Board of Education Work Session - June 2, 2026

001central office staff that you've assembled here is just it's a true blessing to all of our all of our kids and all of our families. We just thank you for our country. We pray for our president. And father, we just pray that as a board that I just pray for every board member here and their families. Lord, just pray that we make the decisions that will honor you and everything we do in your son Jesus name I pray. Amen. >> Amen. >> Please stand. >> 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. >> First up, I'll give you all some time to look over the agenda. Is there anything that you all see that needs

002to be changed or added? Questions? Next we have the consent agenda. Pretty lengthy. Is there anything else you see there that you'd like to question or >> Miss Maxwell? >> Yes, Mr. Tidwolf. >> I got a couple questions on um some of these items more just to understand them a little bit better than anything else. But uh Dr. Chain, I don't know if this would be something you'd speak to, but Moby Max and Instructure, can you kind of tell us a little bit about those? >> Yes, I have some notes here. So, Moby Max, and I've got some usage reports as well. We uh have about over 1,700 active teachers, K8 that are using it. It's modules and uh different interactives that they're able to assign to students and use in the classroom. So, the

003the official blurb, it's a personalized learning program that supports students in grades K8. Teachers assign skill-based lessons for instruction, use adaptive learning paths, address individual learning gaps. Um, it's mostly in math and reading with uh a suggested 60 minutes of usage a week. We don't normally use it that much, but it's used for specific students in small groups typically. >> Awesome. >> In structure is kind of the big assessment. item. So it's both our assessment item bank that we use for in you know teachers use for common formative assessments amongst their teams tests that they give their students both on paper and via the computer program that comes with it. It's also the company that is over MVPA which is our uh district benchmark that we give twice a year grades two through through EOC.

004Okay. >> Actually started in first grade this year, too. >> Thank you. And I see one last one, and I may pronounce this wrong. Propio. >> Propio. So, that that's the one that is used as a translation service for our uh students and families that don't have English as the primary language at home so that schools can get in touch with parents and communicate about whatever is going on in the classroom. >> Okay, great. Thank you. you know, I'm sure everything u things are always changing and how do y'all keep up with this? How do you know that what's what's good and what's not good? And you know, every year, I'm sure it changes. >> It does. And we we've actually made a concerted effort to kind of streamline the programs that we authorize and

005support across our schools because there is so much out there. Uh so this is actually fewer programs than we've had previously. Um each year I think over the last four to five years has gone down. Uh we depend we look a lot at usage reports. So if it's not something that's being used by teachers and students, we don't continue with it. um if it's not something that aligns to standards, we're not we don't continue. Um so it it is a kudos to our instructional technology team as well to make sure that all these programs follow what is required for student safety, data privacy, all that. So all these companies have data privacy agreements and agree to our terms. >> Y'all do a good job. I know these these programs are valuable for the kids and

006for the teachers. Okay. Yes. >> One last question. Um the power school professional development management system is that power school the same one that we had issue with one of the charter schools using >> different branch of it. >> Same overall company but we're not using it for student information. We're using it for our professional development to house a place for our teachers to keep records. >> Okay. So we'll have any issues there? Now, we've been using it for Yeah. as long as I can remember as well. Yeah. It's where they have to get so many hours of professional development. That's where their records are held. >> Perfect. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Okay, moving on. There's no public comments. We're going to do RCS difference Thursday. Uh we do have two

007presentations and uh first one Trey >> uh we have Middle Tennessee Electric and TVA here tonight. I'm going to introduce a few folks and then they're going to get up and speak with you. Megan Keane with TVA, Glenn Hollingsworth with Middle Tennessee Electric and Kevin Lee. Whichever one of y'all like to go first, please step to the podium. We do have some handouts if it's okay for us to give those to you. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you, Kevin. Um, it's a pleasure to be here with you today. TVA is the nation's largest public power provider, which means we don't have shareholders. We have stakeholders, folks here in the room and across the valley, 11 million people in seven state region. TVA's mission is to serve the people of the valley to make life better. The

008way that we do that is through working with our partners like Middle Tennessee Electric to help businesses, industries, and especially our schools save energy and money by being more energy efficient. My team in Energy Wright works with our local power company partners like Middle Tennessee Electric to bring energy efficiency and demand response programs to residents and businesses alike. We do that by incentivizing capital improvement projects for installation of energy efficient equipment, reducing demand through demand response programs, reducing monthly bills to residents, and retaining businesses here in the valley while creating a virtual power plant to keep from building more steel in the ground and more generation. We appreciate all that the Rutherford County Board of Education has done in partnership with MTE and TVA to keep help keep um students more comfortable, excite and engage

009students about energy through our school uplift program and reduce your overall energy footprint. We truly appreciate all that you have done in terms of energy efficiency, especially with your geothermal units, which provide lower overall operating costs over package HVAC, healthier classrooms with improved indoor air quality for students and teachers, and longer lifespans and less maintenance. We appreciate a long-term investment in our students futures and sustainability of energy efficiency for each school. And I'll say I truly appreciate that with having a student here at Thurman Francis. Um so we do have a check that we'd like to present to you all tonight. We you have completed 89 projects across 52 different school buildings. That includes LED upgrades, HVAC upgrades, and and some other programs. Um you can see that on your your chart there. Um received

010almost $1.7 million in TVA incentives on your power bill or through a check. reduced annual energy use by a combined almost 8.5 million kilowatt hours. That's basically powering 1,181 homes per year. And that's an estimated annual energy cost savings of over a million dollars. Um, you do have current active projects. You have 17 happening across 14 school buildings. Again, that's mainly LED and HBAC. You do have one school enrolled in school uplift. Um you can see here, you know, your estimated um incentives are almost $225,000 with um almost 1.4 million kilowatt hours saved. Some of the highlights you can see there um we had an upgrade at Steuart's Creek High School um replacing some of the sports field lighting. The incentive there was um around 131,000 with some of the geothermal units. Those have reached

011$400,000 or more in incentives. Um, with that I'll kick it over to Glenn Hollinssworth from Middle Tennessee Electric. >> Thanks, Megan. Um, I'm Glenn Hollinssworth with Middle Tennessee Electric. Thank you'all for allowing us to be here. Um, it it truly is an honor to represent MTE tonight and um, first I just want to say thank you for what you do. We have an incredible school system and um, that that's the work that you all do and your team and your staff do. I just want to recognize that and say thank you. Um, something that's important to Middle Tennessee Electric is economic development. And the work that y'all do directly impacts economic development because without great schools, businesses aren't going to come. People aren't going to come. And I just want to recognize that. And uh,

012so for us, the the purpose of Billy Electric is to make lives better for our members. And we can do that a lot of different ways. Um, programs like these are just fundamental to what we want to do. And I want to recognize that that y'all are leaders in in this space within Middle Tennessee Electric. And it's not normal to see this type of investment. And it truly makes a difference. And and I I know these numbers may look big. And when you look at almost $1.7 million in incentives, but please don't overlook the estimated annual energy savings. That's every year that you're going to see seven figures of of savings because of the investments that y'all have. And I just want to say thank you and and thank you to uh to the leadership

013of this school board, to Dr. Sullivan, to to Trey for the partnership uh that we have. It goes a long ways. Kevin Lee is here. He's our key accounts coordinator and and he works with with this team so so much and so often. And it's not just with energy savings. We want to be there to help y'all with the new school builds as issues come up. So we we want to be that partner. So continue to reach out to us if if we can help. But uh congratulations. This this truly is a a meaningful project and series of projects. So, thank you for that. And I think now Trey, we want to do the check presentation. Great. >> This is y'all's show. [laughter] >> They they would like a photo opportunity. They do have a

014check for the incentives that we've received in the last 18 months. >> Yep. >> The whole board. Yes. Do the whole board. >> Yep. >> Want us to go in front? Yeah, Thank Can I make a comment real quick? >> Yes, go ahead. >> And so I just want to thank um Mr. Lee and his team and also MT. um that is a way that we've been able to lower our expenses and utilize our 177 funds and 141 a little bit wiser the last couple years, last 18 months. So that is not necessarily a check that comes back like as a $1.7 million check that we're going to get tomorrow, but that's how we've been able to utilize we get these funds back and we get rebates and incentives back that allow us to lower

