001meeting for the Rutherford County School System. We will be opening the meeting with a brief moment of silence or prayer and the pledge of allegiance of the United States flag. No one is required to participate or be present for any of these and being in this portion of the meeting is completely voluntary. Tonight's pledge and uh prayer will be led by Mr. Butch Vaughn. Please bow your heads. Heavenly Father, thank you for a beautiful day. Father, we know this the world can be a hateful and cruel place and ask that you guide our actions and that you give us an eagerness to be humble and gentle. Help us have hearts of patience and forbearance. Thank you for the hope that you've given us. May your hope unify our thoughts and decisions and invoke peace among
002us. Father, I just also like to pray for Heather Ger for the loss of her sister today. In your son Jesus name we 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, we have the approval of the agenda. I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Second. Thank you, Miss Rosales. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next, we have the approval of the consent agenda. Motion to approve. Second. Thank you, Miss Rosales. Miss Maxwell. Yes, Mr. T. I'm going to abstain from this as the company I work for is a subcontractor listed on one of these. I'll be abstaining. Understood. All in favor say I. I.
003Any opposed? Present. Thank you, sir. Motion passes. Next, we have public comment. We have two visitors for public comment. The first visitor is David Bauman. Good evening. My name is David Boffman and I am here tonight with my wife on behalf of our child. With this being a public meeting of record, I'm not using their name, but I believe they're listed in your notes as they relate to this meeting's agenda, section 9, item three, disciplinary hearing appeal. Our hope is that the board will see fit to grant a hearing regarding the disciplinary action determination. and I wanted to provide some brief context for that request. Our child's initial disciplinary action was assigned on April 9th this year, which was less than a week until TCAP testing began along with the start of Dr. Sullivan's medical
004leave. There were a lot of moving parts at every level of RCS administration to contend with to keep things running as smoothly as possible. And we feel the added responsibilities during this time may have played a part in some of the confusion experienced on both sides while we navigated this together. This process is new territory for our family. And while RCS did their very best to provide us with guidance and clarity, the information we were given from one level of administration sometimes contradicted information we received from another. There have also been some clerical errors that created additional confusion. Documents that one administrator thought she had provided were accidentally left out of copies of the disciplinary report. Our most recent disciplinary appeal decision letter we received had the wrong offense listed on it that it stated
005the decision was based upon. And until yesterday after I let central office know about the error and it was corrected, the agenda for tonight's meeting um had the incorrect disciplinary action listed for our child that the board is to vote on with regards to whether to grant that hearing. We're all human. Everybody's doing their very best. I know that. I really can't fathom the effort it requires from everyone involved in handling just one of these cases, much less the entirety of our very large county school system. I've tried my best to extend grace and be understanding when these things have come up. And I hope everyone I've talked to so far has walked away from our conversations knowing just how appreciative I really am. I also need to advocate for my child when I feel
006there's a situation deserving of it. With the recording and communication errors regarding the classification of the offense the appeal denials were based upon, we feel there is a potential that the discipline assigned and upheld thus far could have been affected by mistaken or misinterpreted information along the way. With the gravity of the discipline that's been assigned, we are asking that the board grant the opportunity of a hearing to provide a final examination of our child's case, allowing us the chance to work with RCS to clarify any confusion over errors of record or misinterpretations that may have occurred to ensure that the final discipline assigned appropriately fits the correct offense. Thank you very much for your time and your consideration. Thank you. Next, we have Samantha Balman. Good evening. My name is Samantha Buffman and first
007and foremost, I want to say thank you all for your service on our school board. We have had children attending Rutherford County Schools for 11 years now and we've been highly involved in their classrooms. I have been a volunteer coach with both archery and junior pro. So, I've seen firsthand the dedication that teachers, administrative um staff, custodial staff that you guys that all the input that you guys have and it's so impactful for our children. So, I just want to extend that as a thank you. Um you heard my husband speak just a moment ago and I just want to re reiterate his request to grant um a hearing to review the disciplinary action assigned in the situation regarding my child. Um, we just want to ensure that there's no uncertainties at this point remaining
008and that the appropriate level of discipline is being applied. Um, we would appreciate the opportunity to work with you guys to ensure not only the best outcome for our child but also for Rutherford County Schools. So, thank you again for your time and consideration. I'd like to shake. Thank you. Next, we have the human resources number one. First we have stellar therapy services contract renewal for medical reimbursement. The stellar contract with the nursing medicaid reimbursement program in Rford County schools is up for annual renewal. Their administrative fee is 20% of totals revenues received. Medically necessary services students provider orders may be reimbursed. These include oral medications, tube feedings, tracheosttomies and ventilator care, diabetes care, asthma treatments, and other treatments for chronic illness. Last school year, school nurses generated $75,154 with a total revenue of $60,123.
