001Welcome to the April 24th, 2025 meeting of the Rutherford County School Board. First, we have a call to order. We have a lot on our agenda tonight, and I will not tolerate outbursts from the gallery. You will be removed. We will be opening the meeting with a brief moment of silence or prayer and a pledge of allegiance to 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. Mr. Darby, dear heavenly father, Lord, I would just ask that you would be with this board. I would ask that you give us open eyes, open ears, open hearts. Help to guide us to make decisions that are in the best interest of this district, our students, their parents, and
002our staff. I ask this in your name. Amen. We have some special guests from Stewarts Creek Elementary to lead us in the pledge today. Um if and I apologize if I say your name mispronounce it. Um if Rean Wy, Landon Fraser, Don Logan, Jax Cole, Will Haynes, Lincoln Thompson, Joselyn Tovar, Olivia Hansen will come up to the podium and lead us in pledge, please. I thought they were over there with all the creatures. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. First up, we have the approval of the agenda. Any comments or questions? I'll entertain a motion. So move, Madam Chair. Second. Thank you, Miss Sharp. Thank you, Mr. Fidel. All in
003favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Does everyone have their mic on, Mr. Vaughn? Yeah. Next we have the approval of the consent agenda. Any comments or questions? Motion to approve. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. Second. Thank you, Miss Sharp. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next we have Rutherford Proud, Mr. Evans. Hi there. My name is Caitlyn Benvitz. I am the district's library and information specialist and I am here today to celebrate school library month in April. Um so to kick things off right now um our communications department um has prepared a video of some of our library media specialists and the role they serve across our district. As I say, it's the heart of the school. We try to create a pocket of peace in the middle of the
004day. I'm not sure if you're not coming into the library before school or during lunch, I'm not sure you realize how many students are using the library as a as a peaceful place to just exist in the middle of the noise of the school. There's a bathroom right across the hall, so they'll come across and and let us know that toilets are overflowing. And so, as as a librarian, they think we can fix everything in the building. Uh oftentimes they'll come to us and be like, "Hey, I don't know what my next class is. Can you look my schedule up?" So, and we've learned that every touch point when they come in the library lets them know that we're here for them. So, we never get upset when they come and ask us questions that
005are ne not part of our job because that means they trust us and they know that we're going to take care of them. Hi there, I'm Caitlyn Benvitas. I am the district's library and information specialist for Rutherford County Schools. and I am so excited to share some programs, lessons, and different promotions our librarians are doing across the district. Here are some awesome highlights. I think that people think that um I sit in here and just read all day with my hair in a bun and shush people, and I do that. However, my goal is to put books in the hands of children and have them want to see and read more. So, I'm constantly trying to open their eyes to new books, finding a genre that they like. I love it. I love seeing the
006kids read every day, finding things that they like to read. Um, I absolutely love it. And I feel like I've even told Mr. Up, he has extended my career by giving me the opportunity to move into the library versus being in the classroom. People are surprised that I see so many classes a day. I think people think that um students just come in to check out books and leave. And we have classes all day. I'm teaching library skills. I collaborating with teachers. If they need help covering a standard, I'm happy to help them, you know, or supplement in here. And I don't think people realize that. One of the things I love about the job is that every day is truly different. And that's refreshing for me as a person that every day I see
007different students. And what I notice is every year, not only is it different students and I get new ones every year, but it's also different teachers and also teachers can change also and I try to help them with as much of their needs as possible. The environment of our library is evolving and changing. So, we have a mixture of activity and then we'll have quietness and solitude for those that need it. Um, it becomes a place for whatever the students need it to be. I think Miss Jenkins and Mr. Seedorf really pull it all together. It's like the atmosphere is great, the books and stuff, you know, the people that come in, they're great, but I think the energy, Mr. Cedorf and I work really hard for students to feel seen and known in the
008school. Our our school is a really big school. Um, and so we really want the people that have chosen the library as their space. We we realize that there are some people who choose the gym as their space and they're going to be known in the gym and there are some people who choose who have other clubs and they're going to be known in those places by those people. But there are some students who have chosen the library as their space and we want them to feel seen and known and so um part of our mission is just making sure that we talk to those regulars um and build relationships with them because sometimes they don't have relationships with people outside of the building and we want every student to see themsel on our shelf.
009transitioning from the classroom. I was a first grade teacher before I became the librarian here at Cedar Grove. And the biggest thing is getting to know everyone. I get to teach all about 900 kids on a 7-day rotation. So, every nine days, if there are no days out of school, I see them all. I get to know them all. I get to work with all of the teachers, all of the staff, the ladies in the office. Um, so the biggest thing for me was expanding um my relationships because I'm really big on relationships and I don't have relationships just with 23 families anymore. I get to have a relationship with everyone in the school and get to try um to show everyone that there's a place for everyone in the library. Okay. So I am
010blessed that I get to have lots of planning time with our teachers here. So I go to all their PLC meetings. I get to be a part. So that's either planning lessons, helping them come up with book club tie-ins, um helping them in their classroom. So sometimes I'll go and co- teach in the classroom, um and really making their learning exciting and um hands-on. STEM is something that you can incorporate in any topic. So I think the blessing of being in the library is I get to pull that into other classes that may not have STEM. So I pull STEM in because I love having kids involved um and doing something with their hands. I think it's good for them to learn those problem solving skills. Um, and I pull that in really in any
011class that comes to the library. So, anytime that they come, I want them doing things. I want them building. I want them problem solving. So, I pull in STEM with ELA classes like today or even with science or social studies. So, we were pleasantly surprised this year to see that our circulation statistics had doubled. And so, we contribute that to several reasons. One of the first most important reasons is the is the relationship that my collaboran Liz and I have focused on building relationships with students. Uh one of the second reasons is that our library is diverse in that it is set up to meet the needs of our students. So our library is undoeyed. So what that means is that students don't have to know a dewy call number to find their book. They
012go over like it's a bookstore. So we have purposely set our book books up so it's like a bookstore. So, if you look behind me, you see that our books are faced out. They are engaging. They capture interest. And our entire library is set to do that for our students. It is colorful and it's filled with books that they want to read. And also, we focus on books that they request. So, when we find that we don't have books that they've asked for, we focus on those and make those a priority in our next order. Liz and I are firm believers in the fact that every student should be able to walk out of our library with a book that they can read and that makes them want to come back and get another book.
013And it's just seeing the smile on a on a student's face that there's a book that they can read. It's the best feeling in the world. All right. So, I would love to talk to you a little bit about who we are as librarians. All right. We in Rutherford County have 60 library media specialists. We have 30 library assistants or EAS. We serve 52,000 readers. And as of last week, we have um,216 books. We have 68 combined years of experience um which brings very valuable expertise when we come all to the table to collaborate. We um collectively hold 67 different graduate degrees ranging from library sciences, literacy, instructional technology and education. Um now you will notice that we have 60 library media specialists but we have 67 degrees which means that some of our um
014librarians have pursued additional graduate degrees. I am proud to share that we've had so many librarians present at our district level as well as the state level over these past two years. Among them, Seagull Middle School's library media specialist on the right, Katie Capshaw, presented at the national level in 2023 in Tampa Bay at the American Association of School Librarians conference. So many librarians across this country attended her presentation that there was standing room only and there was a line out the door. I've learned that um we have had 12 librarians recognized as their school level teacher of the year in the very recent past and a handful of those librarians have been recognized at the district level um as their respected grade band teacher of the year for the district. So what we do,
015it is difficult to be concise when it comes to defining the role of a school librarian, but if I had to state it plainly, I would say that we create learning opportunities. Every task, every program, every lesson, and every resource that we provide is an opportunity for a student to grow. I talk a lot about our library programs. That's part of my job. Um, and I want to take this opportunity to give a voice to our own school librarians. Um, to help clarify their role in their own words. So, the next several slides are not my words, but the words of our school librarians when I'm asking them to define their role. We touch the minds of every student in the building and very few people in a school can say that. Our enthusiasm and
016love of reading is what our kids see and learn from. And that's what we're all here for. I read to our structured setting class. I meet with seniors to go over graduation information. I print posters, locate articles, and gather resources for teachers, triage laptop issues, and teach research classes. We run afterchool clubs like book clubs, STEM, robotics. We secure grants for literacy initiatives. We partner with community members to enrich learning. We empower students to grow into curious, capable, and compassionate learners, extending our impact far beyond the walls of our schools. Like Brian said in our video, it's really hard to pinpoint the role of librarian because it looks different in every building because the needs of our students are different. So, as you can see here, we have so many successes that we value according
