if those are students that were
022previously enrolled in a private school or if those who have taken that. Uh you do see the numbers from our surrounding counties and I guess Murray County is also in there. So you see a low uh 53 um 114 up to the high in Davidson County. You see the number of 2300 plus that have taken advantage of those scholarships. So I did want to share that with you just to make sure that uh we had we had that conversation. And while we were doing that, um, I also found this document along with there. Uh, this document's beside your your packets. We didn't find this until after we had printed packets, but beside your desk, you'll see a couple things. And if you would, I'm certainly not going to read along with you, but uh, from
023the first uh, sentence, most Tennessee public school students who use the educational savings account vouchers are not leaving low performing schools. It talks about uh the performance of those schools. It talks about um the comprollers's office looking how their schools are measured. It does talk about uh voucher programs throughout the United States. It talks about how number uh the number of students uh coming from private schools, the number in public schools. So about halfway down the page in 2022, 66% of voucher students came from a public school and I'm sorry, 66% of the voucher students came from public school and 33% were entering the public schools. So again, we see how that um I think there's some similarities, but there's also some differences in the discussion we had during our legislative dinner. uh over on
024the back side you see uh the concept that they I think this report was was trying to emphasize that the majority of these students who are not coming from uh a D or an F school they are coming from A B and C level schools and you see some of those numbers and statistics that were in the report I think this is some excerpts and this is a summary report from uh the document that representative Kumar shared with us that day again that's probably for your reading just for your pleasure in your own education there. >> Thank you, sir. Item 10, director of schools report. >> War members, we'd like to uh again, thank you for your work. Uh this is school board appreciation month. And beside your desk, I think you'll find some treats
025from uh several of our schools, our staff here, and uh just some thank yous for uh for your work uh as a school board member. There are a lot of things that you do that are behind the scene that the public may never know about, but I appreciate uh the the work that you perform each and every day. uh some of you we talk every day if not every week and just talking about the the good things that are going on Robertson County schools uh solving problems and resolving issues when they're needed. So thank you for that and congratulations to each of you for that. I also like to share that next week um actually starting tomorrow we will start meeting with principles as we talk about u planning for the 2627 school year. That's
026hard for me to say and hard for me to think about as we're just now entering 26. But uh we have for the next I think it's the next 12 days we'll be meeting with at least two to three principles per day and talking with them about uh where they are with their academics uh scores, their accountability rubrics and where they are making progress this year. We'll be talking about what they need to uh improve and continue to grow for next year. Uh would remind you that the education committee of the county commission meets this Wednesday. that is at 4:00 in this room. Uh we'll be hosting Mid Cumberland superintendent. So the 16 superintendents that I work most closely with will be in our district on Friday. Uh we'll be touring some buildings. We'll be
027talking and planning and have some training from the state department. So we'll have a good time there. And middle school basketball tournaments are starting tonight. And I think they're also Thursday with finals on Saturday night. Those are at Toburns High School. So you can see that. And don't forget winter graduation is coming up. And then lastly, we'd like to uh continue to uh let um the staff at White House Heritage Elementary School know how much we appreciate the the work and the stress that they've undergone this week and uh they've uh they've done an exemplary job of helping the community and the helping the school and helping the family deal with a difficult situation. >> Thank you, sir. Open it up now for any old business. How about any new business? Board members, >> I
028think we probably need to relook at some of the cleaning issues that we've got going on at some of the or l lack thereof. And I I don't know where we're at, if there's anything that that we can do to maybe bring in the cleaning company that we've got uh to have some conversations, but there's just a lot of things not getting done. And uh >> I I know we have a retreat planned for the weekend, the first weekend of February. We could we could have them come report and have a time for questions and answers with that group. Then I'm sure we can schedule that. And I don't know if it's everybody across the border, if it's just some of our students. >> I don't have no questions for them. They can't clean. They
029don't need to be there. I That's just >> It's It's pretty simple. Walk out and ask your your principles in the schools. Walk out and look at the schools and see how clean they are. And they're not. If anybody's got clean schools in the in the area, please let me know. I'd love to go see one. And we've got a county commissioner that has sent every one of us an email tonight. Make sure you check your emails when you get home. He's he visited one of our places. Not real happy. >> I know in this last contract there was some financial >> Yeah. >> You know, guidelines that allow us to do some deducting. Are we implementing any of that? Are we to that point? Uh, and I'm sure we can discuss it. You know,
030I'm just know that was put in there because we had those concerns of what if. Um, and so are we at that point to where we're implementing some reductions or >> we we'll get that report for you that that retreat time. We can have that conversation. We see we get comments from principles. We can have some comments and input from from the county. The group that's doing it. >> Yeah. Because if that's sacred and the fact we're not cleaning, it's just time to, you know, save the county a little bit of money and, >> you know, stop paying do some, you know, do it properly, of course, but time to hit them financially and and see if that fixes or at least get us some of our money back. I'd like I'd like the next