009This school year, the school nurses received reimbursements of $182,2506 with a revenue of $145,8005. This data is of May 20th, 2025 does not include billable services performed in May. I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second. Thank you, Miss Rosales. Thank you, Mr. on. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number two, this is similar to what we had last week. Matlo, this is with Mlo's nursing clinical agreement. RCS partners with MLO is a clinical rotation site for MLO nursing students. Their nursing students spend one to two days observing RC school nurses as part of their pediatric clinical rotation. Motions to recommend motions to approve. Move to second, Mr. Von. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed. Motion passes. Next we have instruction. Next, and there's a
010couple that are not instruction connected in here, but positions that are part of the budget also require approval of job description. So that's what a lot of these are. First, we have attendance educational assistant job description. Lever High School is requesting the approval of a new job description for the 2526 school year. The job description is for an attendance educational assistant that will implement and support tier one and tier 2 truency support and initiatives. The position will be funded through title one funds for 2526 school year. I'll entertain a motion. Yes. Oh yes, Mr. So this will be funed through title one funds. Will that be the way it is moving forward? Yeah, this is a school-based fund. So if they lose title one funds, the district wouldn't pick up. Okay. Type of thing. Thank
011you. Any other questions, comments? Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Second. Thank you, M. Sharp. All in favor say I. Or was it Miss Darby? Was it Miss Darby? I'm so sorry. I I apologize, Miss Darby. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number two, an accounting technician, ISA. The budget and finance department requests this position to provide guidance, training, and backup support to school bookkeepers for their school accounts. And this is part of the budget as well, but this is the job description. Any comments or questions? Second. Okay, thank you, Miss Mich. Okay, so um there's like nine positions on here. Were all of these included already in the budget? Technician was career and technical mobile lab specialist was not. Charter specialist is reallocation of existing position. The rest of them
012would have been Yes. Just our classrooms need help. I'll talk about that. Thank you, Mr. Arpie. Dr. Svin, can you just talk a little bit about this position? Do we currently have anything like this? And this is in addition to or is this like a brand new I'll let Brian talk to it. Sorry, I'm eating an Eminem. Um what it is is we've got school support positions. We've got two right now. Uh Sharon Wilson and Laura Harl and they are supporting all 50 schools and their bookkeepers. So what this is is adding another position. We're just changing the title of that position to ISA, which is internal school accounts uh technician. So, it's it's basically the same as what they are doing. They're providing school support to those bookkeepers at the schools. So, we currently
013have two and this will be adding a third. This will be adding a third. Yes. Okay. And I'm assuming they're they kind of rotate among the schools as needed. That's what the goal is is to allow them because right now they're having to stay in the office here so much. I would like for them to deploy sometimes out to the school to be able to help them um with their school books, especially if they have a new bookkeeper or a a non- veteran bookkeeper that that is needing some help or the bookkeeper has left and and and we're trying to help them with their books so they can actually leave the office to go out there to the schools to be able to help them. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, could we have what
014the cost for this position for all of these, not total, but each position? That that would be nice going forward because I always ask for it. Um, and if we're going to vote on it, we really should know what we're approving, the amount that we're approving. Yeah. I mean, I've got I've got them in the budget whenever we approve the budget. So, I I can provide them individually and break them out. So, Okay. Miss Maxwell, Miss Ellis. Thank you. So, Brian, is it correct to say that these positions have already been approved by the board because they were included in the budget? Yes, ma'am. Except for the the charter special. Yeah. Yeah. They have they have already been approved. What this is is just approving the pos the job description for us to be able
015to go out and hire hire for. Okay. So just for clarity sake, we've already approved the budget for these positions and right now today we're just approving the descriptions for the positions that are being tied to the budget that the salary or whatever the cost of that's included in the budget already. That is correct. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Sullivan. And this was also part of when we went over growth positions as part of our budget request. These were listed here. So I see right it has ISA accounting tech one zero vacant one growth. So this was part of our overall budget presentation. Okay. For me to ask for that I don't think it's wrong. So I don't know that we're always we'll be transparent, but these positions have been even part of our border treat
016in March. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Okay, I'll entertain a motion. We've already motion second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Miss uh Sharp is opposed. Okay. Number three, career and technical education mobile lab specialist. This position is to be funded through innovative schools model grant for one year. The person this position will be engaging in hands-on learning experiences to middle school students through fully equipped mobile CTE lab. It's a 260day contract. This was also part of ISM. Um you want to talk anything about that, Dr. Justin? Yeah, because I just want to make sure we're super clear that this is not GP funded. So, this is part of the innovative school grant uh for middle schools. The board may remember we're doing those big labs, so they're mobile labs,
017and they're they're coming together looking pretty awesome. So, this is the person that will help get those where they need to go, kind of man those stations, help with curriculum. But this is, to be clear, a one-year grant funded. after this year we'll have to bring it before if we're going to move if we're going to make an effort to move it into GP that would have to come back before the board completely grant funded. Yes, Mr. Tidville. I just got some questions about the innovative school models grant. Uh so I know when was the time when the the fund started expiring? Is that coming up? Right around the corner. By 2026, correct? Oh, did you say 2026? Yes. So we we have a year this is our last year of the grant. Um then
018Brian could get into the details about how how we pay out after that date, but yes, there's a liquidation period of 90 days after that. Um so we have basically until September of 2026 to have everything liquidated and expensed. Okay. And I would like I know that our projects that there were some that were being held up and that we were able to get those worked out with the city, right? Those are now moving starting to move because they just had their final I guess city council planning meeting last Thursday. Sorry. What' you say? They had their scheduled city council meeting last Thursday and so now that they will start moving. Great. That's great. So we got that out of the way. Uh I at some point and it does not have to be anytime
019soon. Um but I would like to know you know what the funds were kind of used for because there's a lot of money and we're thankful for it. um just like to promote that. I'd love for them to reinstate this grant in the future. I think the timing is good about it. It's time to start celebrating some of these, especially when we can see those labs going out. I think that's going to be a really cool thing for our entire community. So, absolutely. I think it's good timing. Awesome. Make a motion to approve. I agree. Second. Thank you, Miss D. Dr. Tastain, is this um will you be creating a description for that position? There should be one attached. Oh, was it on the I must have missed it. Um, are they driving? Are they
020going to need a CDL? Yes, this is going to be an interesting person. And it may be that we have to provide some training to get they might not already have one. We would have to figure that out in the funding, but yeah. Okay, they will. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number four. Number four is a charter specialist. The purpose is to assist the coordinator school and charter school of choice and charter schools in application process monitoring and performance evaluations. This will also assist in coordinating the RCS choice schools program and application process. This will be funded by the reallocation of an existing position as a 260day contract. Anything you want to add to that, Dr. Chain? Just again that this is reallocation,
021not a new position as far as count. Move to approve. Second. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. Thank you, Miss Rosaltz. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number five, technology integration education assistant. This is an updated title to an existing position. The purpose of this position is to support the effective use of instructional technology by assisting students inventory, federal reports, participate in library media, instruction technology training at each high school. This position is 10 months. And in our budget process, we call this our high school library EAS. So that's what these nine positions are. at the school level. Any questions or comments? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Next, we have number six, the bus contact coordinator.