017to the needs of our students. One of my personal favorites was seventh grade got an extra reward time and 30 to 40 students in the seventh grade picked the library over the gym or outside time. That's a big win. So, how do students benefit from um their school library? There's actually a lot of research. We build strong libraries or strong school libraries build strong students. The background went away. I'm not sure why. Um, so research has shown that in over 21 state studies have confirmed that successful library programs support students in academic achievement regardless of gradeband, demographic, or economic differences. We know that well staffed libraries lead to high reading achievement scores. Research consistently shows that when children have access to a school library that houses plenty of books and is adequately staffed, they read
018more and score higher on academic achievement tests across the board. We also know that leisure reading leads to a wide range of benefits that set our students up for success. Outside of complementing all our curriculum standards in our libraries, librarians primarily build their programs around growing a recreational reading culture within their school. We know that reading for enjoyment has an array of cognitive and psychological benefits. Studies have shown increased cognitive stamina, stronger critical thinking skills, the development of empathy, and positive mental health outcomes in those who choose to read for pleasure. We bring these common understandings with us to our library space. Um, we know as librarians that the key to creating a lifelong reader is to allow choice. We know that allowing students time and modeling free voluntary reading promotes stronger reading habits and
019students who read for leisure again have higher achievement scores across all grade bands and yes even math. So, I just wanted to briefly celebrate that circulation is up across our entire district, which means that more students are checking out books today than they have in the last several several years. If you look at this bar graph up here, um the very top of it reflects 29,733 books checked out. That school is a tiny school called Buchanan Elementary School. It has about 470 kids enrolled there and Miss Andrea Austin has among the highest circulation statistics for our entire county. Our high school seniors are reading too. Um at Rockville High School, we actually have some high school seniors modeling a love for reading through digital book reviews. And if I may take 60 seconds to show
020you an example of these high school seniors sharing books that they love. Yep. Hello Rockwell readers. This is Victoria Sto and I'm here in the library to talk about Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin. is one of the first classics that I ever read, one of my favorites. And I know we have a strong perception about classics, but this one is very relevant and very funny. Uh, in this book, we know the Venet sisters who are facing their need to marry during the Regency era in England. Lizzie meets Mr. Darcy and their relationship will be impacted by pride and prejudice. They will initially have a lot of arguments, debates and struggles that will represent the complexity of interpersonal relationships and communication and of course hide some of Jane Austin criticism of the society of the
021time. She talks about pride. She talks about the role of women, sisterhood and more. Come by and read more about the work of Jane Austin and know who she truly is and what kind of messages she hides through her mockery and romanticism. And we just have one more by Chris who is a senior at Rockville High School. My name is Chris Collins. I'm a senior here at Rockville High School. I have two books. Um, this one's One Punch Man. I don't know the author's name, unfortunately, but like it's a really good series. I recommend like in my opinion like I watch a lot of anime so it's like being able to come here to this library and read the books like for example I was like really young when I was first watching the series
022and like I don't remember and I came in here one day I was like I was already reading Bleach. Bleach is also another really good book. I watched that one. I just wanted to read it. But anyways back to One Punch Man. So I watched it as a kid but I didn't really take in all the information. So I came in here I was like why don't I just try and read the book and I was addicted bro like I couldn't put the books down bro. And it got to the point where even even though like it stops at 18, I'm still reading it on my phone. Like and the this series too, it has a three in one. It's like three volumes in one book. Huge book. I'm finishing it in one class. Like
023it's amazing. I I recommend y'all come come stop in here. Come check out some books or whatever. And yeah, y'all have a nice day. I think among our librarians, there is a very special kind of joy with hooking a reader. So, having somebody come into your space as a non-reader and finding that perfect book that gets started like Chris does. Finally, I want to celebrate some individuals. Um, this year, Rachel Hib Hibden, who is the librarian at Rocky Fork Middle School, received the Excellence in Computer Science Award, um, recognized by the Tennessee STEM Innovation Network. Cararissa Benton, who we also saw in the video, um at Leverne High School, just recently traveled to Washington DC to receive a national recognition in teaching excellence from the National Education Association. And Katie Rafz, our wonderful librarian at
024Barfield Elementary School, was just recognized this year as Rutherford County's elementary level teacher of the year. Lastly, I want to recognize some students at Stewart's Creek Middle School. Um we have a reading engagement platform called Beanstack which we purchased for a handful of middle schools across our district um to engage our middle schoolers specifically in reading um and we have had some really wonderful results. It turns reading into a competition. So, you can compete against grade levels, you can compete against um home rooms, and you can even compete against other schools, which is what happened in March. We had a March Madness reading challenge. And at the end of March, Steuart's Creek Middle School read almost 300,000 minutes during the month of March. And they have received our inaugural March Madness Reading Challenge Champion Trophy.
025And to present this award to some of our most avid readers at Stuarts Creek Middle School, I'm going to invite Miss Stacy Whitlock, um, an absolutely fantastic librarian. Good evening, everyone. Um, my name is Stacy Whitlock and I am the library media specialist at Steuart's Creek Middle School. Um, happy school library month to my colleagues who are present this evening, um, and watching from home. And thank you to Caitlyn Benvdas for being our biggest supporter and number one fan. Um, I'd like to begin by recognizing the staff and students at the four other middle schools that participated in the March Madness Reading Challenge. Uh, it was Rocky Fork, Rock Springs, Christiana, and Seagull. They were indeed fierce readers and competitors. I would also like to recognize the incredible administration team and staff at Steuart's Creek
026Middle. Our principal, Dr. Laton Murray, is a strong supporter of our library and the activities that we use to engage our students and promote the culture of reading and literacy at the Creek. Our amazing staff encourages our students to read independently as often as possible. Whether they are in a social studies class, science class, math, ELA, or an elective class, reading is a crosscurricular skill that impacts every aspect of our students academic achievement. Just like a basketball player practices free throws to improve their shooting skills, readers improve their reading skills by reading. To add to what Miss Benvita said in her presentation earlier, RCS librarians build relationships with our students and get to know their unique needs and interests. Then with care, purpose, and due diligence, curate a school library collection with a variety of
027books that meet the needs and interests of our diverse student population so they can have the tools they need to achieve socially and academically. We have six students here in attendance this evening representing Steuart's Creek Middle School. They are some of the top readers from the March Madness Challenge. For the challenge, each student had the individual goal of reading and logging 600 minutes between March 3rd and March 27th. At Steuart's Creek Middle School, there were 140 students who met or exceeded that individual goal. Um, we're going to start with uh Miles Gloppa. if you would stand, please. Miles is in sixth grade and he logged 761 minutes of reading for the March Madness Challenge. Miles enjoys reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kenny and Work in Progress, a verse novel as
028well is one of his favorites. So, congratulation, Miles. Ryan Blair is also here this evening. He is in seventh grade and he logged 936 minutes of reading for the challenge. Ryan is a fan of dystopian and science fiction books. Congratulations, Ryan. Um the next student is actually not here this evening. She's trying to um qualify for for state for track. Um, Anna Gloppa is in sixth grade. She logged 942 minutes of reading. She enjoys reading many genres of books, including verse novels and realistic fiction. Her favorite author is Sharon Draper and loved reading her series Out of My Mind. And good luck, Anna Cla. I hope you qualify for track. Next, we have Miss Irma Baldorama, who is here with us this evening. She is in sixth grade. and she logged 2,167 minutes of reading.
029Irma enjoys reading. She enjoys reading graphic novels and most recently finished reading the book The Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall. Congratulations, Irma. Next, we have Lillian Top. She is in uh 8th grade logging 2,865 minutes of reading for the challenge. She loves dystopian books such as Neil Schustman's Scythe series as well as mystery books. Seventh grader Alana Perser uh logged a whopping 3,849 minutes of reading during the challenge. She is a huge fan of Aaron Hunter's Warrior Cats fantasy series. And then we have Caesar Tovar. If Caesar could stand, please. Um, he is our top reader overall at Steuart's Creek for the March Madness Challenge. He is in seventh grade and read and logged 9,489 minutes of reading. And yes, this kid is legit. He sat sat back down. Okay, he's back.
030Okay. Caesar is a passionate reader and enjoys many types of books, but especially enjoys sports fiction by authors such as Mike Lupa and John Feinstein. And he wanted me to make sure I added that his favorite author iswami Alexander. You're here. Thank you so much for your support of school libraries and congratulations to all my kids. Thank you. Thank you all for your time this evening. Um, I want to thank our communications team for visiting our libraries and speaking with our amazing library media specialists. I want to thank our instruction department for seeing the value in our space and our resources. I also want to thank Dr. Sullivan who on a whim gave me my first library job. Last but not least, I want to recognize our librarians that came out tonight and our librarians
031watching from home. Thank you so much for all you do. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, I got a little bit out of order there. We were supposed to do the staff awards first, but I really like with the librarians, so thank you. Um, so, uh, I I want to make sure that we recognize Sonic Restaurants. We have a couple of new rep or different representatives this this week or this month. Jeremy Arnold and Cameron Alexander. You guys here? Oh, great. Um, we usually Mr. Spragggins and Mr. Schuer usually come, but uh they sent some other great guys this week and we're going to tell these guys are That's okay. We appreciate you. So, just to remind everybody, Sonic has agreed to, uh, sponsor these awards all school year. Uh, and they've already signed