015our utility bills. And so that's a huge thing that we've been able to do. And then you're going to see, I think a little bit later, some more possibilities. So when we're told think outside of the box tray, you guys have definitely done that and found a way to fund some projects that haven't been able to been funded before. So appreciate y'all's work. >> Thank you. >> I'd like to say something too that Mr. Lee, this is a this is a monumental task to take all this on and to work with Middle Tennessee Electric and TBA. We're just so blessed and fortunate to have them. um that we can depend on. You know, when you look at other parts of the country, especially California, the problems they've had with their electricity and all like that,

016and to be able to get the things that we do and things that they provided for us, you know, it's it's just a we just can't thank them enough. And Trey, you did a did a heck of a job. I just wish the lights would have been a little bit better so we could have won a baseball [laughter] champion. >> You have to blame it on the lights. [clears throat] >> Thank you. Okay. Next, we have Wes Doer with Gallagher to present a dental insurance analysis and quote. mentioned Stoer with Gallagher. We are your benefits consultant. I appreciate y'all letting me be here tonight. Um I've been here before for other things, so I see some familiar faces. Um in the past, I've talked about medical insurance. Uh this time I get the fun topic

017of talking about dental insurance. >> A little background first, unless you're Are you going to go over the background while we're here? >> Oh, no. I'd love for you to. >> Yeah. So when we um started so one of the we have a teacher advisory committee that meets every two months roughly and one of the conversations that continually came up in January and then again at our last meeting in May was about dental insurance and so we are under the state's dental insurance. The state changed providers and I don't know how long that plan is. Usually three, four, five years with the plan. Yeah. And typically typically they have a contract and so when we started getting complaints um Gallagher serves as you one of the service providers for the county. We have the option

018to not only continue with the state for we don't have any plan to move away for medical right now. I know we discussed that at a different time but we're going to stay with medical but we can also do something different from dental that we can look at. We just have to notify the state by August 1st. And so we asked Wes and Gallagher to start looking at just some options for dental. It probably will cost more. I think it will cost more, but it is better service for dental for our employees. Um because the service that is currently on the state's plan isn't what our employees are used to getting. And so again, this is totally an option for the board. This is justformational, nothing that has to be decided tonight. But that was

019the background of there were better services and providers previously under the state plan. The state went to a new plan and a new contract. Uh we wanted to just hear what options were out there as a county because it was a complaint coming from our employees. I think I didn't muddy that too much. >> No, that that that's perfect. That saved me from having to to do the background and hop right into the analysis. >> Perfect. And if I mess something up, please clarify it. >> Yeah, that No, that's that's wonderful. Um so really one of the points um that Dr. Sullivan just made was that on the cost of things and anytime you're talking about um insurance you know there's a rate chart but the rate chart is really just a part of the

020story. Um that tends to be what people go to first is let's just look at the rate chart versus the rate chart. Um but really on things like dental insurance, vision insurance, medical insurance, you also have to look at the uh the network strength and the discounts that the provider um has negotiated through network. Uh a lot of this has to also do the feedback that the employees are giving and the challenges that they're having actually go towards um it's really mostly about the network. So, the bullet points that I want to walk through is just to kind of be um strategic and just walk through the memo. Um, you know, I promised that I would keep this to less than 30 minutes, so thank you. I got one chuckle out of the out of

021the crowd there. [laughter] You're good. Okay. Um, so I think that when I walk through all these things, um, I would make the, uh, the argument when you factor in how many people are currently going to out of network dentists and paying balance bills because this is a product that's paid for 100% by the employees. It's a combination of what are they paying per month plus what they're paying at the point of service. And when you add those two things together, I would argue to say that the cost is is about the same, if not less, with Delta Dental. And of course, the experience, um, we all know what experience they'll have because Delta Dentl is who you were with prior to January 1 of 2026. Um, so on here, the the first bullet under

022network strength, um, Delta Dentl looked at their entire book of business. they did help put together some of these numbers along with our um our teams. So, Delta Dental looked at their book of business and the claims that are uh in Rutherford County as well as the surrounding zip codes and they estimated that 95% of all claims would actually run through one of one of their dental networks. So, Delta Dentl has a couple of different networks. um they have one with even deeper discounts and then they have another um that even if it's not considered in network the providers that have still agreed to stay within a a contracted network fee. So even if it's not the main network a lot of those claims are still being processed and have an in network feel to

023them. So when you add that together, about 95% of the claims uh for this area and the surrounding zip codes um would run through Delta Dentl's book of business. When you compare that same uh book to the MetLife PDP network, which is what you're on currently, um it's estimated that about 60% of those claims are going through on the in network, which means that the difference there is that the other 40% of the claims going through the MetLife PDP, those are running through out of network, which is leading to the complaints that you're getting from the employees of paying paying more at the point of service is because it's running through um out of network benefits. Um we try to convert that difference between 95% of claims being in network uh with Delta versus the

02460% with the Metife plan. And the monthly equivalent is an average of $2168 more per month that the members are paying at the point of service. So when you take what they're paying additional at the point of service plus what they're paying per month, that's where um total out of pocket, they're actually paying more with Metife than Delta Dental. Uh also currently on the state plan, there's two options. There's a high plan and a low plan. Um the current plan is a Sigma plan. It's a DHMO. Um that plan is an even more narrow network. So, a lot of the complaints from the employees are also coming from they'll sign up for the low plan because the rates look really cheap only to find out that they have to drive into Nashville or they can't

025find a dentist that's even accepting new patients. So, typically the next year they end up changing to the more expensive plan anyway. Um so, what we would be proposing um is a move to Delta. Um, Delta Dentl offers a dual plan, which means that instead of having to choose between a uh one carrier with one plan and another carrier with another, it simplifies the network to where it's all using Delta Dentl's strong uh network. Um, also, you know, a lot of, it was mentioned earlier, a lot of people have been seeing their same dentist for, you know, 10 years, 15 years, some people their entire lives, and right now they're having to make really tough decisions of, well, do I keep seeing the person I've always seen or do I go see somebody completely new

026just because they're in network. So, I think the experience that they would have with Delta um, is better. And again, because you just came from Delta, we know exactly what that experience is, and that's what employees are asking to go back to. On the second page here, um this is where I come up with those numbers. Um when you look at the current participation and the different plans, uh we estimate that the average monthly deduction for Delta Dental would average 68.25. Um on Metife when you factor in the monthly cost plus the additional cost at the point of service their average is actually 7417 and the charts below are basically how we arrive at those numbers. Um so the very first um grid at the top is showing you what the current rates are. Um

027and then it's showing you what the rates are when you add in the additional cost and how those compare against Delta Dentl. Um immediately below that in the the box in the middle we ann we annualize that show you the annual cost and that's where we're getting the average cost per member which is that total cost divided by the membership. Um, you see the rates there at the bottom for the base plan. Again, that base plan I can show you here in a second is for people who don't need orthodontia or crowns or the big stuff. They just want a plan that can cover their fillings and their basic services. Um, so you've got that dual option. Uh the plans that are quoted here are one and a half% commission uh which is far below

028the industry average when it comes to compensation that's built in for a consultant. Um in this plan the rates are good for 24 months. So starting January 1 of 2027 uh through the end of 2028 uh these rates are good for two years. The last two pages are the actual plan benefits themselves. So, the one that says premiere, this is the one that pretty much lines up with the MET life plan. Um, and you'll notice that diagnostic and preventative for in network are covered at 100%. Uh, basic services at 80% and major services and orthodontia at 50, which again, that's um that's in line with what your current plan covers today. Um, and then the base plan is the exact same as the premier plan, um, or as the premium plan rather, but it just

029doesn't cover class three or orthodontia. Again, it's a little lower cost on the plan for people that just need their basic services. Um, so I'm happy to take any questions, but again, the I guess the crux of the matter is it's all about the network strength. And when you look at the rate charts, Delta does look more expensive, but when you factor it all in there, the employee experience with Delta and the overall cost uh will be very comparable, if not less on average for the members. >> Anybody questions? Go ahead. >> I was going to say overall, we don't need to make a decision at this board meeting because I'm going to I want this to be a presentation. When do we have to notify state? Is it August 1st? uh August 1st or

030July 31st is >> yes um is that deadline >> and so we would have this board meeting another one in July um but ultimately I wanted you all to have this information early we'll then have probably at our even on Thursday we can go over what the state's plan option is so you all can see the comparison as well so that we can discuss it at the next June meeting as well so you can kind of have all information and just kind of kind of discuss or have >> questions just wanted to go ahead and get it out here as an option So, as we can start thinking um what other counties and school systems that have the state plan do this. >> So, um one of the ones that's uh next door right now