022The purpose of this position is to coordinate transportation discipline activities between school administrators, transportation department, and bus drivers. They'll track bus disciplinary conduct and help develop supports for bus drivers, ensuring bus conduct reports are processed according to student code of conduct and district policies and procedures. And this was part of the budget as well. This will be very well received. Any comments? Yes, Mr. Tidwell. Yeah, I think this is a great thing that this will be their primary focus will be bus contact, right? Conduct. Yes, sir. We rolled out a new app last year that allows the bus contractors to submit their discipline reports instead of the fourpage multicolor paper that Oh, yeah. got lost here there. We finally got past that last year and rolled out the new uh program. It was very wellreceived.
023Um, we did have a few older contractors that struggled a little bit, but we worked with them to get past that. And part of what this person will do will be also to continue that assistance with some of our older contractors that are not as technological as others to make sure that things get in. Also to be able to track and help us to expedite discipline issues in a much better manner. I think that's great. I think that's probably one of the the biggest complaints I got before the the the contract stuff was just the miscommunication that happens during the conduct and and whether it's actually there's discipline that follows it out and they hated those old papers so I knew they would be excited about that but I figured there'll be a learning curve
024with that but going well so far. Yes sir. That it's gone it's gone well. It it really helps us track things and I think it's helped the schools as well. Great Dr. Sullivan and this is on the growth sheet as part of the budget listed as a transportation admin assistant. Correct. Right. Any other questions or comments? I got a question. Yes, Mr. Bond. Will this person be involved in assigning discipline to the kids? No, sir. Principal still have that autonomy. This person better have thick skin. H. We're just going to try to make sure things don't get lost and that that the discipline is handled in a timely manner. Okay. Move to approve. Second. Thank you, Mr. T. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number seven. These
025next two are funded out of 143. So, school nutrition admin assistant and 143 again does not have a tax base to it. It's all self-funded. First, the purpose of this position is provide clerical support to the school nutrition department, including compliance with both state and federal regulations. Any questions or comments? Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. Second. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number eight. This is the school nutrition technology support specialist. This position will monitor software systems for school nutrition, maintain the networks, workstation, operating systems, hardware, and software applications. And as we transition to a new student information system in the next year, this is going to be vital to make sure they all communicate. And that's 143 as well. Okay. Any questions or comments?
026Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Zol. Second. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number nine. Number nine is county schools going to continue the health and opioid prevention education or hope curriculum for 2526 school year to ease the burden on our teachers. Um, we've also partnered with prevention coalition for success. They have hired support specialists to help teach these lessons in any school that requests their help. Would add anything to that, Dr. Chasmine? So, this is a local group. It originally started out of the Murphy'sboro Housing Authority. Uh, so Miss Stitzel worked with them to try to provide additional staff that could come in and teach those that curriculum that we're already offering. um so that our school counselors aren't the ones that have to do that
027or if there's if there's other burdens. So they would be trained specifically by us on that curriculum obviously be vetted and all that but this is a local group that has agreed to partner with us. I'm familiar with prevention for coalition theory very move to approve second. Yeah, thank you guys. Yes. Um and I've heard good things as well. Uh but if a principal still wanted their Okay, they still have that option to do that. Okay, great. We have a motion on the floor to approve. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number 10. Number 10 is with summer camp funding. And so one of the things that the state department has really worked with districts this year to do is to make sure you're all using all of your summer camp
028funding. And so curriculum instruction department is requesting to purchase 3,88 student laptops and 119 mobile charging stations for student use during our current and future summer learning camps. Charging stations will provide storage for 32 laptops each and will be housed in our elementary schools. Stations will be mobile and allow us to transport to the multiple summer camp locations each June. Student laptops will be purchased for $1,523,200 and the mobile charging station will be purchased for $210,446.74 for a total cost of $1,742,646.74 to be funded through the summer camp summer learning camp funds. Move to approve. Second. Thank you guys. Yes, Mr. Darby. Dr. Sullivan, does that include the cases? Yes. Perfect. Any other firm comment or discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next we have device replacement. And number 11
029is going to be a big portion of our cleanup amendment. So something the board has been well aware of is that we needed to replace high school devices. Uh we were going to take that out of fund balance. Um county doesn't want us to go any further into fund balance right now. So, we have moved lots and lots and lots of things around to figure out a way to purchase these without going into fund balance. And so, this is high school one:1 device replacement curriculum instruction departments requesting to purchase student laptops for high school replacement devices. The student laptops will be purchased for $5,751,74126 at a general purpose fund. So, thank you, Brian. and we worked a lot to figure out how to move things around which is why like literally we had somebody come
030in here a little while ago and I said I'm sorry the POS were cut because we've we've shut things down. So motion to approve. Thank you Mr. Bond. Melville. Yes. Thank you Mr. Rosales. Yes, Mr. Title. Uh can we get like some highlights of what was cut there to nothing necessarily cut. So we don't as part of our budget ever budget direct outcome funding. And so direct outcome funding is what we get for how our students do on TCAP. And so we never budget that. It's usually 3 to four million because we never truly know how much it's going to be. Fast growth funding was another portion that we never budget because we don't ever know whether or not we're going to qualify. Um this year, for example, November, December, we qualified for 600 or
031800,000. Ended up getting in our last one closer to 6 million. And so utilizing those funds as part of our cleanup amendment, the fund 143 transfer for indirect costs, all of those different things help to be able to cover this amount. You mentioned the fast growth funding. What was the the total that we received from that? Just a second. And it'll come we'll still get one more. Do you know the amount off the top of your head? We've looked at it some give me just a second. We will get another one in July that retros and that'll go straight into fund balance. So, we don't actually ever get to spend that one. I guess technically it's being spent a little bit here. Yes, the extra funds that will straight into general purpose or in straight