032on for next year. And so they said one couple months ago, hey, we're in. Just let us know what you need and we're there. So, we appreciate the support of our schools. Dr. Martin is our um deputy superintendent back here. She's going to help with the um awards and we're going to do a picture right over here with everybody when this is done. Uh the first award winner this month is Brad Decker, the principal of Oakland Middle School. And I I joke with Mr. Decker before the meeting that I it just pained me that I was going to say something nice about him. But I was really joking because Mr. Decker is a wonderful principal. Just earlier this week he called me about a family who was having a hardship was advocating for him, wanting
033to know how we could help him. We were able to find a program that would help them. And that's just the type of conversations we typically have for Mr. Decker. And this goes to prove it. This is the nomination from the parent um who who nominated Mr. Decker. Unexpected to us, our daughter had a difficult time transitioning from elementary school to middle school recently. This is a child who is normally well-liked and wellknown and has lots of friends. So again, it was truly unexpected uh that we had a bad exp that we were having this type of experience. The staff at the school from the front office to the counselors to the assistant principal to the teachers all had a hand in helping my daughter adjust to the middle school environment. And I'd like to
034give credit where credit is due and that is the one in charge who is Mr. Principal Decker. Uh, the support I received from Oakland Middle School was truly a beautiful thing. Mr. Decker recognized he could help my child and connected my child to the appropriate staff members who could help. I've already sent a handwritten thank you note to the staff, but I also wanted to make sure that we nominated him for that award. So, I wanted you to hear that from the principal. So, again, thank you for being such a great principal. Our next award winner is in the teacher category. This is and just to remind everybody, we do four categories. We we recognize a principal, a teacher, a support staff member, and someone is involved with transportation uh each month. So, in this
035category, it's for a teacher, Miss Kristen Lucas. Is she here? Great. Come on up. So, Miss Lucas is a third grade teacher at Wilson Elementary School. And if you don't know, third grade teachers have that wonderful reading law to deal with every year and to help the parents and the students navigate that. And this parent specifically mentioned that that's one of the reasons she nominated her. Miss Lucas is an amazing teacher. She works hard to help her students make the most growth possible. She teaches third grade and handles all of the stress from the retention laws so well. She also helps lead lead her team in reading and we need more teachers like her. So that's directly from a parent. So, thank you. In the transportation category, we want to recognize Shia Curtis. And I
036hope I pronounced your first name right, Miss Curtis. Aisha. Aisha. Sorry about that. Come on up. She's a bus driver. Bus 185. Right. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is you went to school, uh, Miss Curtis, you went to school in Christian, right? You live in Christianana, and you really wanted to drive in Christiana to serve your community. That's what our transportation department told me. You were nominated by a parent who said, "She worked with my son to get him adapted to being a first-time bus rider. She is always nice, patient, and understanding, and I see her treat all of her kids with care and respect." So, thank you. And then our final recognition tonight is for Miss Rebecca Ray, who actually could not be here, but I still want to nominate
037or recognize her tonight. She goes by Miss Becky. Uh, now, and this is also unusual. She now works at David Yuri, but when the nomination came in, she was at Rock Springs Elementary School, but she's liked so well at both schools, we still wanted to make sure she was recognized. So, Miss Bakey is the face of the front office and is the most deserving person for special recognition. She greets all families and students with a smile and is willing to help however needed. She is loyal to the community, is a bright light each day each day and she is wonderful and we are so lucky to have her. And so, we're going to go out to the school and actually recognize Miss R. She just could not be here tonight. So, if she's watching, thank
038you very much. All right. So, we're going to do a quick picture over here with everyone and then I think that Mr. Pedigo has something. Is that right? Okay. Thank you all. Yes, we did last time. Okay. Well, yes. [Applause] Mr. Darby, you want to introduce Mr. Pedigo? Uh, we have Mr. Pedigo, principal of Eagleville, is here to share some stuff with us. First off, thank you to Miss Darby for inviting us uh out for some recognitions. Thank you to the board, Dr. Sullivan, uh for having us here this evening. Got some students to recognize. A lot of great things going on at Eagleville. Uh I do want to highlight a couple of recent things before we get to these students over here uh that our students are doing. Uh of course, I got to
039start with Maddie Puit who is in top 14 of American Idol. So, shameless plug. Vote, Maddie. Uh, we've had Emily Bird that was top five in the global amazing shake in Atlanta here, right as spring break. I think that may be the highest anybody from Rutherford County has finished in the amazing shake. So, great work by her. Uh, we've had David Harrison has had a perfect ACT 36 here recently. We think the first in school history for that. We've got two softball players nominated for Tennessee Gatorade Player of the Year. for one that's softball team to have one is good but to have two is fabulous. We had Carly Whisner here the other night. 3D state championship and middle school girls uh archery. So just a lot of great things going on at Eagles. We've
040got great uh staff and students there. So for these guys over here uh they went to junior uh beta nationals uh and won the national championship in what they call living literature. Uh, so speaking of books, in the library, they did a book that was called The Great Mouse Plot by Ronald Dah. It's a children's story about young Ronald and his friends who decide to prank a mean shop owner, Miss Patchet. The story is set in a sweet shop where the children regularly buy sweets, but Miss Patchet's rude and unpleasant demeanor towards them prompts them to plan a revenge for them. And what the students have to do is go through and they've got to basically build a set uh of what is going on in the story. they become the characters of that story.
041So they have done a fantastic job in doing that. So really appreciate them and to win a national at Beta was just a great accomplishment by these students. So we do have a few of them here tonight. Uh so I do want to point them out. Uh also our sponsors, our main sponsor Marcy Fluger, who unfortunately couldn't be here tonight. Miss Michelle Curtis uh is one of our sponsors. students that we have here tonight. Miss Aubrey Tibs, if you'll stand up as I call your name, Miss Bella Wilson, Mr. Porter Tomlinson, Mr. Ryder Williams, and students unfortunately that couldn't be here tonight, Lawson Lada, Luke Cooper, Lillian Hoffer, Audrey Hall, and Alex Bolton. So, great job by these students in doing that, and we really appreciate their accomplishments. Thank you again for your work. That's
042outstanding. Thank you, Mr. Pedigo. Madam Chair, yes. If they will go to the lobby, I believe Mr. Evans wants to grab a photo before they head out. Thank you. We have a presentation this this evening from Miss Shana Groom. Good evening. I'm Shana Groom. I am the health services coordinator for Rutherford County Schools. That means I'm over our school nurses. And um unlike a presentation, I'm actually going to read a proclamation from our governor um in honor of our National School Nurses Day that's coming up in a couple of weeks. Um so bear with me. It's a lot of wherees, but um I'm not as good as this Mr. Reed, but whereas school nurses have played a critical role in improving public health and impromoting students academic su success for more than a hundred years.
043And whereas many children face complex and life-threatening health problems that require care while attending schools. And whereas school nurses serve as an important conduit between students and parents, the local community and health care providers are f by providing wellness and improving health outcomes. And whereas school nurses support the health and educational success of children and youth by providing access to care when their cognitive development is at their peak. And whereas we recognize the hard work and dedication of our school nurses in the state of Tennessee and commend them for their continued efforts. Now therefore, I, Bill Lee, governor of the state of Tennessee, do hereby compla proclaim May 7th, 2025 as school nurse appreciation day in Tennessee and encourage all citizens to join me in this worthy observance. And just very briefly, I would like
044to um recognize uh that we have um 21 nationally certified school nurses in Rutherford County and only 55 in this state. So almost half of the nationally certified school nurses are here serving our students in Rutherford County. So that's awesome. Thank you for your time. Next we have public comment. First up we have Allan Younren. Ladies and gentlemen of the board, thank you again for allowing me to come up here and speak. Um, a couple weeks ago we came in and you guys had a docket on your agenda to look over and more information was needed to try to make a better decision or whatever moving forward. Um, this time I'm just going to try to keep it sweet. I know you guys got a lot going on today. Um, I do plead with the
045board to hopefully make real good decision on this. I wanted you guys I wanted to actually introduce him to you. This is Jackson. And I want you guys to actually see him, meet him, see the boy that you guys are, you know, well, making a decision on. Um, I know it's it's a difficult decision to make, good or bad. I get it. I understand. Um, again, thank you. I don't want to take up too much more of your guys' time. Thank you. Next, we have Dominique Smith. Hello, I'm Dominique Smith. I'm here this evening to speak in support of Rutherford uh Rocket Chips Charter School application. I'm a resident of Smyrna. I have twin daughters who are here with me tonight. They will be kindergarteners at Stewart's Creek Elementary School in the fall. Stewart's Creek
046is an amazing school. My husband and I actually chose the neighborhood we live in specifically to be zoned for that school. However, if Rocket Ship were to open a school here in Rutherford County, that would be my first choice for their elementary school. I'm an educator myself. I'm actually a principal of a middle school in North Nashville, and I'm very familiar with Rocket Ship's model. Before we moved to Tennessee to be closer to my husband's family, I was a founding teacher at one of Rocket Ship's schools in California. That ex experience has shaped how I work to this day, especially in the areas of teacher development and coaching. Even though rocket ship was my third teaching experience, it was the first time I had a really strong coach who gave me clear guidance on how
047to effectively prep and deliver a lesson. As an educator, I know the importance of quality instruction, but as a mom, I'm drawn to Rock Rocket Ship's complete approach to building a school community. First, rocket ship schools are diverse. They welcome and celebrate a variety of cultures that exist within the communities they are located in. And that is something I loved for my daughters to experience. Second, Rocket Ship provides individualized instruction for students, which involves a lot of small group and even one-on-one instruction. I believe this is especially important for young children. Third, Rocket Ship supports not just the individual child, but the family as a whole. Teachers do home visits with all of their students, getting to know the families and the communities that they're serving. Family engagement is a core to Rocket Ship's model.