031about I would say 60% of the groups that we work with are already on their own private uh dental and vision plan uh for reasons similar to this. Um but next door Murray County had reached out with some of the same um concerns and again it it's this is driven and the reason I'm here today is because of the advisory committees and the employees reaching out to the benefits department and voicing these concerns. So um two or three more um in East Tennessee we've actually had quite a few groups that have reached out to us this year and asked us to bring them some alternatives to consider. Any other questions from anyone? >> Miss Max. >> Yes, Mr. Tidwell. >> Thank you for bringing this information to us and kind of explaining the difference because

032I'm sure a lot of people are going to look at it and say, "Well, my dental bill went up, but the overall cost you're saying is going to go down typically as far as the analysis shows and you're getting a better network." So, that's the main benefit which you've covered here. Uh, but when people say that their cost of dental went up, it's that's not showing the full context of the picture. >> Yeah. And it is um you know I try not to get it too far into the weeds on everything. Again, insurance you're never going to come up and and make a statement that says everybody every time, but on average um when you look at it, I do think ultimately it's better. Even when I came in tonight, um there was a um

033conversation of immediately, you know, hey, like I'm paying more at the at the dentist. And but we've had some with the other team members um where they themselves, not just the employees, but even central office staff um have experience going to the dentist and finding out that they're paying a lot more at the end of the visit than they were before the move. >> Thank you. Yep. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Thank y'all. Appreciate it. >> Next, we go to human resources tab and the new job description for the bus driver full-time. >> Yeah. And this is for a full-time job description um for a bus driver. And so this goes uh Can you go ahead and go to the tab as well? Think this is tab three so everybody

034can see it. Mine just closed out. And so you'll see this is R107 with verified experience recognized and it would be full-time. This is for what we would think of as a special education driving position. Yeah. because we would be able to run those routes all day long. Um with the different whether it is running in the morning then work-based learning um all kinds of different options that we would have to be able to run this um throughout the day. >> Okay. >> Would this person just be a bus driver? Would he also be an EA or anything else? We envisioned just a bus driver to start because we we discussed that as being a bus driver and EA, but the more we talked with transportation, the more we talked with our special education and

035instruction team, we have such a need during the entire day that we think we can use it the entire school day. Dr. You talked a lot with transportation. >> That's correct. You want to add to that? you know, um, we thought about that originally, but our our need that's the greatest right now is for those special ed runs that are all day long. So, we want to try to fill those first for those students. >> No, I think this is great. >> I do think there may be a time we come back and we have another full-time position that would include responsibilities if they're not driving all day or they just have morning or afternoon routes that they're in our buildings doing different things. But right now, we want to fill that special ed need

036first. Well, I'm just glad that, you know, we've identified that we have that that is possibility because I was afraid that we were just going to have a bunch of part-time and that we wouldn't be able to fill them. This is the odds of this getting filled are far greater. Now, anybody else have any questions or anything? >> Four to six. Is that what we had? How many of those buses do we have out there? >> We have four. >> Four. Five. Yeah, five. That's right. Yeah, we only have Brian's with his wife today. I think we have eight positions total in the budget, so we couldn't go over that total between part-time and full-time. So, >> okay, any questions? Okay, next. Safety director. >> Next, we have the safety director. And this is just

037an updated job description. So, I think as everyone knows, Miss Easter is retiring. And so there's no change in salary or anything. This is just an updated job description. >> You don't anticipate having any trouble? >> No, >> I don't think so. >> No. I hope that we have a lot of interest. We did last time. >> Oh, I'm pretty sure we will. Does anybody have any questions regarding the safety director? >> Dr. Martin, do you have all the updates? because I know we worked on the updates for this job description because I move removed the red lines from here. >> I know we rooted we wrote it in blue ink. >> This >> I can go back and get that document to you. So >> yeah, we hand wrote it as we were updating

038it, but yes, there were no changes salary. It still reports to director of schools. Um, I know a lot of it went just back and updated some of our language like our crisis response teams. Um, but yeah, we'll go back and look at that language for you. >> Biggest reason I ask is as we move forward with any other job descriptions, what updates would we need to be aware of? Yeah. >> And those of us on the board that, you know, kind of educate us as we go through the process because I would dare say it's an ongoing process. Correct. >> Yes, I know. Um, we added overseas threat assessments um and the Tennessee law and leading practices. That portion was added in TCA. We added the last time on the job description, it didn't

039clarify whether it was a certified or classified job. And so, we've had to go back and um I don't see that portion on here. So, we'll have to class that it's a classified or certified position. And we have that on the next position as well. So, >> and I would dare say since this job description was written before we have added metal detectors. >> Yes. >> That would the qualifications or the training or whatever would be figured into that. Correct. >> I assume. >> Yes, sir. >> Correct. Okay. Send me the red. >> I will. Mostly it's just updated to new language and some of the things that have involved with that position and some that we may foresee evolving from that in the future. Any other questions? Okay, next new job description for the

040athletics director. >> And so I changed uh we talked about this being a compliance director and just to make it flow with the way we had everything else titled. I moved it to named comp Rutherford County athletic supervisor because we everything else we have director supervisor. That's the way every one of ours is titled. Um, still we have classified as 115 or certified as a supervisor. And you'll see it falls just under the athletics director position. This is a a new position we talked about as putting in the budget. So, it's up to the board to approve. Um, but it is budgeted and has been approved so far. You'll see a lot of it goes and basically still deals with compliance as I we talked about going and being in charged with making sure that

041we support our schools with athletic director compliance, coaches training. Then moving down to the parents um information, but also being in charge and making sure that we track student physicals, helping with eligibility, maintaining our district records. Um, also making sure that if we have violations, we have somebody that can go out and track some of those things. Um, we still do those, but just having an extra set of eyes that can help. Um, couple other things that we have added is that we support the athletic director in addressing disciplinary matters. So, including athlete and coach ejections by tracking incidences and ensuring proper reporting and followup. and then perform of course always our favorite one is other duties is assigned to support the effective operation of compliance of the district's athletic program. Uh this got a

042lot more news media than I ever anticipated it ever catching up. People tried to connect it connect it with you have a one-time transfer rule like college and that is not what it was for. It is not like a college transfer portal. It is just what I think I got lost is that you do have that one-time transfer, but we still have school zones. And so, you have to be enrolled in a school zone still in Rutherford County. You can't just pick up and move to a different part of Rutherford County unless you have a choice seat or you have a legitimate reason to be in that school. Even after that, after you've transferred one time, you can't just get up and move after that one time. you still then would have to have a

043hardship or another reason to to transfer. So you get that one time, but you still have to have be enrolled in a Red County zoned area. And so we had a lot of discussion with news media about that. I think we did at least two interviews about it. >> So this person's going to be responsible for keeping that with that >> transfer one time. Are you going to buy them a a bulletproof vest? Right. [laughter] they're going to help with compliance. Ultimately, it comes up to all of us doing it together. Um, and one of the things we talked about and in one of the interviews, ultimately, uh, you have to respect parents, especially in an area of school choice, are going to do what's best for their kids. And sometimes parents may sign a

044lease in one area of the county. They may sign a lease in one room. We've had parents who have given up custody to other people so that they can get their kids eligible. And that happens if a parent chooses to do that what's best for their kid. There's nothing a school system is going to be able to do to stop that. That's a parent's right to be able to do. So that happens year after year after year across the country, across Tennessee and and within our district. So if a parent chooses to do that, regardless of how it looks, that's if they're eligible, then they're going to be eligible. There's there's nothing we're going to be able to do with that regardless of how many people we have watching it. Now you've got the whole

045reclassifying thing that was just in the news >> and a lot of the parents don't understand the the transfer rule item be a huge thing. >> So it's going to be a huge learning curve. >> Mr. V, where's your rental property? What zone is that in just >> question? Um, scroll back up to the top. I've got a W right there. >> 260 days. Is that realistic? >> Yes, that's what our central office positions are. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Most of them. [snorts] >> I probably need to make it 365, but probably against some wage and hour loss somewhere. >> Any other questions? [snorts] [laughter] >> I just I just wonder I mean, are they going to be uh there's going to be people that always violate this type of thing? Do we have