032into fund balance. These old laptops are they can they be refurbished and utilized somewhere? Second, Miss Maxwell. Yes, Miss Dr. Sman, is this when we were at the retreat, you talked about the TISA funds that we were getting and the growth. Is that what you were did you mention that during the meeting when you were talking about how the when we had our retreat, the extra funding that we had to try to accomplish all these different types of things is on the back because I thought we talked about technology and how that was going to be funded. Okay. Thank you. It was 4.7. Yeah. Does that sound right, Brian? No. The total is 66 6,674,718. Oh, yeah. The next one and the first one. Got it. Yeah. Sorry, Brian. Could you repeat that? Sorry, didn't
033mean to cut you off there. Uh, it's 6,674,71853. That was fast fast growth. Fast growth. And that really, you know, that really increased when the governor went back and made the change to economically disadvantaged and so that that could count again, that really increased because this is a weighted factor. So the more student needs that you have, the more you can generate. Miss Maxwell. Yes, M. The fast growth the fast growth funds was a total of $8 million. I thought we got about 8 million this year. It was that number he just raised. It is six million for some reason. I thought it was 8 million. Okay, hold one second. I was looking at something different. Yes, Mr. L. I was going to answer Mr. Ven's question. He asked, could these high school laptops be
034repurposed again? These devices will no longer support the latest upgrade to Windows. Typically what we've been doing the last few years is take when we upgraded high school, we've taken the high school ones and repurposed them and given them to the middle school as additional devices. But these devices will not we won't be able to do that with because they won't support the new Windows upgrade. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments or questions? Right. Still pulling numbers over there. We get so many T and EDU funding emails. We have to make sure we get the most up to date one and I'm okay coming if you are waiting on me. I'm okay coming back to it Brian at the end of the meeting. I I was just curious so we can move on in a
035second. Yes. So you're good. Okay. Have a lot of talk. The last estimate we got, which was in April, was $6,348,44624 or fast growth. It's way less than the last. It is less. Yeah. But it's about that 25% change to economically disadvantaged. Yeah. We have a motion to approve. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number eight, special education. Are the tariffs going to affect these computers in any way? American made. Who knows? We order from Dell and it's under state contract. So, as long as it stays on state contract, we're okay. Thank goodness. All right. First, we have special education departments requesting an updated job description for special education itinerate preschool teacher to include revised language and updated job description. Comments or questions? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second.
036Mr. Bond. Thank you, Mr. Tidwell. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number two. Special education department's requesting an updated job description for special education transition case manager position to include revised language and updated job description as well. Any comments or questions? Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Tidville. Second. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. I want to say one of them was changing the time in which they reported to report earlier and it shifted days. Uh but on the the second one and she did tell me, but I'd have to go back and look. We'll report back in just a moment. Coming in with the hard-hitting questions here, Mr. Burious. Okay. You will see more job description updates in May and June than any other time. Um if it's just a simple usually
037duty that doesn't require board approval or anything that's a major like title change we do and that's what I was curious about here could have been 180 days right probably could have been those kinds of changes that's easy that's easy any other comments or questions All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next we have legal. So this is policy adoption. Second reading of two readings. Unless there's any objections, I'll just read them all together. Yes, please. All right. First, policy 1.703, school attendance zones and exemptions adds language for specific board approved programs and locations or procedures. B, policy 1.01, 901 charter school applications add requirement for charter schools use the same student information system or cyst at the art ratherford county schools C policy 3.206 community use of school facilities adds that
038users will observe facility closures in the event of inclement weather D policy 5302 sick leave as language to clarify bereavement leave for classified and certified staff e policy 6.204 204 attendance of non-resident students removes rather county virtual schools an exception to residency requirements except for currently enrolled students. F policy 6.411 student wellness change required meetings of the healthy school team from 4 to two per year and G policy 6.502 foreign exchange students adds language to comply with choice se requirements. I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second. Thank you, Mr. Long. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next, discipline. First one is a transfer student under discipline one. The board has been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. The student is remain to alternative school
039for making a threat of mass violence according to policy 6.318. 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 school's recommendation is to deny. Motion to deny. Second. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. Would you do a roll call, please? Mr. Vault, yes. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mrs. Derby, yes. Miss Sharp, Mr. Tidwell, yes. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Passes. Okay. Number two. Three. Next you have disciplinary hearing appeal 25502. The board's been requested to review a decision of the disciplinary hearing authority DHA and the director of schools to uphold the expulsion of a student from Witworth Buchanan Middle School. Based on review of the record, the board may affirm the decision of the DHA
040and of director B overturn the decision of the DHA and the director and overturning would then put them back at traditional school or C grant a hearing before the board. Make a motion to affirm the decision of the DHA and the director. Second. Thank you, M. Rosales. Miss Maxwell. Yes, Mr. You know, this is interesting. I did read through all of these and of course, we heard I think the family members speaking tonight. Um it sounds like what I read through I I actually still lean toward affirming the decision. Uh but if there were any discrepancies, uh which is what was mentioned tonight, I'm okay with granting a hearing as well. Um, so I don't know if there's a consideration for that, but I'm just telling you guys where I'm at. Yes, Mr. D. Um,
041two things. I I did have a question because I'm just curious. Um, there was a text sent um encouraging us to all read the thing, which we've never gotten before. And I was just curious as to why we didn't meet Tuesday and I wanted to make sure that everybody had read the file. Um, and I concur with Mr. Tidwell. I even if the board were to decide to affirm the decision, I think it's important when parents come before us and are saying that they they believe there was some confusion or some clerical errors and they just at a very minimum would like to make sure that everything is clear. I don't see the harm in allowing people to be heard and making sure that at least when they walk away they they were left feeling