048And last, Rocket Ship has a big focus on joy. The entire school begins every day singing and dancing together. I still know every move to one of the troll songs they would play and dance frequently with my girls. The level of joy, that level of joy is often missing in traditional public schools. Not only does it make learning fun, but it reinforces for students that the adults in the in the school care about them and want them to be there. Rutherford is a fast growing community. Many of our schools are overpopulated. We need more schools and Rocket Ship knows how to build a great school from the ground up with all of the operational systems that are needed. I ask you to please support Rocket Ship's charter school application. Thank you. Next, we have Sarah
049Bell. Hello. I do not like public speaking. Um, but I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of the Rutherford County librarians and educators for the work that they do and the love that they pour into our children every day. My son is in the third grade and I have only positive things to say regarding the teachers and school staff that I have met over the past few years. I feel connected and well informed about what my son is learning. I know exactly what books he's checking out from the library because he excitedly shows them to me when he gets home in the afternoons. In the same vein, I have been beyond impressed with the level of professionalism and thoroughess that Dr. Chastain and the library sorry media specialists have shown in their
050recommendations. I was hopeful that the board would defer to their expertise regarding compliance with the state laws. I read through all their notes for every meeting. To me at least, it felt like a concerted effort was made to address the board's concerns and present recommendations in a logical and in-depth manner. The board's repeated refusal to follow these recommendations has been downright disgraceful. I have always loved reading. I was checking books out of the high school library years before I was a student. I actually read several of the books you guys have removed. Only once did my mother ever stop me from reading a book. Um, it was A Time to Kill by John Gisham. When she told me that I was too young to read it, I respected her opinion and I waited to read
051it until I was older. Now that I am a parent myself, I work daily to build that same level of trust and respect with my own son. A common question in my house is, is that for grown-ups? It is asked about books, movies, musicians, and even video games. I answer him honestly. He knows there's some language that isn't appropriate for him at his age. He has a basic understanding of what sex is and why media with that content is not appropriate for him at his age. He understands that there are some depictions of violence that are too graphic for him at his age. So, if I believe that something is inappropriate, I tell him and I tell him why. He says, "Okay." and we move on. It really is that easy. I trust him and
052he trusts me. I wish more parents had this relationship with their children, but many in this county obviously do not. Um, and I will just end with a quote from a Nolla. Uh, this is how you lose the time war, which is what finally convinced me to speak. As you can tell, I'm not a good speaker. Um, but I've been very frustrated past few months. So, I finally signed up to do it. Um, when I read books are letters in bottles cast into the waves of time from one person trying to save the world to another. Keep reading, keep writing, keep fighting. We're all still here. So, anyway, thanks. Thank you. Next, we have Judy Whiteill. My name is Judy Whiteill and I'm a retired elementary school librarian media specialist. I really appreciated the outstanding
053presentation tonight about our media specialist and I had written my comments before that so there may be some redundancy but I wanted to say that public schools have always offered an equal opportunity to every student. Library media specialists serve every student regardless of the size or grade configuration of their school. While smaller schools offer the opportunity to know the students better, most schools today are designed to serve up to a thousand students. This element alone brings challenges when scheduling class library classes and maintaining book and media collections. Many don't know the full description uh job description for librarians. It's very long and detailed, but I'll hit some highlights. First of all, teaching students to have respect for books and materials that have to be shared by everyone in the school. Providing instruction on how to
054use the system that I don't know if it's still the Dewey Desmos system, but it enables students to be independent when searching for and choosing books. Scheduling with classroom teachers for times to conduct storytime, checkout, and hope classes where important library skills are taught. researching professional journals to determine which books, media materials, and AV equipment that they must purchase for their media center. Processing new books and materials received. Preparing memorial and honor books. Checking in, organizing, and shelving hundreds of books that are returned on a daily basis. Inventorying thousands of books and materials every year. understanding and becoming familiar with the frequent updating of the operating system that's used in the library media center. Teaching students how to conduct research for reports, projects, and term papers. Organizing and conducting book fairs for the extra funds
055needed to supplement a limited library budget and collaborating with classroom teachers to supplement items they need to teach specific subjects and units. All of the above and more are required of these professionals. While library media specialists don't get a coaching supplement, they should because they coach a huge team and the entire school. They do this so that all students can develop a love of reading and strive to become lifelong learners. Library media specialists are winners in my book. [Applause] Next we have Alejandra Beltran. Good evening members of the board and thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Alejandra Wran and I'm here to support Rocket Ship's charter school application. I have lived in Rutherford County for about six years now and currently currently residing in Smyrna. Every day I travel to South
056Nashville to teach kindergarten humanities at Rockship United Academy, which was the second Rocket Ship school to open here in Tennessee. When I was first hired, I was living in Murphy'sboro and found it worth commuting. Then I felt it was worth moving closer to Rocket Ship United. So I did. I have been at Rocket Ship for four years now. When their third school, Rockaship Dream Community Prep, opened in Antioch, I considered transferring, but I couldn't bring myself to leave Rockaship United. We're more than just a building of staff and students. Rockship schools are real communities, almost like a family. One thing that really stuck with me from the onboarding process is the organization's belief that every child deserves a highquality education regardless of their zip code. I know firsthand how important that is. I am a
057proud first generation Latina college graduate. I come from a working-class family and even in a low in a lowinccome area, I was given a strong academic foundation for my academic journey. I was able to earn my bachelor's degree in sociology all through Pellgrants based off my grades. While in college, I worked as a teacher's assistant and began working with groups of students. When I witnessed the students growth and their progress, I real I realized I wanted to get into teaching. Rogers has provided me with the path to reach that goal. I am currently working on my master's degree and teacher certification all while gaining valuable teaching experience by teaching on a state permit. Rocket ship has given me the tools and resources I need to grow as a teacher in order to help grow my
058students as well. I love providing students with intentional tailored instruction to meet them where they are through our emphasis on datadriven small groupoup instruction. I truly enjoy rel relationships I get to build with families, especially with Spanish-sp speakaking parents who feel an immediate sense of relief when they realize they have someone to communicate with. They know their children feel seen, understood, and supported. If Frogip opens a school here in Rutherford County, I hope to be a part of it. I live in the community and I'd love to be a part of opening a school that reflects the diversity in the area, not just amongst the students, but among the teachers and staff as well. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak and I respectfully ask that you approve Ragaship's charter application. Thank you. Thank
059[Applause] you. Next we have Josh Walker. I'm going to read because I don't want to sound robotic. We had a system. We had a moment of silence. It worked. It's the compromise. It's been the legal compromise in this country for decades. No one wants it, but it works for everybody. Then Mr. Tidwell decided he wanted to drag us into his species and culture bill. And now we've gotten a letter from Americans United telling us we're breaking the law because we are we are violating the establishment clause of the first amendment which says government cannot officially perform religious acts. Doesn't matter how many options you put on the form, it's still if it's done in official capacity is against the law. Now, he's also brought in the ACLJ, American Center for Law and Justice. Um, I
060got that right. Um, and supposedly it's going to be free. I'm sure you told y'all it's going to be free. But the thing is, if you look at their paperwork, it's page 40 in the agenda if anyone wants to look it up. It says, "You understand, however, that you alone are responsible for paying any fines, attorneys fees, penalties, costs, or damages assessed against the client, Rutherford County Schools, personally due to your misconduct. We are the ones breaking the law. And the ones who are going to pay for this are the students of Rutherford County." is the way they he hasn't told you they're an activist group. Their goal is to change the law. The way they do that is to get someone to break the law like we have done. And then they're going to
061sue their way up through the courts. We're going to get sued to stop. They're going to bring it up through the appellet courts to the Supreme Court. And the goal is to change the law. I know this case because he's mentioned the status of the courts because they're trying to change the law. The problem is as the law stands now, it is illegal and we will pay for it. We will pay every fine. We will pay every fee. and the students of Rutherford County will suffer. Mr. Tidwell, this is not the place to fight your culture war. If you want to do that, go join a lobbying group. But this is not the place for it. I beg the rest of you, undo this because our children will pay. They will suffer. This will cost
062our community. It has to be undone. It does not diminish your faith. is does not diminish your devotion to undo this to go back to the neutral stance again. I beg you don't make our students pay for his culture war. You know better and you need to [Applause] stop. Next we have Jade Taylor. Good evening everyone. My name is Jade Taylor and I'm here tonight to speak in support of Rocket Ship's charter school application. The viewpoint I'm speaking from tonight is shaped through multiple lenses. First, I'm a Nashville native who attended academic magnet schools growing up. Secondly, I'm also a Vanderbilt University graduate with a degree in human and organizational development and now leading Rocket Ship's talent development work. I'm also a resident of Smyrna and living in an area where Rocket Ship hopes to
063locate and break down a new break uh ground in a new elementary school. And finally, what I'm most proud of, I'm a new mom of a 13-month-old daughter and already thinking about the future of her educational experiences and what she'll what it'll be like for her. And so for me, the perspective I'm speaking from originates back to my own mom who has played an enormous role in shaping my educational opportunities. She is a special education teacher who instilled in both my brother and me the importance of receiving a highquality education um early on in our lives. The public schools we attended were far away from where we lived but for her the distance didn't matter. It was the importance of highquality education. And so I know that the effort my mother uh made to seek
064out highquality schools during our education is what ultimately prepared me to attend Vanderbilt and ultimately find the career path that I'm on today. After college, my career began working in HR in national retail chains. And when I wasn't working, I was serving as a tutor. I saw an opportunity to work for Rocket Ship Public Schools as an opportunity to bridge my passion and my profession. And when I learned that Rocket Ship was opening a school in the community that I grew up in, Antioch, um serving unders underserved communities in diverse areas, I was ultimately excited to join. I knew this was an organization I wanted to be a part of. And so for my own daughter, I want her to have an opportunity to attend highquality schools and one that's close to home alongside others
065in her community. Excellence during these early years is important because it sets you up for success in middle school, high school, and beyond. And so knowing that Rocket Ship is intentional about that work and committed to helping every child reach their full potential is exactly what has excited me and continues to propel me um and hopefully Rocket Ship and opening a school up in the Rutherford count county community. Working on the national rocket ship team and talent development, we know that the core backbone of our schools is our teachers. They're the ones that make the direct impact. And so with that, as a parent and resident of Smyrna, I respectfully ask that the Rutherford County School Board vote to support Rocket Ship's charter school application. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Elizabeth Shepard. Thank