046some kind of system in place that you know if you do certain things your penalty is going to be this or that? Is that just we do it on a as needed basis or is there >> we do it as a case by case basis but we do enforce our own penalties. We don't always wait on TWSAA. We've enforced our own penalties. >> I hate it that we've got some schools on probation because kids uh lost control. >> Yeah. And a couple I'm glad you brought that. That was one of my questions in my interviews was about the probation piece. A couple of our schools did make errors, but a couple of our schools had honest issues to where a parent would contact the school, ask to view the facilities, and then somebody would take

047and view the facilities. And you know, if in this day and age, if somebody wants to view our facilities, we want somebody to see our facilities. We're competing with for students, especially in academic and athletic institutions, we want to compete. We can't have a coach showing those facilities. And so, because then if they're not enrolled in your school, you're going to be recruiting that student. They're not enrolled. And so we've really talked to anybody that's interested. I when I did the interviews was about making sure we have a point person, have a principal, give them access so that our coaches aren't the ones getting and doing these type of things because then you're talking to an enrolled student and recruiting violations. And that's how at least one of our schools, if not two, ended up

048on probation was for something similar to that. Yes sir. Add another duty to our administrators. >> Any other questions? If not, we'll move on to number four. Lipkcom University School of Nursing clinical agreement. >> This is our clinical agreement with Lipkcom University as a clinical rotation site for nursing students. Lipkcom nursing students spend one to two days observing RCS nurses as part of their pediatric rotation. So we have this with various universities across Any other questions? Next, we'll go to number five. >> So, this is a continuation. So, Stellar Therapy Services contract renewal for Medicaid reimbursement. The stellar contract for the nursing Medicaid reimbursement program in Rutherford County Schools is up for annual renewal. Their administrative fee is 20% of the total revenues received. Medically necessary services at the students providers orders may be reimbured.

049These include two feedings, tracheosttomy and ventilator care, diabetes care, asthma treatments, and other treatments for chronic illnesses. This school year, the school nurses have received reimbursements of $217,639.38 with a total revenue of $174,111.50. Is that our highest? I thought it was. Yeah. Awesome job. >> Good job. >> Yes, Miss Sharp. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Was that our first year like $25,000? Yeah. So, congratulations you guys. This this is this is great. Thank you so much. >> Yes. Thank you. Okay, next we have instruction. >> So, instruction department's requesting the purchase of Wayground and online student engagement platform. This platform will replace several existing tools such as Nearp Pod and Play Posit, consolidating them into teacher workload. Wayground's user-friendly solution that engages students through interactive activities, supports collaboration, provides immediate insight into student learning through

050formative assessments. Activities can be teacher letter, self-paced, and completed in class or at home. The Wayground Library offers more than 40 million Tennessee standards aligned resources across subjects and grades including more Tennessee adopted textbooks along with assessments, presentations, interactive videos, passages, and flashcards. Total cost for 2627 is 249,900 and to be funded through general purpose. Um, and I want to echo what Dr. Chastain said back in 2019 when I was a curriculum and instruction to start. I can't tell you how many online platforms we had and we just continually windowing them down less and less. So we want to make sure we have what we need but at the same point we had so many we couldn't track what was effective. So great job Dr. Chastain and this is com combining two. >> Will this

051be used for credit recovery also? >> No you'll see that is a different platform called egeneuity. Um so that's in the renewals as well. This is just this is you know you can put videos together you can do interactive professional development for it. Our staff uses it some and it's an example of where companies are continuously either they're improving or they're not. So we have discarded to essentially to go with a better product that serves our needs. >> Okay. Number two, >> you have a copy of the consolidated funding application. Um Dr. Goian and Dr. Chain put that for everybody to see. the approval of the fiscal year 27 consolidated funding application. The fiscical year 27 consolidated funding application that encompasses consolidated admin title one part A, title one part D, title 2 A part

052or title two part A, title three, IDEIDA part B and IDEIDA preschool submitted to the Tennessee Department of Education on May 15, 2026. These federal funds will be spent to supplement district funding in 2627 school year as best that we know right now. So these are the funds that are that we believe are allocated as of right now. Same as last year, no changes to the funding. >> Okay, any questions? Okay. Well, number three, >> we have optimal health for me or O4M. Optimal health for me is a sexual risk avoidance SRA programming a holistic approach to sex and healthy relationships. This program aims to provide trained speakers to classroom within RCS aligned to the standards within the expectations of the family life instruction. This program complies with TCA 4961301 through TCA 4961308 requiring the

053program to be age appropriate and sexual risk avoidance abstinence centered evidence-based and medically accurate. This program is available for grades 68 and ranges from three to five lessons and just a continuation that we've been doing for several years now. >> Any questions? >> Next we go to legal. >> This is first of two readings. So these were from our spring policy uh meeting. The following policies were recommended on first read. So first adds SAT scores criteria for validictorian and saludiatoran and then a new policy the annual instructional observance of independence day adds policy require annual instructional observance of the fourth of July holiday within the academic. >> Any questions? Okay. Next we have number two transfer student under discipline. So the board has been admitted admitted to requested to admit a transfer student from another

054school system under discipline. The student is expelled for possession of THC. According to policy 6.3 and8, the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student transfers from another school system under suspension or expulsion. Director of schools recommendation is to deny. >> Okay. Number 11, engineering and construction. And I see Trey Lee up there. And so first we have the city of Leverne's sanitary sewer easement revision. City v Lever's requesting to vacate the existing easement established in 1992 and revises to reflect the new sanitary sewer upgrades and alignment at Simon Springs formerly known as Leverne Primary. Engineering Construction reviewed the request and has no objections. Anything you need to show to that one, Trey. Okay. I thought we were getting ready for the big one later. Yeah. >> Questions?

055>> Any questions? Number two, Popppler Hill Elementary. >> So this is the final change order request. RG Anderson Company has completed all work associated with the contract for Popular Hill Elementary. All costs have been verified and the final change order is a dedu deduction of $25,624.58. The final contract amount submitted is 48,391,37542. Engineering Construction has reviewed the request and has no objection. >> M. Yes, Mr. >> So, this is the final cost for us to build Popular Hill Elementary and Exactly. Right. And we we built 30 million of it. >> That's right. >> We did really good. >> I said and 48 million was the final cost and we built 30 million of it. >> We did. >> You know, Mr. Le is sort of he's sort of earning his keep. [laughter] >> Okay. Number

056three, >> more storage buildings. CT requests for three storage buildings at Rockville High School, Rutherford County Schools, Career and Technical Education, proposing purchasing 14 by 32 ft A-frame storage barn for CT criminal justice and two 14x32 A-frame storage barns for the CTE JOTC program. I mean, you'll see what those storage programs are proposed for. The anticipated cost is not to exceed 35,000. Injury construction has reviewed the request and has no objections. Any questions? Number four. >> All right. Number four, we have Eagleville High School girls basketball and volleyball request. Principal Tim Pedigo is requesting to modify an existing male bathroom for use by girls basketball and volleyball team. Renovation cost is not to exceed 10,000 and is at no cost to the board. >> Any questions? Okay. Next, we have Popular Hill Elementary. >> All

057right. We have Popler Hill Elementary fund 189 project closeout. Engineering constructions reviewed all costs assoc associated with Popler Hill Elementary. Um this gets us to the entire project cost. Mr. Tidwell. So I'm glad that we're coming back to that. So the entire project would like to close out funds utilized for this project are 58,378,2844. The balance left of this is 1,ion556,443566 and may be moved to another project line. We say another project line because um Mr. Smith may need to move this to go along with Lever High School's project based on where he may need to move those funds for. >> Okay, >> Maxwell. >> Yes, Mr. Tidle. >> All right. So, what are you saying the the difference is between the 48 million and the 58 million? I think it was 48. >> Yeah,

05848 million earlier. >> You've got the 48 million one. >> The 48 million is RG's contract. >> In addition to RG Anderson, we had to pay for um buying land for the sewer easements, the road improvements, >> uh Middle Tennessee, and I'm just picking on them because they were here. Middle Tennessee electric, uh poles and utilities and transformers. We have CUD water lines. Uh there's a lot of other things. Uh we also have usually around four four and a half million. That's um our FFN classroom furniture, uh pots and pans for the kitchen, the books that we buy, all those things that we start up. So you have RG Anderson's contract, which is the construction of the project. And then the balance that we spent is all the other things that we need that get