042like they were heard. Um, so I would I would be in agreement with Mr. Tidwell to grant a hearing. Miss Maxwell. Yes, Mr. Zelis. Can Miss Monica talk speak into questions about this? Because I I guess my confusion is and maybe I can get answers and clarity and maybe can make changes to what the motion was, but as I read through the files, I did understand where the confusion was in regards to the errors and things of that. So were we not giving information that should have been in the files and because what what I got well what the board got didn't lean that way. So I'm just curious is that something that you can speak into or not speak into at all and again we have to be careful what we say in open
043meeting because these are highly confidential student records and we you know never want to violate that confidentiality of our students and our families. So um I am I am going to be careful how I answer that but my understanding is um the information that was received by the family from the school had the correct information on the written notice about the charge um excuse me the violation and then the resulting discipline. Um the family appealed to the disciplinary hearing authority and they affirmed the decision of the school. I believe in that letter no excuse me that letter that was sent from that decision was also correct affirming um I believe where the error came was when the family appealed to the director's office. um just the infraction was the wrong level. Um but the decision
044was still affirmed. It was just a typo and so that was corrected with the new letter which is in your Okay, just to get it all situated straight in my head. So the affirm decision was the infraction correct with the affirm at the very beginning from the school and then it went to the appeal was the infraction and the same there was no issue there. Correct. Okay. So the issue came when at the appeals after the disciplinary hearing it had it just had the wrong infraction but the the infraction was correct throughout the whole process from the school to the hearing except for when it went to the appeal. Correct. Okay. All right. Mr. V question I have because I've never been involved in one of these. When would the hearing take place? now or
04510 days from now or when when would you set the when the board the family and the school are available? Okay, Mr. U VA, it is a closed hearing. Sure. Um so it's not you know it's a closed hearing just for the family if they have a legal representative our office and then the school. Um, so again, because it's summer time, I don't think that hearing would be able to take place until school administrators can return, which would be end of July. End of July. July. Okay. That I was just trying to get a time pattern here. Yes, Mr. B. I'm just speaking, I guess, as a former principal. Um everything about this decision was justified and according to the uh rules and regulations that we have. Um if we we start learning this, you
046know, to start second guessing administrators because uh there was no doubt about the information given was a violation school rules. No doubt there's no question about it. So, I don't see any reason why that um an appeal was even necessary. Yes, Miss Dar. Um I'm just going to reiterate that I even said even if the board comes to the same decision, which could very well be the case, at least we're allowing parents to leave feeling like what their concerns were were addressed. if if everything was done correctly, then there shouldn't be an issue with granting them their hearing to to quell any concerns they may have. Um, I would also ask, I'm not sure like who, how, why, or how the clerical things happen with the DHA hearings, but this isn't the first time that
047we've had incorrect names and different things in the files. And I understand like it's a lot of copy paste and that kind of stuff, but if we need to have a secondary person like reviewing this information before it goes out, it would probably be helpful to make sure that we are we have correct offenses, correct names, and things aren't just scratched through and it would eliminate some of the concerns I think that have come up in this particular case. So, Mel, Mr. We start doing this. We're going to be here every week. Every time you have one, you going to be having this. And you know, if you're not going to enforce the rules, why have them? Well, we have a motion and we have a second to affirm the decision of the DHA and
048the director. Could we have a vote, please? Mr. Tidwell, Mrs. Rosales, yes. Miss Sharp, Mr. Bot. No. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mrs. Darby, no. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Failed. Yes, Mr. T. Again, as I restated that, I don't disagree with some of the the comments that Mr. Vaughn has made. Um, but I also agree with with what Miss Darby has said here in the aspect that, you know, if we get to we we may end up at the same exact place. We may actually affirm it. But, um, granting a hearing, I don't think hurts anything, especially since there were some discrepancies. So, with that, I'll make the motion to grant a hearing before the board. Second. Any comments or questions? Yeah, we're going we're going to do this every time as a U decision of the of
049a disciplinary group. We're going to have the same thing. We're going to have a hearing every time we grant one. We're going to have to do it for everybody. Mr. Tidwell. Uh, since I've been on the board three years, I think we have had one discipline hearing. We did we have one. Can we have a roll call vote, please? Mrs. Darby? Yes. Mr. B? Yes. Mrs. Rosales? Yes. Mr. Vaughn? Yes. Mr. Tidwell? Yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Motion passes. Number 10, financial matters. Financial matters fund 141 fund balance amendment this year in cleanup amendment budget $17,42,929 for items such as leave payouts increases for degree and certification pay scale changes stipens insurance premium increases adjustments for amended innovative schools models program additional cost for contracted services and capital outlay for construction also the
050increased cost for liability insurance due to recent transportation claims is included in the amendment next it budgets additional expenditures for maintenance custodial supplies student and staff support contracted service. And finally, it funds a purchase of 1 to1 computers for high school students, student laptops, and mobile charging stations for elementary school. Funding for these expenses comes from additional TISA and state revenue as well as indirect costs from the cafeteria program. This revenue and transfers are collected above budgeted amount and allow additional expenditures and the movement of current budgeted expenditures between multiple accounts within object codes. And again, this is early for us to be doing this on June 12th, but it's the way the county schedule fell. Um, and talked to Michael Smith today. Something to just point out that if we have a special education
051settlement or something that happens over the next 3 weeks before or I guess two weeks before June 23rd, then I can email the commission and ask for an emergency for it to be added to this and then the board would come back and approve um retro. So, this is everything that I know of pending some emergency settlement that I don't know exists right now. Yep. Thank you, Mr. Bond. Second, Mr. Mel question com is this uh with this total the 17 million would that be all the outcome funding? We we did everything else is the fund 143 that we moved last week is additional paid parental leave that is new this year that we get funding for um the paper and leave portion of it outcome fast growth additional voluntary prek money basically it's recognizing