066you for the opportunity to speak to you all tonight. I'm here as a Blackman High School parent and also as a school librarian. Thank you so much for featuring our librarians at tonight's meeting. I want to personally give a shout out and thank librarians Sarah, Shannon, Katie, Caitlyn, Eric, Misty, Brian, Michelle, and Kelly for all the professional and personal support they have given me on my personal journey of librarianship. They and all the other RCS librarians truly deserve every bit of your appreciation, your thanks, and your support. Like I mentioned last week, as board members, you have or last board meeting at as board members, you have an ample opportunity to show our librarians your support through your words as well as your actions. You have the power to update the librarian job description. So,
067it is clear to all stakeholders that RCS only hires the best, highly qualified, certified librarians with master's degrees. The Tennessee Department of Education has recently changed their policy, lowering the standards for attaining a library endorsement. I hope for the sake of our students and their continued success that RCS goes above and beyond setting expectations when hiring new librarians, especially with all the additional maneuvering they're now required to do to comply with state law. You have the power to provide them with the funds needed to have a well staffed library, to attend high-quality professional developments, and to be able to purchase muchneeded books for their students. You have the power to make changes to board policy 4.403 at next week's policy committee meeting to amend the current wording and return to the common sense methods for
068material challenges that have worked in our county for years. As I close, I'd like to switch gears a bit and express my concern with the board's potential affiliation with the ACLJ. I worry that this organization does not have our students best interests at heart. I have serious concerns about the potential for them to use disputes here in our county as publicity for themselves and to further their reach and their personal gain. We have already had enough negative publicity in the last few months. It's important that you remember why you're here and why your decisions and your affiliations are so important. Don't lose focus. Remember what you were elected to do, investing in every student every day. Thank you. Next, we have Karen Campbell. Hello, my name is Karen Campbell. I am here today as the
069mother of Samuel Campbell, a seventh grader at Rockville Middle School. I am respectfully requesting that you overturn a decision to remand my son to alternative school. This action, we believe, constitutes a violation of his right to due process and represents a failure by the school to follow its own stated policies and procedures as outlined in the 202425 RCS student handbook and code of conduct. First, Samuel was accused of cheating and action explicitly categorized as a level one misbehavior according to policy 6.30 of the code of conduct on page 5 of 96. These offenses are considered minor to be handled in the classroom at the at the teacher level and not through office referrals or severely disciplinary actions such as alternative school placement. He was already appropriately disciplined when he received a zero on the assignment
070with no opportunity for corrections or a retake, a significant academic consequence. Yet that was followed by an office referral and a remand to alternative school which in effect punishes him three times for a single classroom infraction. Second, as stated in the policy 6.3000 of the student handbook and code of conduct, Rutherford County schools are required to implement discipline practices that include restorative practices RTI 2B, which is response to instruction and intervention or behavior, a multi-tered system of supports or MTSS, and behavior intervention plans. These practices were not are not optional. They are mandated and must be utilized before exclusionary or punitive actions are considered. In Samuel's case, none of these supports were ever provided. There was no attempt at restorative practice, no document behavioral interventions, and no evidence of a tier 2 or tier tier
071three plan designed to address the root of any perceived behavioral challenges. and none of these options were ever offered by the school. Instead, the only response to Samuel's misbehaviors has been punitive. This failure is a clear deviation from policy and represents a significant break in process in due diligence as laid out in both the district handbook and stated endorsed and the state endorsed RTI2B framework. Additionally, as this failure to provide interventions is not only a violation of local policy, but it contradicts the expectations as outlined by the Tennessee Board of Education, um the RTI2B framework, which is fully endorsed and implemented by Rutherford County Schools. Um, finally, I just want to add as I close, the discipline administered to my son has lacked fairness, consistency, and transparency, and most importantly, failed to follow the very
072policies the district has put in place. The policy is clear. The incident has been mishandled at every procedural and policy level. Samuel has already faced consequences and we are not here to ask for special treatment only fair treatment as guaranteed by the code of conduct and by and his process. Thank you. Thank you. Did you want to speak? No. All right. Thank you. Was this Samuel? Yes. Okay. He was listed here. Yes. He doesn't want to speak. Okay. That's fine. That's fine. That leaves room for Danielle Nadu. Good evening. I was second alternate so not totally prepared. Um I'm approaching you guys. First of all, thank you for your service and in regards to the parent responsibility zones. I am the guardian of an eighth grader at Blackman Middle and who utilizes the bus services
073um due to a couple issues. But most of mostly working parents need an option for their children to get to school that allows work hours. You know, when you get in the drive or the drop off line for these schools, you're sitting there for 30 minutes or more each way. And not to mention that the afternoon hours, everyone's at work, walking or bicycling are not safe in our areas. Um, often for the middle and high school, particularly at Blackman, the crossing guard is not at Fortress Boulevard and Blaze Drive. So, the children are crossing five lanes of traffic unassisted with just the pedestrian sign. And then uh the traffic in addition to that is tremendously terrible. In mornings and afternoons, emergency personnel and fire trucks and whatnot are blocked from getting in and out. The
074parent responsibility zone will increase that traffic, making the drop off times even longer. Uh risk for all of that. Um same thing with, you know, going through Rockville and whatnot. And then on at the work session of April 16th in 2014, Mr. Young brought up the TCA section 49.6.2101 section G regarding special hazards feature especially wide roads, absence of size sidewalks, sex offenders within the the area, and um no crossing guards. So if you look on the sex offenders website in particular regarding black men, there are three within the adjacent neighborhood. There are no sidewalks to many schools. They're crossing major roads like Highway 231, Fortress, even Dejarnet, um Rockville or Highway 99. And so multiple safety aspects for these children who all receive an equal funding and deserve equal services to attend school. Parents
075cannot you know if it were logistically possible we would all drive our children to school. It would be safe but we're it's not possible just due to the entrances exits traffic and whatnot for schools. And I understand that new schools are being added which results in added you know need for buses. However, new schools can't result in reallocation or removal of services from existing students. They must have additional services added. So, I ask that you reject the parent responsibility zones and so that our children our children can remain safe. If we had a walkable neighborhoods, it would be great, but we do not. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Number eight, instruction. The first is Nova Smart Academy K8 Charter School. Um, want to thank Dr. McCann for his presentation and our charter school
076team as well. We have recommended motions to approve or deny the Nova Smart Academy K8 Charter School application as presented by the review committee's recommendation for the 2526 school year. Any comments or questions? to remind the board if you do vote to approve the charter schools is a pretty pretty simple vote. We have to do a resolution approving the approval. If you vote to deny the charter school application, you have to state the reasons for the denial. You can say you're voting to deny just based on staff's recommendations and report. But if there's additional reasons beyond that you want to add to it, you can do that as well. Okay, Miss Maxwell. Yes, Miss Malis. We had talked I had brought up that there was a last time we had like a third option to
077deny with stipulations. So how will that work? like if they were to deny with a stipulation to give the charter schools time to fix the contract and address some of these concerns if they choose to give them the chance to come back and reapply the to state that is you're recommending the denial at this point subject to the following stipulations that be able to resubmit on the following conditions and then state what your conditions are. So can I say the uh the conditions are the concerns that were addressed in the presentation? I can say it just like that. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any comments or questions? Yes, Mr. Vaude. Jeff, since this is my first rodeo, what happens if we take no action? You have to Well, you take no action is deemed a denial.
078Okay. The right to affirm under the state. Okay. No, it's actually Mr. It is Dr. McCann. Yes. You want to address Dr. McCann? Okay. It's approved. Correct. Yeah. It's automatically approved, right? There. And regardless, even if the board votes to deny, they still have time to and a whole chance to go through the review process and come back. So regardless of if the board takes action to deny with stipulations, without stipulations, the committee or the charter application still has and will more than likely come back and review and resubmit. Yeah, Miss Max, I'd like to make a motion to deny. Do we have a second? Do you want to state your reasons? First of all, Mh. Dr. McCann and them did a phenomenal job, which I got to witness part of it. And uh I
079just can't support anything that doesn't come up to the uh performance level of the schools we have in Rutherford County. And so far, I haven't seen any of that. So, we have a motion. Do you have Do you want to second it, Madam Chair? Yes, Miss I would like to amend the motion to second. Oh, I'm sorry. I'll second it and then I will amend it to um deny with the stipulation that they can address the issues brought up in the review and resubmit. I'll second Dr. McCann's got comment. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Regardless of whether you um vote to deny or vote to deny with stipulations, it's the same thing. It's the same thing. They can still resubmit an amended application within 30 days and we can review it for 60 days and then
080vote again. Miss Maxwell. Yes. So you're saying we just we just have to do a clean vote to say vote to deny. Even you you can you can and and they would theoretically need to address those concerns that were raised by the committee. Or you can say that outright. Our stipulations are you address the concerns raised by the committee. Okay. Either way it's the same thing. Getting a little confused about this whole That's okay. Okay, Mr. Tipple. Thank you for that. Thank you for that clarification. Uh, currently there is a motion on the floor with an amendment. So, but thank you. Thank you. Roll call vote, please. Okay. I need to clarify the motion. I got lost in that. I apologize. I believe it was a motion to deny. Okay. With the stipulations. There's a
081motion to amend amendment first. Okay. So this is a motion to deny with the issues brought up and to resubmit. Correct. There's no there's no reason for the uh for the other part of they can do that anyway. But I thought that was the amendment. Yeah, I can withdraw the amendment. Okay. So she's withdrawing it. Okay. Okay. So that's withdraw. So just a motion to deny. Okay. Mrs. Rosales. Yes. Mr. Vaughn. Yes. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Miss Sharp, no. Mr. Vault, Mrs. Darby, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Majority passes. But they the charter schools have the time. Yes. To come back and address the stipul address the concerns that were on the presentation. Yes. 30 days. In 30 days to resubmit an application. Yeah. 60 days to then review with the committee. Next we have the second
082one. Second, Rocket Ship Tennessee for um the charter school number four recommend motions to approve or deny Rocket Ship Tennessee charter school number four application is presented by the review committee's recommendation for the 2526 school yes 2526 school year. Any qu questions or comments? I'll entertain a motion. make a motion to deny based on that uh they didn't meet the qualifications and um for the same principle you know that I just can't prove anything that didn't show that uh performance level of the schools that we have here and uh so um they come back and and make the adjustments and there's part of their application that was just that wasn't done that um I guess in my opinion if it was really important they those mistakes and errors wouldn't have been made. So I'll second
083that. Yes, Mr. Cable. I would just like to say the same thing for rocket ship applies here which is they can obviously come back reapply fix these things. I do have some concerns. So that's why I'm supporting the denial at this point. But I do think that there is opportunity there that the concerns be resolved. Yes. Um simply because in the past we've already had two applications and whatever is in the um con whatever is in the application is what's going to be in the contract. So this is just to give them the time to address those concerns to come back so that we can get a cont an agreement that's a little bit more favorable. Okay. Ready to vote? All right. The motion is to deny based on qualifications and performance. Miss Sharp. Mr.