031process to not be lowest bid necessarily, like do a uh RFP or an RFQ process where we can look at the company more holistically, look at their pay, look at their employee, how long they're retaining employees, look at >> us all go to another school district they're at nearby. you know, if it has to be a road trip, it can. You know, like uh I think chasing the the lowest bid, we're just going to keep up in this situation where they're paying they're not paying their employees enough. They're not treating them well enough to stay. And then we're all surprised that our schools aren't getting clean. So, >> we lost we lost a lot of good employees when this company took over. >> Yep. >> Any other new business? All right. >> That's right. I
032would would say if there are other items that the board would like to address in the retreat, we'll be building that agenda. We've got a couple of things on there already, but if you'd like to if you have other items that you'd like to put on that agenda for that Saturday uh study session, we'll put that together. You could just let me or Miss Trice know. We'll put those together for you. >> When y'all expect to have a draft agenda for that? >> Um probably by the end of next week. So, it's the 24th, 25th, somewhere in there. Okay. >> To give you about a week to look at it. >> Can we add something? Can we I'm going back to the the students that have been out for they've missed so many days. Is
033there a way to see if any of those have chronic illnesses? >> Yes, ma'am. >> I'm just curious. Is that just a few or is there a lot of kids with, you know, I would love to see which of those have got something that's really some kind of illness that's >> Yes, ma'am. >> Any other new business? >> All righty. We will move on to comments by board members. I uh we'll start with Mr. Rice tonight. We've been on the other side for the past few months. Didn't have much. Thank you for the uh goodies. Didn't have supper night and that bread was really tempting. Um but do and I thank the kids for the notes. You know, I I find myself sometimes going through there and looking at them and you know it just
034it's kind of refreshing and encouraging when you see the students take a few minutes to handw write a note. You know, I can't tell you. I think hand writing notes are kind of a lost art nowadays and so I do enjoy getting those. So, thank you. >> Uh just uh thank you all for everybody getting started back this school year. Uh all the work that goes into that. Yeah. And I just want to reiterate it's a lot of good stuff, but look at that. How cool is that? So, uh uh just like Scott said, I go through these cards every so often at home. I keep them in my office. So, I just want every teacher to that put the effort into this know. is very much appreciated and the the kids are what makes
035it all worth doing. Without them, I I definitely wouldn't be here uh doing this. So, uh uh just thank y'all uh for everything y'all do to keep everything going and it means the world to me. Thank you, >> Miss White. >> Well, I just want to express my condolences again. I know we've talked about that, but a lot of sadness has happened this week and that's that's tough no matter what. So, but I want to thank all of y'all for kind of jumping into action and and the schools and the things that's going on there. And then just want to reiterate the same things they said. But this was really unexpected. This was like Christmas. So, so thank y'all to all. And in some of these cards, I mean, we've got an artist at one
036of the schools. I think this came from Heritage. And I just got to show y'all this one. Somebody just don't know how old I am. They say this is me and them and and we're playing tag. I'm pretty sure they they they caught me real fast. But anyway, that's all. But very appreciated. >> I just ditto everything you all said. I'm I'm kind of like Thank you, Stephen. I love to go home just sit back and start reading them and smiling. Uh but thanks for all the hard work that each of you all put in each day and uh let's get through this school year. >> Sir, Miss Con. >> Well, I don't know that I can add much to it. I will say I I went to White House Heritage Elementary Friday morning and
037it was amazing to see the support that the teachers were showing to the kids. you know, we and you had the extra counselors that came in and I just think they did an excellent job. It was a sad place and probably will be for a little while, but uh it'll that they'll make it. But the support I thought was just outstanding. >> That's good. >> Thank you, Miss Connie. And I'll I'll let go. I want to extend my condolences and prayers uh to the family of the the student that tragically passed away last week at Heritage. Um you I know I'm guilty of this. I'm sure a lot of us are. You know, you you get so caught up in kind of tunnel vision as far as what what I've got going on, what my
038family's doing, and you kind of uh maybe don't always notice, you know, what the people around you are going through. So, just as a as a encouragement or a challenge or whatever, you know, go out of your way this week to be kind to somebody, show them you care. I don't think we know what those little little nudges do for folks sometimes. So, uh try to make that a point this week and and u a little moment of levity. I laughed. You know, many of y'all know my wife is a second grade teacher at Woodall and uh her class worked on some of these last week and she called me and said uh that she had let some of her students know when they were making their things for schoolboard appreciation week that that Mr.
039Josh was one of the board members and one of her students immediately said, "Well, that means you better do what he says." I was like, "Finally, somebody told her." I bet that went far. >> But thank you for all this is all wonderful. It's hard to concentrate smelling this bread up here all all. So um do we have anything else before we adjourn? >> No, we're journ. Thank you'all.