052all the funding that we've already received just non-budgeted funds that we did receive and after that first year that we had with summer camp you see we pretty much anything that we have additional we throw towards salaries just to make sure that hopefully there's no issue because we are still in an acrruel. So June 12th again is tough because we still have June 20th payroll and then July 20th payroll and August 20th payroll. So we are still a quarter of the year not done with payroll for our accounting system. So it's it's tough. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. Motion to approve. We have a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number 11, engineering. This is an Eagleville Gaga ball pit request. It's been a little while since we've had one of
053these. So, principal Tim Pedigo is requesting to install a Gaga ball pit on the playground. Anticipated cost is 5,49 $97 will be at no cost to the board. The funding will become from the school funds. Injuring construction has reviewed the request and has no objections. Two in the shed, but what's a gaga ball pit? It's a It's a Octagonal pit. There's a picture in your packet, but it's basically a octagonal pit. It's similar to four square dodgeball mix. They call it gaga ball. Good way of putting it. That's That's the only way I know to explain it. The kids love it. And the kids absolutely love it. Awesome. Why don't you get some of your cronies some? We have a exhibition up here next board meeting. Can y'all do that? OJ, I would not approve
054that. Only if you'll play. That'd be me and you will play. I think you two shall play. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Be on the opposing teams. Second. I'm the motion we approve is whatever it I'm going to go up there and look at it when we get it built. We'll go. We'll go look. We'll go watch. I promise. Well, you won't have unless you want to go to Eagle. We approved one earlier at campus school. So, it's a little closer into town. All right. There's a half dozen of them scattered around. Team blue. You second it. Mr. I I think Mr. Von, did you make a motion? Did you? I I did it. Okay, I second his motion. Okay, thank you guys. Negable. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Second is Rockville
055High ROC obstacle course request. Principal Steve Lucer is requesting to allow the ROTC program to install an obstacle course. The project's anticipated to cost 5,000 to be completed in two phases. Phase one funding and labor is being donated. This project's at no cost to the board. Due to sight constraints, there are limited options for the location. There's a possibility the area selected may be unusable due to standing water. There's been relayed to the school and with limited options. The request still stands. Engineering construction has reviewed the request and with a noted possibility of standing water has no objection. Move for approval as long as Butch goes with me and we go through it once it's completed. I'll second that. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? I got one question. Yes. Um, I
056guess it's just I've always been a little bit concerned these u these obstacle courses, you know, people can go out there and get on them and everything. If a kid were to get on there and get hurt just or are the county schools liable for this under our insurance? Yes. Just like our playgrounds that are open 24/7. Yes. It's always been that way. Good thing about this, it's right across the road from the ambulance. Yeah, that's true. That's a So if something happens to me and you, we're going to get a quick ride. Quick ride quick ride back. We'll have one on standby. There you go. Number three, and I like this one a lot. This is a mural request that Daniel McKe requested by assistant principal Glenn Suggs. Experienced church is planning a mural
057for the cafeteria that incorporates the core. Daniel McKe value, respectful, responsible, and productive at no cost to the board. Move to experienced churches. Thank you guys. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I'm just going to say Experience Church has been really great and they've really kind of taken Daniel McKeen under their wing and they they want to do more things in the future. So that's great. That's great. I'll just second that comment that they do some amazing murals and they've done for other schools. Holloway is a great example. Uh very beautiful. Appreciate that. Yeah, I'll second his motion. I think it's been thirded at this point. All in favor say I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Okay, we go to financial financial report um and director's update. I'll combine. So, we have county commission going on tonight. I
058do expect some type of confusion around budget amendments Tuesday and Wednesday because we have approved budget amendments the county commission is approving hopefully tonight. And then we also have budget amendments that we'd approved tonight. Depending on when the county updates their forms and records depends on where revenue sits that time. So, I anticipate questions and conversation around which is right or wrong. And there's no right or wrong. It just depends on whatever time the form is pulled from county finance. So, like we have our summer school grant funding already in this. The county commission technically hasn't approved the summer camp funding. It's tonight. And so, depending on when budget, which document they look at depends on which one they're going to consider. So, just know that if there's questions, everything's good. just depends on what
059time they were the document to follow up the rest of that. So, county commission tonight, health and net is on Tuesday at 5:00. That's a different time. And then public hearing is at 7. Budget is Wednesday at 5:30. And then county commission is 9:00 on June 23rd for the hopeful approval of the tax rate and the full budget. We do still have a placeholder for June 30th at 5:30 if needed, but again, I'm hoping we will know by June 23rd. Miss Maxwell. Yes, Mr. T. Thank you. Yes, just wanted to to come back to the job description really quickly since that got asked. That won't happen again. I'll make sure that that was my fault. Dr. Rosson did tell me this. So, the itinerate went from full-time to a 100-day contract. So, that's actually a
060decrease in days. The other one there is no change other than clarity. So no change in duties. It's just a clarification of what is expected. So didn't expect. Nope. But that should that is a reasonable expectation. We will we will do better. Miss Sharp. Thank you Madam Chair. Um so the last week or so I've had some time to spend with some of our EAS and some of our teachers that are doing camp and everything. Um and one of the things that um there were a couple things that were common among the different schools um and it was structure setting the hard to fill EAS. So um I would like to make a motion to return the hard to fill stipen to that one position because that would cover all of the that would cover
061all of the schools. Um I know Leverne Lake really needs five positions. They've got four right now and they've got one teacher that's still standing. Um, so I would like to put that motion out there for the $1,000 stipen for so we can get those positions filled because we've got several. How many would that be, Dr. Sullivan? I would want to get Dr. Anthony because our we would want to make sure that we were aligned with all the rest of our hard to staff. So, I'm pulling that up real quick. Are you talking about EAS or EAS in the structure setting? Yes. I don't know that we've ever done classified. So, in the last eight years, we've only done the um hard to fill positions for teachers. We do have that for the sped teachers.