059us to the point ready for students. >> Yeah, they built the building, but we're furnishing it. We're putting it to site prop. >> We furnish it. We're buying the land for the sewer ements. It's much more economical for Mr. Reed and I to buy property than it is to put those kind of things in the contractors thing. So, we we try and give them what they need and keep as much as we can because all they're going to do is mark it up and we have the staff to do it. >> Great. Awesome. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Any other questions? >> Still 1.5 million under budget. >> I know you're doing great. >> [snorts] >> Okay. Next. >> All right. Next, we move to Riverdale High School addition or renovation. Engineering construction reviewed

060all costs associated with Riverdale High School addition renovations at this time would like to close the project. Final fund utilizer for this project are 55,260,9002. Balance left in this project's $1,44,2998. And the main be moved to Leverheim project. And this was at the request of county finance. They asked us to have $1 million left from each building to fund Lever High School. This is what we >> when they went to the bond market, they they borrowed 2 million less than what Leverne needed. Knowing at that time, he asked me, could I project that we could save two million somewhere between Leverne, but between Riverdale and Oakland, could we save two million? And I told him yes. So when they went to the bond market, they borrowed 2 million less than what we needed. So that

061you'll see that in Oakland, Riverdale, and Smyrna that we're I'm recommending that that's where the money goes and that's why it's going there is because the county borrowed 2 million less than what we requested. >> And you actually did better than 2 million. >> Yeah. It saves on the bond market and it saves on the note down the road. >> Okay. Number seven, Oakland >> Oakland High School Edition renovation project. Engineering Construction reviewed all costs associated with Oakland High School edition renovations. At this time, we'd like to close the project. Final funds utilized for this project are60,862,691.96, I think. Can you check if it's 98 or 68? I don't remember it's 98 or 60. I think we have a double typo there. See which one it is. Balance left in this project line is $717,38.32

062and maybe moved to Lever High project. So again, moving it to Lever the Hide project. >> Uh let me question this lady. Um, did they uh get the old bathrooms remodeled there at Oakland? >> We've done that at all our high schools. >> Okay. But they're finished. >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. Let me ask you a question. Between the three schools, that's about 3 million. And you promised them two million. So that's about 1 million. And I just wonder, can we use that to build a new football locker room at Oakland High School? >> No, sir. >> Okay. Thank you. I just asked. >> Nice try. You had to ask. I guess >> we one thing that that since you asked that question, one thing we have to be very careful about and and is

063our credibility with the county commission. They borrow money for renovation and building. A lot of times we can look at things that are elsewhere in the building that would actually fall under our capital projects maintenance program and if you start blurring the lines between the two then we lose our credibility and we also get can get um be um considered not truthful with the taxpayer. So, we have to be very careful in what we renovate and what they appropriated. We can paint walls and take out. We take out the ceilings because they've got to run new electrical lines and new duck work. All of that ceiling gets destroyed. So, it's legitimate to put those ceilings back. It's legitimate to take care of the paint. It's legitimate to take care of the floor. We have to

064be very careful blurring those lines. And that's something that I I I [snorts] have credibility and I'd like to keep it. And I'm not being derogatory, but a lot of people think that we can just do whatever we want to with that money and that we should be able to go over here and, you know, do other things. And if you go back and look for the last three or four years, we have had money in there to take care of Oakland, Riverdale, Walter Hill, Smyrna Elementary, Smyrna Primary, Thurman Frances, these bathrooms, Central Magnet. It it's been a long process of renovating these bathrooms and and they need to stay in the 177 and not get blurred into that 189 money. So we we do take care of those things. It does take longer than

065most people would like and we're going to touch on that in a minute with our HVAC things where we do have to get creative in how we use our money. We have been creative with TVA and Middle Tennessee Electric with the help of CMTA. We're getting creative with the federal government to get some additional funds back. So, there's things that we are looking at that do assist us in in these projects. And then we've got Smyrna High School. I was just doing these and then coming back to you so that we could get those. Um we have Smyrna's um school edition and renovation project. Engineering construction has reviewed all costs associated with Smyrna High School addition and renovations. At this time we'd like to close the project. Final funds utilized for this project are 37,47,52951.

066Balance left in this project line is1,275,22849. $238,392.70 can be moved to Lever project fund. Um and then there's another balance of 1,36 927.79 that may be moved to another project line. Again, we're going to let Michael Smith figure out where that project line goes to based on what he needs for the borrowing needs, but it does stay in 189 for the school system. >> Okay. >> All right. So, now we'll go back up to this section because I want to knock those out. So, last Trey and I had already talked we talked at the I guess middle of May at some point about our HVAC um issue. So we have been going back to 2022 I guess we two boards ago talked about how one of the first times becoming director we need to tackle

067177. We've done a good job attacking 177. Unfortunately costs have just continued to rise and so you saw how we utilize some of energy savings money to be able to get more projects done. Um, Wednesday at the county commission we discussed 177 a little bit more. So, we had it Tuesday, but then Wednesday we discussed it even more. Um, what request was made to prioritize with estimates um, just with actual costs. So, I'll tell you just kind of what our philosophy is. we get estimates because we aren't going to use taxpayer money to go out and get 50 schools with HVACs and get a full price on those because that's going to be wasting in our opinion taxpayer money because by the time we got to those we would there's no way we're going to

068fund those and so we would be wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money and that's that's just no that's just a difference in opinion. I value that commissioner's opinion on that. We just that's how we choose to do it. At the same time, Trey already and I already had this presentation planned to talk about how to we're planning to use the funds we have in 177. We've had about 20 million. That's kind of what we're planning. Well, about 18 and a half because of the trustees commission to plan to use 18.5 over the next five years to try to tackle some more projects so that you can see with some CMTA savings um to kind of look at some ways. But I it did get brought up last Wednesday during the budget meeting

069about give us a prioritized list. What you guys see in yellow, that is our prioritized list. But if something goes out, you all know that we may have to shift because a chiller goes out. And so we just aren't going to utilize that little bit of say of money that we have to go and just do a master estimate on everything because we don't want to spend all those funds when we could use them for an actual project we need. And so Trey, I'll turn it over to you. We have CMT here as well. So, thank you for being here. You guys have been good partners. >> Um, I don't want to beat beat a dead horse, but we budget every year. We spend a lot of time in January and February repprioritizing our HVAC

070systems. The 18 million roughly that we get from the county. Now, the last two years, we were getting 8 to nine million. We're getting 18. We reanalyze everything every year and we give our there it comes and I'm going to send you all this slideshow after tonight. It's a lot of information here. Um, we get roughly 18 million and basically what we try and do is spend somewhere around six to n million on HVAC and then we have to take the balance of that to do all the rest of the roofing and the bathrooms and the locks and the paving of the parking lots and the striping of the parking lots and the bleachers and the playgrounds and all the other things that we have to maintain in our school system. Um when Dr. Sullivan

071and I began this journey, we this was the first thing I asked him to allow me to do. I said we have to my knowledge had never had a facility study done and and basically we did a lot of this internally. We started out with the first one somewhere around 25 or 30 million and I told the board at that time we're just getting started. I had no idea we would be where we are today and we started out with just one year. Now, we've gone to a five-year look ahead and the numbers change, but we still have to have that information for us to begin to look at. The question that keeps coming back to us from the county commission from a a few commissioners, how do you make this determination? We analyze 10

072to 12 schools each year and those 10 to 12 schools are identified on your 177 HVAC. They're 1 through 10. We've done it for you for the last four to five years. Nothing's changed. We analyze these buildings and look at what do we have to holistically completely change? What can we piece in part? We call them partials or holistic. I prefer holistic because we get everything to one system. What typically determines whether it's holistic or partial is what does the existing building look like? How many pieces and parts are there? We have a lot of schools that have been pieces and parted and they've got 10 to 12 different HVAC systems in there now. It's not ideal. It makes them very difficult to maintain because we don't necessarily know what particular unit and what system

073is there. So, it adds cost that the taxpayer maybe doesn't see because it's our maintenance staff. They're in our overall budget. What they don't see is the guy driving down there three times because they have to go find figure out which unit it is, which system it is, what's broke, can we get the part, how old is it, and make a lot of other analysis, and then we start ordering parts and pieces. I say all that to say this. This is a overview of this year's analysis partial and and holistic what we're looking at going forward. The way we've been able to do these pro the holistic projects so far we've done Rockville Elementary, Stewartsboro Elementary, Smyrna Elementary, and we're looking at going toward Last Casses this year. They're still pretty much all one system.