084Vault. Mrs. Rosales. Yes. Mr. Vaughn. Yes. Mr. Tidwell. Yes. Mrs. Darby. Yes. Mrs. Maxwell. Yes. Passes by majority. bring back your application with the concerns that have been addressed so that we can review them. Number three, this is summer literacy and math camp materials with an emphasis on science and reading and math best practices. The lit camp and math camp curriculum combines high quality literacy and math instruction and foundational skills development with an engaging summer camp format. Instruction departments requesting to purchase these kits that include a leader guide, lit camper notebook, high-quality connected text sets, family guides, and access to additional resources available online. The cost to provides the lit and math camp curriculum will be 165,876.20 and training will be $7,992, which will come from summer camp funds from the Tennessee State Department of
085Education. You see the recommended motion is to approve. And this is a eightweek camp, four four-week camp, entire month of June. I'm sorry, I was making it twice as long. Would be fun if it was eight weeks. Give them just a second before we vote. Any comments or questions? I'll entertain a motion to approve. Thank you, Mr. Tidwell. Second. Thank you, Miss Darby. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next we move to legal. First we have discipline hearing appeal and this is number 2500401. The board has been requested to review a decision of the disciplinary hearing authority DHA and the director of schools to uphold the remainment of a student from Rockville Middle School based on review of the DHA's record. The board may A affirm the decision of the DHA,
086B overturn the decision of the DHA or C grant a hearing before the board. If the board chooses B, that does send the student back to school. So this one we don't have a whole lot. So just have to be aware. Recommended approval is a motion to approve the board initiate a motion in line with one of those three options above. I'll entertain a motion. Yes, Miss How long has the student been out of school? Just a second. Can you pull that out of school? Yes, ma'am. How long was the remainment for? We have a point system now. Um, so yep. Nine weeks. I'll entertain a motion. Affirm to affirm the decision of the DHA. Do we have a second? A second. Thank you, Mr. Bond. Roll call, please. I'd like Can I make a
087comment? Uh, being a former principal, kid get mandated. Um, I want everybody to understand in this situation, it's more than just the cheating incident. This is a culmination of Madam Chair. Yes. I I don't believe we're supposed to publicly speak about his record. Oh, we're not. Okay. No. Just we just need to go ahead and vote. Mrs. Darby, no. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mr. Mr. Va, Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Miss Sharp, no. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. All right. Pass to affirm. Number two. Next, we have transfer student under discipline number one. The board's been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. The student was expelled for a title 9 finding according to policy 6.318. The board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student
088transfers from another school system while under suspension or expulsion. Director of schools recommendation is to deny. Recommended motion is to admit or deny the admission of this transfer student under discipline. Yes, Miss Sharp. I'd like to make a motion to deny but admit into the alternative school for the next school year. I'm sorry, M. Sharp, could you deny deny for him to go back to school to be admitted to school this year, but to admit to the alternative school 256? I don't think four weeks do that. Can is that something we can do? [Music] Miss Ridley, what are your thoughts? originally in the hallway up. No. No. Okay. I I'll remove my motion. Okay. Do we have any other motions? Move to deny. Do we have a second? I'll second. Roll call vote, please. All
089right. Motion is to deny Mrs. Darby, yes. Mr. Va, yes. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mr. Tidwell, Miss Sharp, Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Majority passes to deny. You will be allowed in our school system after a year. That's right. Yep. Number three. And do we need to go into session? Mr. Reed, do you want to cut for number three? [Music] Yeah. This is an engagement ACLJ. The board of education has received a man letter to cease the implementation of prayer at the commencement of its meetings. ACLJ has offered to provide labor at no cost to the board to assist in the defense of challenges to the implementation of prayer. The ACLJ will not be responsible for any cost or awards against the board, but would provide legal labor support at no cost to the board.
090You have the engagement letter was attached to your materials. So, a possible motion is to approve the board of education engaging the ACLJ to defend the board of education in regards to any challenges to the practice of prayer at the board meetings. M Maxwell. Yes, Mr. Tidwell. Jeff, do you think this will be a good motion to approve based on your interaction with these folks? I I think ACLJ they're very they are constitutional law is their specialty. That's what they focus on. They have a good deal of experience in that background. Um they're willing to take on this case at no cost to the board from a labor standpoint and provide free legal legal support for it. So I think that is a benefit to the board in this case. So ultimately as someone one
091of the speakers announced if there's a damage award it will be the board board's responsibility to pay it but um it the ACLJ is willing to do the lab the legal work to defend the board in regards to this at no cost. I'll make a motion to approve. Second. Roll call vote. Please go ahead. I get to speak. I'm sorry, Mr. V. I did not see I'm so sorry. I'm I'm gonna say I'm gonna bring it back up again that I mentioned the other night and and you know, some of the old adages are do you want to bring a gun, you know, bring a knife to a gunfight? And I feel like that's what's fixed to happen to us. Um the the the second thing is I said earlier I think we need to
092move probably a million dollars over to our defense or legal fund either out of ending fund balance. Um, and I can address that under other business, I suppose, during the budgetary comments, whatever. But I I think it's going to we need to make some type of effort and and put the county commission on notice and the budget office on notice that we are subject to uh paying legal fees or damages or something if we do lose this case. And the third and final point I'm going to make, beware of anything that's free, especially legal fees. That's just my experience being in business over 40 years in this county. Um, don't deny these people are good. But again, if if if this board is elected to get us in a fight, we need to go in
093to win and we need to have the best people possible on our side. So, engage them or don't engage them. I'm going to vote against it. Okay. All right. This is a motion um to go ahead and approve uh the engagement of the ACLJ. Mr. Va, no. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mrs. Darby, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mr. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, pass. Majority wins. Next, we have engineering and construction. Rockville High School synthetic field turf request. Principal Steve Lucer is requesting to have synthetic field turf installed adjacent to the weight room. The request is being donated by Warner's Athletics with estimated value of 20 to 5,000. Andrew and Construction has reviewed the request and has no objections. Recommend a motion is to approve the Rockville High School synthetic turf request as presented.
094Any comments, questions? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Sharp. Second. Miss Darby, I'm so sorry. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number two, engineering construction request to increase RG Anderson's contract for Smyrna High School. Engineering construction requesting to increase the contract for RG Anderson in the amount of $200,171 $200,17120. These funds will be utilized to replace the remaining corridor ceiling tile and grid in the existing building. These funds will be shifted for remaining balances in the overall project and no additional funds are needed. Recommended motion is to approve the Smyrna High School ceiling replacement request as presented. Yes, Mr. thought. Well, I was going to move for approval, but I think Mr. You had a finger up. I thought yielded. Miss Sharp, did
095you have something you wanted to say? I was gonna say move to approve. You do. I I'll second. I'll second. Thank you, M. I've got a question. And thank you, Mr. Bot. Okay. Did I understand that this is a movement of money and we anticipate the same thing for Oakland and Riverdale also. It's kind of a clean up. There could be some. I don't anticipate it to be sealants. Okay. That but there is some. Housekeeping measures I I guess would be what I would call. Yes, sir. There probably will be. Yes. Good deal. Thank you. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number uh three. Yep. So, we have the Lee Road property, the appraisal on the perspective school side and Lee Road. Nope. Smarty. Oh, man. I skipped the Smyrna gym.
096Sorry. I just had made eye contact with Mr. reading. I just went ahead. Smart and middle gym scoreboard request. Dr. Tehisha Ferguson's requesting to enter a contract with Wilson Bank and Trust to fund the installation of a new scoreboard in the gym. The donation cost is $8,695 and will be at no cost to the board. Mrs. Ridley has reviewed their agreement and has no objection. Engineering Construction has also reviewed the request and has no objection. Recommended motion is to approve. Any comments or questions? I'll entertain a motion. So move. Thank you, Miss Sharp. Second. Sec. Thank you, Mr. B. All in favor say I. I I any opposed? Motion passes. Now we're now to read. Let me go ahead and read Lee Road property. The appraisal on the perspective school sign Lee Road has been
097completed. The property is appraised for more than the purchase price under the contract. The next phase of examination of the property will be survey geotechnical, topographical, environmental, and other routine study to determine whether the site is suitable for a prospective school site. Recommended motion is to proceed with the study and testing of the property. Motion to approve. Second. Second by Mr. Rosales. Yes. Yes. Now we go to comments. Thank you. Uh does that What's the purchase price since it the appraisal was more the same? Giving anymore. 88,000. I just wanted to make sure. Right. We're not giving them anymore. 80,000. We locked in. That's fine. Yeah, that's fine. I just since other night is it same as other night, didn't? Yeah, we went in and that's the price. No, no. I just wanted because it
098said the the appraisal was more. I just want to make sure. That's what we So, I support it. I just want to know how much we're going to receive it. Well, I've got a question, but Dre, u the uh when you get into testing and all that kind of stuff, there there's a there's a set of stipulations you follow and I think we kind of talked about that. The firms that you engage, do they bid on this or these at will people that do survey go? I have multiple prices on every test. Yeah, I I've received the last one today, so I have not done my analysis to determine which firm we're going to use, but we have three um firms that have bid on everything and we will make an analysis and we will
099use the one that has the lowest and best price because this is a long-term relationship. Assuming we buy the property, assuming we build a school or two or whatever we build down there. This is a long-term relationship with whoever this engineering firm, geotechnical firm, that's a that's a different engineering firm. Um, these we could potentially use one of these firms as civil engineers. Okay. There there are firms out there that specialize doing just testing. That and that's where you're heading. That's where I'm headed with just the testing. Now, typically when they have been awarded the testing for a project, they typically get the oversight for the grading portion to make sure that the two there's nothing kind of fishy going on. They don't do the design, but they do the testing for it. That that
100so so there is some incentive typically in this business for them if they're low. They're anticipating getting the oversight of the grading when it comes. That that's what I want to make sure that that that the approach here. We also rebid that testing as well just to be that's a separate that's a separate contract just to be prudent. Yes, sir. We're we're dotting eyes, crossing te. Yes, sir. Managing the taxpayer dollar as close as we can right now. Yes, sir. We are. Thank you. Are they local? Those companies, are they local? Well, one of the biders is across the street. So, yes, sir, they're all uh they're not all in Rerford County, but yes, they are local. Brentwood, Nashville, and right across the street. We have a motion. We have a second. All in favor
101say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Before we start with the bus contract portion, I have been asked for a fivem minute break. Thank you. I just Dr. Pepper and we're back. I have looked at these and I believe for each one of these we need to take a look at individually and vote on them individually. Madam Chair, can I ask a question before started? Dr. Sullivan. Yes. I know you touched on this and forgive me because I don't remember just so that it we know before we even start this conversation. Is there room to postpone any of these decisions if we need to only if we have a special called meeting somewhere in between? Okay. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Well, go ahead and discuss because we you and I have talked for the meeting
102because a couple of a couple of people have approached me. We have to do it tonight. You know, we are we are under an obligation by the private act to send a budget number to the U budget and finance health. Correct. Got to go through the process. So, we've got up till what did you tell me? May May 15th, but we've got graduations that we're shuffling meetings around and all that. Correct. We do. And we also have um myself and the finance director who and the rest of our staff and um our schools who are waiting to know what we're doing with transportation to see what other things we need to do with our budget and so it is the kind of lynch pin if you will for the rest of the budget. Correct. Absolutely.