062Uh we have done locations before if it was hard to staff in different locations but not uh in the classified employees. Um we have we but we have done it for like sped ESL those hard to fill when we look at our postings. Uh we put that usually on the January February board agenda but that is one of the hardest positions. It is Dr. Siv, do we have funding for thousand? Because the reason what we're doing a thousand Excuse me. I asked Dr. Sullivan. He said, but I still have the floor. Just a moment. Yes, M. What else can we do, Dr. Sullivan? Because if we don't have those positions filled, what what are we going to do? I mean, I know that's very common place in in the north end county and the teachers
063are the EAS that are there and the teachers that are having to struggle through that and having five class really enough for five classes but have four teachers and now the teachers they're gone. Um they're they're they're looking for other opportunities. So we're about to fall off the cliff in this with sped eas or with sped teachers. I think that's where I'm confused. EAS with teachers are not happy either, but no, they don't have enough EAS. Sped EAS is our hardest to fill. That's why it is one level above regular EAS and I'm not against it. I just we don't and I know that they have to be certified and they cannot be on waiverss. SPED teachers do. Correct. So we we need to find something to incentivize them to come to those positions. Are
064spedas at the top level of the salary for VA? They are. Yes, they're 102 and others are 101. Okay. I mean, I don't hate it. My only concern is we've got I don't know how many hundred steady two or 300 and this isn't budgeted and so that's just my concern. Yes, Mr. Zelis. Thank you. Um do we have funding for this for the stipens for $1,000? because the reason where we give $1,000 to the CL to the certified is an incentivization. Um, but if we're having difficulties finding for EA, I'm not opposing for a stipen, but I'm not sure if $1,000 is should be the amount. I don't know if we have the funding. So, I'm asking if we even have funding to even do a stipen of any amount. Currently, right now in the
065upcoming year's budget, we're budgeted in a deficit of 8 million. So, when you have to budget in a deficit, that means we're pulling money out of fund balance in order to pay for the existing positions and existing operations that we're currently in. Now, that's budgeted. I'm not saying that's where the actuals will end up at, but currently at this point in time, we do not because we had to budget into a deficit. So, so that could be something that we can look into for next year's budget then. No, not this year's budget, for the following year's budget, because we haven't we haven't been not this year. I'm talking about 2026, 2027 to kind of add that funding as part of the budget. If we were to move forward with incentives, is we part of the
066pro budget process at that point? It would be easier just due to the volume of spedas that are out there. There's if it was a few positions, yes, I'd say we could probably amend it in next year. But when you're talking about hundreds of positions, be a lot and those vary throughout the district. They come and go and and that make that's what makes it difficult is for the payroll staff is to be able to know at the end of the day who gets paid, who doesn't. We got to set stipulations of how long do they got to be there? Are we going to pay them once a year, twice a year, split the payments? I mean, there's there's a lot of things that go into the decision making on this. So, it it's something
067that for me personally would be better off a year out, okay, than doing it immediately. But, okay. So we it sounds like we need to do more research on this before we can just go ahead and make a blanket emotion and say let's move forward with this because it's funding and then the intricacies of how the parts are being moved. So I I think we should as a I think right now we should just table it in my opinion and that way it'll allow um Brian Renan and HR to kind of work through those kinks and then come back to us with a recommendation and how we can go about it. That's my Mr. Tidville and then I will get to you Mr. Vaughn and M. I guess it just depends on how bad the
068needs need is. We just moved around and found five $5 million. Um so I think that that I think what we need to do is consider how bad the need you know it seems like it suffers more on the north end and I don't know so you would have to speak in but I remember when we dealt with this with the custodians we were sending people up to Leverne if I'm remember correctly. um we were sending maintenance up to Leverne because we couldn't get custodians up there. So it seems like there's a a stronger uh piece there. So my question would be you mentioned locationbased and I know we haven't done it with EAS before, but if we have a particular school or area that's struggling more so than the rest, would it be possible
069to look at locationbased um EAS versus just doing a widespread? What are your thoughts on that? me. Yes, Dr. I think anything that we are doing right now in the middle of our budget process is not being good with our county commission who we've asked to approve our budget. I think July is okay um to look at it to see truly what the need is because we are seven weeks from opening school. I would love to have all these positions filled certified staff-wise. We don't we don't have a whole lot of open openings certified staff-wise. Um we've tried to transfer some positions and we don't have a lot to transfer with them. classified are usually harder to fill. One, because of the job requirement. This is a tough job as Mich mentioned. It is one
070of our hardest to fill in the entire county. Second, people aren't going to sign up for a job right now when they still have seven weeks of another job to get paid. So, I I don't know the true number of openings. There will be openings. The spy aid, we always have openings. Um, districts will always have openings because it's so difficult to fill. Mr. Mr. Bond, I'm sorry. Next. I'm sorry. Whatever. I I'll answer to anything. I'm good. Um, no. I I mean, I respect your comments. I really do. My reluctance would be because we just approved a budget 3 weeks ago to come back and amend it this early. Um, but I'm going to highlight this. I'm going to go down this rabbit hole just a second from my seven month, eight month tenure
071here. Dr. Sullivan, this is where my mind's going. Are there gosh how can I say this without saying something that sounds bad but are there help me with this are there difficult schools to staff right there's I have to assume that right difficult schools and difficult programs structured settings are difficult and and you have like if you have an opening at X school you may have 10 applications for that but if you have it at Y school you may not even have any applicant the same job but it's just a different area of the county different culture different a lot of different stuff and and I've tried to analyze you know the seven of us very different areas of the county that we represent uh trying to gloss it all over and treat everybody fair