074They're all pretty much all one age ancient and and they they're a prime candidate for going in there and doing it. What we have to do is so that we don't take all of our money for all these other repairs that we have to do for one year. We start the process now. I will be moving a few funds that we have. I don't want to use left. maybe a project didn't cost as much or we weren't able to get as far. So, we've got a little money in this year's budget 177 that I will start that fund with. This year, it's going to be around a million dollars. That's going to come off of the overall 10. In 177 next year, this coming year, 2627, we have four and a half million. So, that'll

075get added to that. We'll buy our equipment. We'll get our geothermal guys out there. We'll tear it up. We'll start doing all our wells. So, we'll run as our duck work. We'll go as far as we can go. And I have a gentleman's agreement with them that they just keep going. And then in July of the following year, I write them a PO for the rest of their project. And we finish it that summer. So, it's a year's project, but we're doing it over two budgetary years. So, that we're looking at four to four and a half million each year. that allows us to use that other three to four million that gets us to around 8 to 10 million to do other things. The um this year we had uh a unit at Oakland

076Middle School in their annex cafeteria go out. That unit's $250,000. I have to I we have to have some funds available to do that. The second thing, and I and I go through this a lot with our county commissioners and with our taxpayers, this fund is completely um property taxbased. When do most people pay their property taxes? February. So, we do not have access to this money, the vast majority of it, till February, which makes it also very difficult. So, what we have done over the last 10 years, and I think I'm the only one left that's been here that long with this fund, we have taken what funds we have left in the in our savings and things like that. I call it a startup fund, savings account, startup fund, emergency fund, whatever you

077would like to call it. We've built that up over the last 10 to 15 years to get us to around a three to a$5 million fund that's in there and that's how I'm able to borrow against it. I'm I can start my POS and we can start things going forward for the next year until the funds become available. There was a time when we first started with 177 Dr. Bullan and I and Janette Egley and I when we first started we were getting maybe a million million and a half dollars. That's really a long time ago. We didn't get anything till February. So we couldn't do anything. We had no money. We had no funds. We couldn't do anything. We'd wait till February for the money to drop and Janette would get periodical. We got

078$100,000. Do we have a small project that's under $100,000? I could write a PO and we could go ahead and start that project. But by having this three to5 million dollars, it creates that in when Blackman's chillers went out, if we hadn't had that funding and we needed a million dollars to go get that school back up and running by school, that was what allowed us to do it. So that 3 to five million is there. We're not hiding anything. It's always been there, but it's it's our startup seed money and it's also our emergency fund. So, I have to be very careful if I go in there and allocate all of it and we have an emergency. We have no funds to go fix the emergency. So, I'm usually trying to leave a million

079dollars sitting there for an emergency. Anyway, that's this fund. So, what we're going to do rather quickly, I'm going to do my best to go quickly. We have HVAC priority list. Our U Lascases Elementary Three is our building profile and phasing plan for last cases elementary and then our recommendations and next steps. Um first is our HVAC priorities. This is uh something that I want you to really watch because you're going to see these symbols throughout this. Green means our equipment is within the expected service life. We don't have much green. uh approaching median service life five years uh away from failure. We don't have much yellow red equipment age exceeds median life. You can expect 50% of your equipment to fail. We have a lot of this. And then we have the red and

080black age far exceeds median life. You're looking at 80% equipment failure throughout the year. We have a lot more of this and it makes me stay up at night. Um, these are the 12 schools that you saw on 177. The ranking is the same. Uh, the Blackman Chiller, it shows in process. We did not do that because it wasn't leaking. We're going to have to fix it, but it wasn't leaking. We thought we could get by another year. So, we've allocated that money elsewhere in this I hate to use the term shell game because it sounds like you're being you're hiding something. I'm not. But, but this is where we are. These are those projects. Design options for lastes. I want you to know where we are. I want you to see line one. All

081electric HVAC majority of equipment is original to the building 34 years old. I would like to give kudos to our maintenance staff to keep this stuff running, but we've also got some equipment that we've just turned off. We're not utilizing because we can't get parts for it anymore. And when that happens, your um inside air quality begins to suffer at per certain times of the year. And also, we have humidity issues when it rains for weeks on end and it doesn't quit. But we we're working through those issues. But if you look at that air conditioning units, conditioned unit, all your unit ventilators, they're all pegged. They're all beyond 34 years. That leads us to this is an existing map. Uh we basically have two different systems in the building now, which is that is

082a good way that's this would be one that would be a candidate for holistic change. The other thing that makes last casses a candidate for a holistic change with me is the fact that we have green space which means I can do geothermal that as an option. So I'm going to show you how we go through that analysis. First option is typically is is what we call a doaz very um variable refrigerant flow. Then we have a geothermal water source heat pumps and then a bowler tower system. These are three basic systems we analyze and look at. I'm not VRF. This is option one. Option two. These are just drawings and equipment and things that we use for analyzation. Don't I hate to say they don't mean much to you, but they're more for me

083and less for you. Uh this is last Cass's design options. This is places where we could do geothermal. One thing that I did not communicate very well to CMTA is what they show is purple as an area that is a possibility for geothermal is our drip system. So we can't put geothermal there. Um but we do the green box is where we're looking at doing our geothermal system. This is just a picture of where it goes possible. This is where the wells would be. Um there again, how would we divide the building? What space do we need to use for comparisons of system one, two or three? um how we would get there, bathrooms, things that we would turn into other alternative space. Um if we did a bowler tower, we would have to add

084a mechanical room because they don't have a mechanical room that's large enough for the equipment. Here's where the rubber meets the road. First cost is um variable frequency 8 million3 uh investment tax credit. We're going to come to that in a minute. Um, not much use. Bowler Towers 8,131. Geothermal's 10,445. Geothermal is still my preference if we've got the land and the space because over the next 20 years it's going to save us. That's what's driving a lot of our savings with Middle Tennessee Electric. That 8 million plus kilowatt hours that a that equates to about a million dollars a year. LED and geothermal is driving the line share. That's why everywhere if I can get it, we're going to get it. Um they're about the same. Uh if you see that investment tax credit,

085this is something the federal government started a few years ago and we haven't been able to tap it, but now we can. CMTA is helping us with that. That's a rebate back from the federal government of about $2 million. That is on top of the 450,000 that we're going to get from TVA for the first year for geothermal on top of the 20 years that we're going to continue to save those funds. So that will take my geothermal overall final cost and get it down there with the cheap VRF system. I show you that to this is the 20 year life cycle uh utility cost and what it's going to look and VRF when you get to about 15 to 16 years the cost for it just skyrockets because you it starts breaking down and

086it's not as it's not as long term. Geothermal goes on forever. The wells and things the piping in them it's they're guaranteed for hundred years. Um, so we we're over we're our first one we put in was um in 2006 with Stewart's Creek Elementary and we've had no problems. Basically, we're taking water and pumping it underground and bringing it back up. We're just using the earth to either heat or cool our water which helps us reduce our electric cost. Um, so that is the first one. That's the last caches we're promoting. um geothermal which is where we've started and we're looking at getting uh the TVA and H Milins electric credits along with the in investment tax credits. Next we're going to look at the other uh 10 projects that were listed. Do what do

087we look at for holistic? What do we look at for pieces and parts? um Blackman High School. Uh it's a it's got three different systems, but there it's because of the additions and when it was built. Um we've got some that's okay, but even at that it's 27 years. Um here is basically what you see your bowler tower bowler tower system is in red and then the newer Bowler tower system. That's the addition that we did about 10 or 15 years ago. >> Can you come back in there and do the geothermal? >> I mean, can you you talking about you implement >> right here? >> You talking about this slide? Can you do that? Can you do do the geothermal at live? Go back in and redo the system. >> Yes, you can. Um,

088basically the way geothermal is is it's basically got two big components. You have the wells that are outside and it's and all we're doing is taking a pump and taking that water and pushing it down into the ground and bringing it back up. So, if it's in the summertime, the Earth's core stays at a constant 60 about 58 to 60 degrees in that general neighborhood around here. So in the summertime when we're running the hot 90 degree air across the pipe, we're using that 60 degree air to reduce the air temperature before we start using our mechanical system. We're just blowing the hot air over those coals. And in the winter time, it's the exact opposite. We take 20 degree air, blow it across 60, and we're trying to bring the temperature up. We're using