103So really putting it off is not going to help us a whole lot. If we put it off any further then it's just okay that's why I kind of told everybody I thought you know we've been leading to this and I don't think putting it off is going to help us any I don't either I don't think there's another discuss it all the way through and let's try to make the best decision all right agree okay yeah you know we're we're in a uh a money crunch you know and everything we've got to make a lot of hard decisions uh the first first thing I'd like to make a motion that we u initiate the u the parent responsibility zone of K through 5 to be one mile 6 through 12 to be 1 and
104a half miles and that's for everybody and that will that will help us some do we have a second? I'll second it. Okay, now we have a second. Yes, Miss Sharp. Um, are are you talking about across the district? Yes. Because I thought what was on the table was just Blackman. Um, Blackman, Smyrna, Leverne, no title schools. Have we got the numbers that you have are either all across the district or all across the district, no title. That's the only two numbers I've provided. Okay. Yep. I just mentioned those would be the most impacted because those are the okay most together schools. Miss Maxwell. Yes, Mr. Tidwell. Uh uh just for clarity, the the motion does it include does it exclude title one schools or does it include title? Is it all schools? So I'm
105assuming that includes all everybody. Okay. And that would be the greatest cost savings. Correct. Correct. That is on what Mr. Lee calculated the other day. And again, this is rough because we don't have each one drawn close to $3 million. Th this is what's in our email, right? We don't have it in the packet tonight. Correct. All right. Yeah. So, if one of if somebody go back and review actually what those numbers are, I think budgetary, it's $3,80,000. million 80,000. Yes, sir. All right. And that was approximately how many routes? 44. Not routes, buses. Buses. Those buses run multiple routes. I get my semantics wrong sometimes. That's why I want to be clear because it does matter. So, it's how many buses total? It's roughly 44. 44 buses based on current zoning. Okay. Yes, Mr.
106Dr. S. And I think it's important that when we talk about parent responsibility zones as a district, we're not advocating or stating that those are walk zones. We're saying they're parent responsibility zones responsibility. How does this align with other districts, the city of Murphy'sboro's district? How does it compare to all of those? Do you have anybody have any information related to that? Knox County does this exact same way. City of Murphus Bur's PRZ is I think it's a mile, but they're K5. They include title though. They still I think they do include title. Yeah, I think our our difference with some of our title is that one of the ones I know that Miss Sharp talked about the other day is a title school. So, we could definitely I guess handpick a couple of those,
107but that gets a little strange. I know the school that I opened, Rocky Fork, is soon to be titled and that title school and that subdivision is right beside the school as well. So, and and I'm speaking for you guys, but sometimes title changes. So, so a school could be a title school like like exactly what you're talking about. Rocky Fork currently is not, but they're probably going to be in the conversation we have. that one we had really good um participation with the developer and we connected all of our sidewalks. So if it goes title then that one gets excluded. If you exclude title it becomes a it becomes very difficult to pick and choose neighborhoods. That's my fault. Miss Sharp trying to Mr. Arvey rather I keep calling Miss Sharp. I'm so sorry.
108We'll answer down here. All right, Miss Sharp. Yeah, just point down here. Why don't something that I kind of wanted to just bring up the main reason that I brought this up was to try to keep funding in transportation to provide more money to our current contractors. So, I'm wondering if the board would be favorable to maybe moving this down in order after we discuss the amount of money to see if the money from doing the PRZ is needed. If it's not needed, this may not be something that we need to implement right now. Okay. So you want to max are you making a motion to move it down right now? You moved it from Well, there's current there's currently a motion on the floor seconded. So excuse me. You want Are you agreeable to
109moving your motion to the end here after we find out what the amount is? Yeah. I mean, it's going to be the same. [Applause] Yeah. and I've seconded it so I agree with it too. So, okay. So, let's go to school bus liability insurance. Yeah, I think this has been discussed quite a bit. Um, liability insurance when we put this bus contract motion because it has to be published 5 days in advance. We add school bus liability insurance request risk management to include bus contractors under new policy. consider our own BOE liability policy offer stipen to bus contractors provide their own liability insurance and I think that also in kind of connects to to number three as well. So the board has options Mr. Reid if you want to come up and address as well
110any updates that have changed or if anything has changed. I don't think anything we've we've talked about this a lot and talked about it a lot Tuesday night as you know um the law you know was changed um a couple years ago requiring bus contractors to get their own insurance our we the county had provided insurance for the bus contractor for years. That's always kind of how our county's done it with the best with respect to the bus contractors. the state law changed. It required that um the bus contractors obtain their own insurance and that's what the law has been up to like just a couple of days ago. So Ruy County, as they do every year, they are required um to u go out and do an RFP for the county's insurance program. They
111did that um many weeks ago u based on the law that was in place at that time. And the law in place at that time did not provide did not allow the county to carry insurance on the contractors anymore. So when the RFP came in, the RFP did not provide for insurance for the contractors. the um we went uh we asked risk manager go back to we had one one firm responded to the county's risk management RFP and they went the risk management office went back to them multiple times asked if they would provide coverage for the bus contractors we would like and told them we would like you to do that but the company is not not willing to pick up coverage for the bus contractors so our current policy that we have in
112case for for bus insurance expires June 30th of this year. So there's no there's no options to extend. It just is insurance policy expires. Once it expires, it's gone. So given with respect to where we are with needing to get insurance in place by July 1. We've got budget requirements by May 15th. really we don't have any other option but to go ahead and proceed with the alternative of bus contractors obtaining their own insurance which is what the law had been all through this year up until maybe just a day ago or a couple till Tuesday when the legislature went out of session. So um so this current contract you have before you for your consideration your package does provide for the contractors to be required to maintain their own insurance. They named the and
113named the board of education as additional insured. But to help them with that cost because the board has recognized that as an additional expense on them that they have not historically borne, we have added in the contract a provision for the bus contractors to be paid a stipen of $4,000 per bus to help them with the cost of insurance. Based on the estimates of insurance that I had obtained and been submitted to this the office here and many contractors, we thought that is a good median amount that should be ample enough to pay for an insurance policy under today's rates uh under the terms that we're proposing in the contract. So um so the contract you have before you does propose this change with respect to insurance with respect to the and the contractors being
114required to maintain their own insurance. I did based on this new legislation that we talked about Tuesday night. The new legislation has been approved as of Tuesday I believe. I don't know the bill has even been signed by the governor yet, but has gone through the house and the senate and been passed by the house and senate. Assuming it does get passed by the governor's office and signed off by them, the law may be different going into next school year. So, I've added language to this contract which allows the school board that in the event we can as a county can once again provide insurance for contractors to allow us to go out and try to obtain it. See what the cost of that would be, see if it's feasible and if there if the
115bus contractors and we are agreeable to doing that, maybe going back the way it has been. So, but for now with the time constraints we have, we don't have the luxury of waiting because we have to we need to have insurance in place and we need to know what the budget's going to be here by July 1. Um, so, so this contract does provide for the bus contractors having their own insurance. It provides them a $4,000 stipen for each bus to help pay for that so they're not out of pocket the cost for that insurance. and it provides that going forward that we'll relook at that and try to see if we're we can go back to the way it has been with respect to the county providing insurance on the buses. Those are those
116provisions are all built into this contract. Miss Sharp, thank you. Um this is I don't think that we need to wait around to see Governor Lee's going to sign this bill. I think he's going to sign it. And from talking, there's no reason for him not to sign it. And from talking with multiple contractors, this insurance and making them get their own own insurance is a deal breakaker. So, it's kind of it's kind of a moot point. My motion would be for us to go back to risk management, ask them to edit the RFP and get that. There's no reason it would take them two or three, 30 days or 60 days to rewrite that. All they need to do is take the RFP, send it back out, and let's see if we can get
117the money. We've already got the money set aside for the stipens. We can use that money to fund the insurance. Do we have a second to her motion? We can't We just can't sit around and wait for Governor Lee to do the bill, and we can't sit around and wait to see what else is going to happen. We've got to do a two or three-pronged approach on this because we can't we can't run the date out and then then we're up against the hard wall. But the contractors are telling me they're not going to provide their insurance and where where are we going to be? I listen and I don't blame them. I wouldn't want somebody to be able to come back and sue me and take take my life's work away. So we we've
118got to we Mr. Von is right. No, no, no clapping or I I'll have you removed. We've got a lot on our plate tonight. No clapping, no jeering, nothing. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Vaughn is right. We've got some hard decisions to make, but we also have to come out of here where everybody is is still wanting to work together and we we've got to this is going to be a delicate balance, but we can't sit here and run out the clock. So, that's my motion. M Maxwell Mr. Mr. Von he wanted I got do we have a second or not? Okay, we don't have a second. Yes, Mr. B and then you Mr. Title. All right. Now to kind of go back and review and and Miss Sharp, I appreciate your comments. Those are
119the same comments they gave me two months ago. And I know a lot of them don't like the answer, but from from my two meetings and my multiple meetings with Jeff and talking to other insurance um attorneys related to this, the law has stated we cannot do it. They cannot tie to our policy and it's not on our policy. So, with due respect, Miss Sharp, hoping and praying that an RFP gets out in the next two weeks, 3 weeks, and a premium comes back and somebody will cover it. What if they don't? Then we've not made a provision within the the contract. Blame this on me if you want to, but the only way I could see around this to justifiably u compensate our drivers was to put a line item in there. and Jeff