072at the same time I I made a comment to somebody the other day it's almost like we need six school districts or seven school districts within this county and I know that the state legislature went against that years ago. That was the reason we went to the appointed superintendent as opposed to the elected. They were supposed to calm down the number of school districts within the state. And now when we went to TSBA, we're back to what 145 school districts in the state or something like that. And so I'm thinking, and this is just thinking out loud going along with what you're talking about, are could there be different? Could we ever get to a point that there's different salaries in different areas of our county? That's what I'm getting at. And and I know
073politically that would be hard, but the other side of it is and and I hate to use this word hazard pay, but if it is a difficult assignment, right? Should it should it not be more lucrative? Uh if it's an easier assignment, could it not be less? I I don't I don't know. I that's I'm bringing up a salary swing here for classified certified everybody and it would be an absolute nightmare. But I don't know if if we look into the future and some of y'all have heard me say this that one reason I decided to lose my mind and run for the school board was to set policy in place that 20 years from now maybe things would be a little easier on the next board and the next county commission and that kind
074of stuff. And if you look at the numbers, we'll be you know, we'll be at 85,000 kids. You know, we'll be what what what are we now? The 82nd 80 second largest in the country. 82nd largest school district in the nation. That's unbelievable. Right here in this little community that I grew up in. And so when you start thinking about that, there are different communities. There are different needs. There are different needs at Oakland than there are at Leverne or Stewart's Creek. I know that y'all we all know that there's different needs at Eagleville than there is at Central or Riverdale. So why would it be so ludicrous to even think down that I I don't know how you'd even structure it? I I talked to Dr. Sullivan one time about this. It's almost like
075we need to create autonomy with under us small school boards that would that would help their individual schools or individual regions in the county or something like that. We we carry a hell of a responsibility. The seven of us do. It's scary. I never knew it was going to be this what it was what I bit into honestly. 52,000 kids, almost 10,000 what, 6,500 employees, and then you throw the bus drivers and you know the decisions that this board makes affects over a third of the population in this county. When school starts, when school ends, who who stays, who goes, who lives, who graduates. Have you ever thought about that? That is a huge responsibility. being on the county commission is a whole lot easier. I'll just say that. But anyway, I' I've I've chased
076a I've chased a rabbit right here. Didn't mean to, but but I just wonder are there models out there that we could adjust that because I do feel extremely concerned for Leverne? Uh cuz they are good schools down there. They're excellent schools and they're excellent students and excellent parents and and they don't need to be um any less than any other program in the county. I concur. But I I'm reluctant to adjust the budget at this point in time. Yes, Mr. Shar. Okay. So, I'm okay with us looking at this in July. I'm okay with us looking at this, but I wanted to bring it up so we could look at this because listen, we're having just like our nursing, you know, we're having some severe cases in the structured setting and if we don't
077have coverage in there, we're either going to pay it in salary or we're going to pay it in a lawsuit. So, that's what we need to look at. Also, um they're wanting some bus aids. And with this with that with this, I'll say um in the I saw in the consent agenda, Miss uh Maxwell, that City Auto had donated some uh cars. So, I wanted to thank them because they've been very generous with us uh with Jazzfest and everything. So, um y'all thank them. Send them a card, send them some cookies or something just like Smyrna Ready Mix. They've been good. Yeah, they've been Hey, the interest rates are down. Um, they've been a great community partnership here with us. So, that's all that's all I'll say. We can look at that. Can we So,
078if we're going to postpone this, are you postponing your motion then? I'll make a motion. Well, table it means it goes out forever. He's not postponing his table. There's no postpone means there was no second. So, we can just table it. We can bring it back. We don't have We'll make a motion. We table. There's no second. There was nothing. It died. The motion died. I'll add to the next July meeting. If we're going to get some information and stuff, can we can we kind of look at maybe like our top three hardest to fill positions and what those are. Um and maybe over the course of the last 3 to 5 years to see because the other concern is you can put something like this in place and then it in two years it
079may not be an issue any longer. So it' be interesting just to see over three or five years span if it if one has really stood out as like it's consistently hard to fill all the time zoning. Well, I was going to go there. I said part of it puts more even more emphasis on zoning because when we change or the board changes zone lines and that has an impact on school demographics and so we we don't like to talk about that but that does change some things. The other thing I would add to the spedier is that restructured setting. It doesn't just necessarily need to be particularly one into the county because depending on what student case load you get. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know last year we had one finally as someone who
080was in structured setting EA it is a very challenging job but it's also most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life outside of my family. So um yeah we have some great people. It's just it's if I make a motion to the table that can they bring it back in July to do anything but we're good to do anything. I just move to adjourn. I like, you know, Miss Sharp's got a Miss Sharp's got a good idea. You know, we we post certain positions like mathematics teachers I know are hard to hard to pay. We we pay those people extra stipent to come in because they're hard hard to come by. Yeah. Maybe it's something we could look at to do for the EAS like that. We can look at this in July. Yep.
081We'll definitely take a look at it. Move to adjourn. Oh, sorry. I'll bring an updated list of where we are opening wise. We normally did that just for our new board members. When we start the school year, we give an update on here's what our open position. So, we'll have that in July. You move to