089that water to save us from having to uh use radiator, you know, that type of equipment to get the temperature up or down. That's that's basically all it does. Then you've got water source heat pumps, which is basically boiler tower. But what we've done with the geothermal is we've brought that air temperature up or down 20 to 25 degrees so that we're not having to mechanically do it. That's that's basically how geothermal works. It's it's that simple. I hate to use the term simple of a system, but but that's all we're doing is we're using the earth to either raise or lower our outside air temperature about 20 to 25 degrees and then we treat it from that point like a conventional bowler tower system. >> Yes, Mr. Tool. Um, now this the final cost

090does that include some of the construction like the digging of the wells, putting in the well is it that final cost is inclusive of all of that? >> It's all in the $10 million. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. >> Great. >> So, the wells are included. >> Miss Malis, >> I have a question, more of a technical question. Um, since we're using the earth um, air to kind of raise or lower the temperature depending upon where the season we're in, what is the process when something is frozen? >> The earth's cord doesn't freeze. >> Oh, never mind. >> It only freezes 18 >> Oh, we're very low. >> That's why that's why our wells are 350 ft deep. >> Gotcha. So, it keeps it >> so it's below the frost line. >> Oh, okay. And even

091our lateral lines that connect everything back to the building, they're four foot deep, which is below our frost line here. >> Gotcha. Okay. >> So, we stay below the frost line. >> So, we'll never have to worry about freezing. >> Yeah. Did uh but we do have to concern ourselves with our equipment inside because if we're bringing in that air at a certain temperature, we do shut it and then at that point, we're not sending the water outside. We keep it inside. So because of blow the air across the co it'll freeze the coal. >> Gotcha. >> Is it expensive to is it expensive to go these other school sites that have these other the boulder or the tire whatever to convert them to the geothermal. Uh, is it very expensive or is that something

092>> if we don't have the property to for the geothermal well field? Yes, because the only way to do it is tear up your parking lots. You can put geothermal under ball fields. You can put it under parking lots. You can't build a building on it, but you can put um, like I said, ball fields and parking lots over the top of it. And we do that on some of our newer schools. The problem with retrofits is you can't give up your paving and your parking. That that's the problem with a and it takes about 8 to 10 months to put the wells in. So that that's the hard part with the renovations. I would love to do it at some of our smaller schools because over 20 you can look right there. We're saving

093annually $24,000. >> Yeah. >> And then over that's over 20 years. So we're going to get our money back and it's well worth the money to do it. The problem is you can't do without that parking and those for for a whole year. So typically the only place that we can get by with doing it at an older school is the schools that have property. Smyrna Elementary, uh we were able to do that. We've got the property there next to the side of the school and where the and then here at Last Casses, we've got quite a bit of property around us. So we're going to use some of that for the woods. If we don't have that property, then my recommendation typically is going to be to go to the bowler in the tower

094if I can. There are some of our schools where we do we do have certain limitations where VRF does come in. There's nothing wrong with VRF. It's just not as uh robust. It's just not going to last as long and it's just not going to save us as much money utility wise long term. That answer your question, Mr. Bomb. But a little bit I know about it is by far the way to go. >> And and what happens the typically the question I get asked by the public is why does why do not large why do large developers not do geothermal? They're in business to flip their their property. Most developers don't own their properties long term. Commercial developers, they're buying they're building a strip center. They're going to keep it 8 to 10 or

09511 12 years and then they're going to flip it. So for them, they're not invested long term. We're not going anywhere. We're the we're the 50 to 100year developer, and there's not but one of us. It's us. Uh or or other governmental agencies. We're the only ones holding on to our buildings that long. The payback on geothermal and TVA will tell you this is most developers want to pay back Mr. B 8 to 10 years. Geothermal for us is about 12. Developers going to tell you it's not worth the investment. Well, for them it's not. But for us where we're going to be owning these buildings 50 to 70 years, at least we know we are so far because we've still got McFaden and we've still got um Central Magnet and some of these other

096schools that are fairly, you know, six lever primary. It's now Simon Springs built in 63. you don't think about them, but we're getting on out there. We we're going to keep our buildings for a long time. So, a payback for us is still we want to get paid back. So, for me, I look at 15 years as a that's kind of my regular developer 8 to 10 year payback. I'm saying, okay, we're we're a little better. If I can get my money back in 15 years, it's still worth it to do it. quality of in g quality of geothermal over the long haul is just so much better when you it doesn't really ever wear out, does it? I mean, >> you don't have to worry about it breaking down like these. >> Okay, we're

097going. Then we after Blackman, we looked at if you look there, we looked at things that we could do bowler plant. This is pieces and parts. Again, even though we would like to eventually do a holistic, we can do pieces and parts and get a longer service out of it. Um, then we looked at Smyrna High. We've got a lot of green at Smyrna that we didn't used to. If you looked at this five years ago, you wouldn't have seen hardly any green. We've replaced a lot of classroom units. We've spent uh improved their indoor air quality. Now, that does not mean that we're complete, but it means that we're in a lot better shape. But if you look at their central hot water plant, they got a boiler that's 40 years. I'm getting on

098out there. I need to replace that boiler. So, that's something that we're going to look at. That that's a hot water boil. That's for their heat. So, they've got a hot water system. That's Smyrna High Blackman. We looked at Smyrna there. There's one that's a really good example of the hodge podge. Every color you see there is a different type and a different system, but it's things that we've done over the years to keep that school operating. These are the things that cost us in ways that you don't necessarily see on the stat sheet. Cost us labor and it cost us time and gas. But there are things that if you look at all the different years in the different systems 20 24 22 05 25 o 2010 24 22 96 2012 there's there's a

099lot of different years there but there again we're making do the best we can with what we have. Um the green is what is within expected life. Now, a lot of that green we've taken care of in the last three to five years. Um, you know, a million dollars a year, half a million here, 250 there. That's kind of how we've gotten there. Red is the last of the classroom units. So, we're looking at trying to get those this year. Um, phasing plan, those are fairly easy. Those are summertime projects. The bowler replacements about a half million. Uh, that's something that we're looking to tackle that pretty pretty soon. Cedar Grove. This is the first of our holistic. It's right behind last casses unit ventilators, similar design, similar schools. It's just 30 years instead of

10037. So, we're getting into that same time frame. Um, two different basically they've got a little bit of 96 the electric unit heaters, but the rest of it predominantly red and blue. Everything's pretty much passed. Uh there again, we can go back in there and do it in phases and pieces and parts. Uh and we may have to get there. BRF, here's the thing that that probably is one of the better ones for you to understand. The green is good. The red and the black are not. Um we're be we don't have a lot of green. We've got more red and black and yellow. Recommendations. There's prioritized phases holistic Cedar Grove would be what what we would say would come after last casses. Um but we're a couple of years out. What I asked CMT

101to help us mostly with is give me a fiveyear and a 10-year look with these 12 projects. This is the five-year plan. We'd look at after tackling the last casses would be Cedar Grove, Smyrna High. There's pieces and parts to the buildings. And if you at all five years. That's anywhere from they predominantly stay in that $14 million range. We can't do 14 million a year. So, so that's I'm staying in that 8 to 10 million which means it's going to elongate. So, if it elongates what would it look like? But this is the five-year plan. What you see in green is those u federal in tax incentives that we can go get. If we do geothermal at last cases, we can get 1.2. If we do geothermal at Cedar Grove, we can get 2

102million. If I do geothermal at Barfield, I can do this. If I can get geothermal at Roy Ward. Do you see the trend? Those are the schools that have the property. They have larger areas where we can go do the geothermal. Total cost over five years is 79 million. If we can get the money back from the federal government, it's 12 million. Puts total cost at 66. The thing is, we've still got to have the 79 up front. That's a five-year plan for just these 10 or 12. There again, there's our fiveyear plan. That's what it would look like. your black, red, green. Here's a I said, "Give me what the 10-year plan would look like." It reduces the cost but elongates the process by a long period of time, which also puts us deeper

103into the other schools that we haven't even talked about that are on the list as well. I'm not trying to be depressing. I'm trying to give us a road map how we can get as much as we can, but we're not getting there. We're we're we are making progress, but we're going fast. It's going it's it's running over the top of us faster than we can fix it. But don't I mean I just more I read about it, the more I understand that over the long haul, you know, we're better off going geothermal with every um take a school like Black High School. What did it cost to go completing the jingle thermal for that school? >> I'm gonna go out on a limb. Probably 15 to 20 million. >> I mean, I I'm in

104the ballpark today. That's today's cost. By the time we got there, 25 to 30. So, we're going to lose that in 2032. The the the tax credit that and they just started it a couple of years ago. So, so we've got it's like TVA. We lost TVA started their incentives. We were halfway through with our sports lights. So, we didn't get to get take advantage of it on the first half. But to their credit, when they started it, they notified Middle Tennessee Electric who notified us and we got a plan so that we could get the projects that we already had light fixtures laying there. We had to stop for a day so that TVA could there's a collaboration there's what I'm trying to say that they work with us very well. It's not that

105we've we've got we've taken advantage of everything we can take advantage of, >> but due to the sun setting, it shortens our timeline to get this done. So we can get the tax credits port. >> It would. Yes. >> Let me ask you a question. Um I guess one of the biggest problems with air conditioning I guess in Rutherford County is central man is good. Uh that's good. Uh that whole system has been bad for forever, you know, and I just wonder just it how much would it cost to scrap to just scrap everything done in central man because nothing's working. >> Well, I I'm not going to say none of it's working. What we did last year is working, which is helping. We spent about four million to complete that project. The first phase

106of that project is what we are currently in a lawsuit in. That phase I can't touch until we're through with the lawsuit. The phase the second phase which is the phase that does help some is completed and it is working correctly. So we're we had a two-part project. Phase two is working. Phase one is partially working. It's working better than what the original system did. And when it breaks, we fix it. >> Would it be good to do geo geothermal right there and take care of it? >> I don't know that we've got the property there to do geothermal. And because of the age of that building and the way it's constructed, I it's not it would be crazy expensive to try and do geothermal there. >> There's just some structures that it's not it's

107not a candidate for. as much as I love it. And that's one of them. >> Mr. Vault, >> has anybody figured out what it's worth at Central Magnet? What that place is worth? Because I know when I was there, it was worth probably 25 million. >> I don't have a number. No, sir. >> We could probably build a high school, sell it, give them. Yes. >> Ready? Ready. A couple of follow-ups. Help us with this in looking at sites going forward. Um, how much area extra area do we really need to be able to do geothermal? Now, you don't really have to have a lot because I've got it at Brown's Chapel and that's the smallest property we have. >> So, you've been able to put it in and >> going on the front end.

108I don't have to have a lot of extra property because I can put it under the parking lots. >> Okay. All right. That that's a key. >> And what happens is the retrofits. >> That's where you >> I could I could still put it under the parking lot, but I can't take the parking lot away from the school or the roads away from the school. That's that's the hard part with the retrofit. New new ground elementary school probably not much because I can put it in detention ponds. I can put it under playgrounds. I can put it anywhere. Second second question then uh going looking forward thinking in your projected numbers y'all's projected numbers is inflation did you use an inflation index or anything in that >> these are today's numbers >> okay so I

109would make this general statement if we could increase that fund 5% a year plus an inflation index that would alleviate ate a lot of the time and maybe and what I'm getting around to saying if you could do a cost analysis on it by speeding it up and increasing that fund 5% a year um maybe take better advantage of these tax credits. That's just a general statement. I don't know if we need to build do what? Okay. I didn't know I'm I'm planting the seed for next year's budget. what I'm doing. I mean, after listening to the budget committee the other night, hey, I think this is these are the transparencies here. Um, I was around years ago when it was a shell game, Trey. You know, we come to the county commission, hey, we've

110got to put new roofs on Oakland and Riverdale. And next thing you know, there was a lot of other stuff bought and the roofs were still leaking. And so, that's the reason I think Dr. Bullan was successful in creating this this fund years ago. And I think the trans the more transparent we become with with the commission, not that we're not, but I think the more that we can educate them because it's this is no different than you and I taking care of our own homes. That's all this is. If if we broke it down in a square per square foot basis or something like that, I think it, you know, some people would maybe understand it. They look at the big numbers and I think they just gl you know their eyes go glassy

111about this. But it's no different. I we just put a new roof on a house today and and we've already put one on this year, so we'll probably put two more on. And but we have our business model is we have um programmed that in and it's no different than this with 52 schools and if you look you know 10 years down the road there's going to be 62 schools in this system and and it's just a cost of education and it's not I mean you when you program it in I mean labor is our biggest cost but this is probably our second with transportation being the third. If we're going to spend this much money building buildings, you got to take care of it. Period. >> Do it. I'm going to send you this.

112This is They asked for how do we get here? What is our process? Are you just making this up? No, we're not making it up. We spend a lot of time and effort on it. This is how this is our analysis. This is what we look at and this is how we make our recommendations to you all. >> Thank you. I was going to ask if you could send this to us, but thank you. I'm going to send you the There's a few slides that I went through kind of fast, but >> okay. >> My slides, but you but you're going to get it all >> year to keep. So, >> this is important information. Thank you. I >> hope so. >> I'll probably do it at the next meeting. Yeah. >> I mean, I

113think it needs We have got to paint this picture. I I would make that recommendation or I'd make that in form of a motion Thursday night. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Trey. Excellent. Thank you. Number 12. >> Mr. Reed resolution. >> Did you want to read it to what? Oh, was this your Oh, that's right. Miss Short, you want to do this one? >> You want to read it? >> I'll go ahead. Uh this is a resolution um asking the state legislature to provide adequate funding for um the school nursing needs. So this is a resolution requesting funding for adequate school nurse staffing levels. says, "Whereas the Rutherford County Schools Board of Ed education is a local government body responsible for providing a public education to students and families of Rutherford County. And whereas school

114nurses play a vital role in Ruary Countyy's public schools from thoughtfully managing students various health conditions to administering care in emergency situations. And whereas school nurses are crucial for identifying and addressing students health issues that if left unressed can negatively affect students attendance, behavior, and academics. And whereas the presence of qualified school nurses provides reassurance to families about the health and safety of their children during the school day. And whereas Roger County Schools is one of the fast grow fastest growing districts in Tennessee with rising student enrollment increasing the demand for school-based health services and exacerbating the strain on existing nursing staff. And whereas to TCA 49-3- 359, the director of schools for an LA LEA that does not employ or contract for at least one school nurse for every 750 students must report to

115the department among other other relevant data reasons behind the LEA's inability to staff nurses at a 1 to 750 ratio. And whereas Tennessee school districts currently res receive no dedicated or direct funding stream through TISA or otherwise to support the hiring and retention of an adequate number of school stu school nurses making it difficult to meet student health needs consistently across campuses. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Rutherford County Board of Education calls on the Tennessee General Assembly to appropriate sufficient funds either through the TISA funding formula or through some alternative funding mechanism to ensure that every public school district in Tennessee has the resources necessary to staff an adequate number of licensed school nurses to meet the health needs of students. So that's the resolution proposed for Thursday. Thank you. Thank you. Thank

116you, Mr. Re. Um, so this if this looks familiar, this is the second time around and there was an appetite for this in this year's budget, but they didn't get anything. Dr. Room was here. I wish you would have given us a little bit more of an update. Um, but there Elaine Davis was the representative that took this and there is an appetite to revisit this next year. So, I spoke with Nolan and Ben at TT TSBA and they said for us to revote this, send it back through the delegate assembly for November and get it voted on just like we did last year and just re resubmitted it to the general assembly and this will come back up as another uh lobbying effort on behalf of us. I mean, it it sailed through the

117delegate assembly in November last year. So, it's the same. There's no verbiage change. It's just a date change on the resolution. Um and somebody can take it to the delegate assembly in November and get it revoted and then I'm pretty sure we come back. >> We'll do that for the >> We'll do just then. >> Yeah. So that's what this is for. >> Okay. Next, financial matters and budget updates. >> I'll do that Thursday. >> Okay. Uh director's updates. >> Same Thursday. >> Okay. And just real quickly, um, under general discussion, I want to ask, I have gotten two commissioners to ask me if we were using or going to hire Edel Charles. I know he came and spoke to us in February. How where are we on that? Because I think he offered to

118>> Yeah. How much back? >> It was going parts of it were free, parts of it were okay. >> Going to be contracted. So, okay. >> Get back on that. >> Okay. Thank you. Because I I didn't know where we were on that. Anybody else have anything? Okay. If not, we are ajourned.