120and I along with budget and finance, the people at the courthouse, if it does get changed and and and Kim and and Kim, who I'm talking about in the committee, we've been talking back and forth, back and forth for two months. We're going to get the bill passed. We're going to get the bill passed. I still had seen the final copy of the bill myself. And furthermore, I'm not the attorney present here that needs to interpret what the law says. Um, I know what CATS has said. I know what TSBA, you got the information from them, right? Wasn't it you? So, we've got four different sources of information that says we cannot do it, but we have one bill possibly that says we can do it. So, I don't feel like it's prudent to send
121a budget to the courthouse that does not have an A plan and a B plan put in it. We we we know if if we give them a stipen, they have the choice to go buy their insurance. if they don't want to get liability insurance, if that's the way the final contract reads June 30th of this year, whatever this board ends up presenting to the drivers, they have the choice not to sign the contract. I hate that. I really do. There's a lot of them, as I've said, are generational drivers. A lot of them have driven for this county for 30 years. I didn't change the law. Okay? So, I hope all of y'all understand that. Some of you have been very vindictive to me, okay? And and I my hide's pretty thick. Melinda Brown
122knows that. She's grown up with me. I take a lot of punches, but but I have been the biggest advocate for them to try to protect them, to protect the kids of this county, to protect the taxpayers of this county. I'm fine with it. if we can find something that's affordable, but uh for us to wait is not financially prudent. So, that's the reason this line item's in there. If you want to take the line item out, not give them the $4,000, that's fine. Throw that out here as a motion. But you saw what happened. So, I would offer a motion that we in this new contract provide $4,000 per bus with the buses that have been in service this year. And the reason I'm looking at you right now is because there's going to
123be spare buses that need to be covered. And if they've not been on the road this year, have not passed inspection, we don't need to pay that premium to them. If that makes any sense. I had this great fear night before last hell. I could see everybody dragging buses out of the weeds and trying to get insurance on them in case they needed to use them, but they need to be buses that have run this year or been inspect been used this year. That so that would be my motion to put the $4,000 out there and and I'll come back with another motion talking about the RFP. But let's get this done first and we'll talk about the RFP in a second. Mr. Vault, I will I'll second your motion. [Music] Miss Sharp, your mic's
124not on. Sorry, I was talking about Rutherford County going out and resending the RFP, not Rutherford County Schools. And many of the bus drivers have told me that the $4,000 isn't going to be enough. So, we're where do where where does it stop? And if we I I wasn't saying just do that. I'm trying to chip away of all the things that we need to do and do some things in tandem. That's the reason I presented this to to the board Tuesday night kind of as a three-prong appro approach. If you want to pull everything out of the we can go through the contract line item by line item or paragraph by paragraph. This appeared to me after meeting with the committee and talking to again probably 25 or 30 other owner operators, contractors, uh
125this is what it came down to. The rest of the stuff we kind of worked through and and done and taken care of. But the liability insurance is the first thing I felt well actually I thought PRZ if we did that first it maybe would free up some money that we could have the opportunity to to deal with the $4,000 because this is 1.3 million $1.4 million that I'm talking about right here really. So I mean this is but we can't you know there's got to be something out. I feel very strongly about this. If if you don't want to offer it to them it's okay. we can put it in their pay raise and you know if it works it works if it doesn't it doesn't it's but this this was my recommendation I'll
126own this part of this discussion right now and he made a motion and I seconded it restate it okay restate it okay can you restate it I think it was basically that we include the $4,000 stipen for every bus that has been utilized this year and I assume You've got a list of some kind. Transportation department does. Yeah, I I said you you transportation. Okay, Mr. Tidwell, I think you were up next. All right. Yes. Thank you. Um I'm going to try to uh what I'd come in here with tonight was an idea that was going to require some discussion. Um, but I want to try to marry both of those ideas right there, which is I agree with Stan. I mean, it it looks like I mean just the way it's been presented that
127it is not going to get done in time for school start. It's not going to get in time. We got to have something to send to budget as well. We can't just be guessing at it. Um, so we could move forward with the $4,000 stipen. Uh the additional part that I would add in there is I'm looking at the raise increase and that the I'm looking at everything as a total cost over four years because this is a four-year contract. So my thought was all right if we do the stipen it's 1.4 million a year that times four it's $5.6 million. Previously when these contractors were on the county u government insurance that was over four year it was about $250,000 roughly a year. So about a million dollars. So it is costing rather the
128county is costing the county $4.6 million more dollars to carry the basically or close to the same amount of coverage. We don't want that additional cost. they don't want the the the coverage they're having to go out and the liability that comes with that. So, as I've stated many times, neither side is the winner. However, where we are at now against the timets that we have, if we move forward with the 4,000, that gives us something to roll with, and we don't know what the RFP is going to come back. But if the RFP does get pushed out, which we should push, um, then most likely, maybe not this year. I can't say for sure this year because it's going to be separated from the county insurance uh whether it's going to be higher or
129lower than that 1.4 million stipen we're given. But most likely in year two, year three, year four, it will be combined with the county government insurance as a total package as it has done years and years past and there will be drastic savings versus what we're paying year after year. So with that in mind, my thought would be that we include in the contract that if both contractors are allowed back on the county insurance that the board and the contractors may enter back into negotiation, which Reed mentioned this little bit earlier. Um but that we would split any savings between the contractors and the county because our costs have went up with this stipen and they're they they want to be back on the county government as well and then also that saves some money
130in the negotiation of the race. It is not a guarantee. I understand that. I know that. Uh however, if we're looking at all the potential options and the liability, they want to be on county government insurance. it's better for us to have them back on there. Whole lot more likely for it to happen two, three, and four. But if there is a carrier that will pick them off uh pick off the bus contractors in general with RFP, then that would be the best marriage total. So, does that make sense? That's a lot, but does that make sense to everybody? Sorry. I'm just going to speak on what I've been diligently trying to get an answer to, which feels impossible at this point just because I would like for y'all to know what's going through my
131head. Um, I've spoken to a few different attorneys. I'm still waiting on one to get back to me that specializes in insurance because he was like, I need to go further down this rabbit hole and figure this out. I have some attorneys telling me we legally cannot provide them their insurance and I have some attorneys telling me that we can. My biggest concern is if we move forward providing the insurance and it is later found that that is not legal for us to be providing. If you end up in a lawsuit and then someone goes, you legally weren't supposed to be carrying their insurance, you guys are going to be found with no insurance at all. And that's deeply concerning for me because I don't want anybody in that position. So I feel extremely stuck
132in this situation because I can't seem to get a clear-cut answer on whether we are legally allowed to provide that insurance which which leaves me in a really hard predicament because I don't want to lose our contractors. I also don't want to expose them to more risk than necessary and I don't want to expose our district to any more risk than necessary. Which is one of the reasons why I asked if it was possible to put it off at all. Just because if we could get a few more weigh-ins on the legalities of the insurance, I would feel better about it because right now I just feel extremely conflicted. I do like your idea though, Mr. Tidwell. Mr. move on. Uh, one thing I guess I need clarification with. It's my understanding that the the
133bus drivers they cannot cut the u if the county if they put them back on there the insurance carrier wouldn't approve it. Is that correct? Mr. Vot, you asking me Mr. Yeah, Mr. the the we the they every year risk management sends out an RFP for insurance coverage for the county as a whole. This year they had only one company respond to that which actually is the current provider who is providing insurance this year but that company is no longer willing to provide coverage for the bus contractors. I thought we don't have we don't have so is nobody who has the company does not have any insurance company today willing to pick up coverage for the contractors. So this so where we are today if I understand is correct. The bus drivers aren't going to
134sign the contract on the $4,000 stipen. We can't we can't carry on our insurance. So, I don't know any other choice but to park them cuz you know what's what's the solution? Insurance won't I don't know. State law does require buses, school buses to have insurance, right? To to operate. Yeah, Mr. Sal. Yes. Thank you. It seems like we're stuck in a hard place with his insurance because even if we were to move forward right now, we don't have insurance. The county doesn't have insurance to give to the buses. So, and the second thing is that May 15 is literally around the corner and uh and not only that, we the Dr. S and Brian Renan have to finish the budget. I mean, they were when I walked in today, they were there working on
135the budget trying to figure it out. And so, a lot of it is predicative of what's happening. I don't like this choice, but for right now, I think your option is a little bit better solution to say, let's move forward with the siphon $4,000 with the contract amended, like you said, where we can revisit the insurance when risk management goes back and look and see if they get an RFP with insurance carrier that is willing to carry the insurance for the bus contracts because right now they carried that is not even willing to carry it. And if that happens then that $4,000 that we were going to give them goes back to us and it goes to the county but we can't do that. Mr. Tidwell asked for it to be split between contractors and
136the county. Okay. So it's going to be split between the county and so they will so we will still get the $4,000 to them. I I'll let him explain. Yes, that will be confusing. And then I'll go to you, Miss Sharp. Can I? Yes, Mr. T. Okay. Yeah. Uh, similar. Yeah. So, the stipen would stop if if the negotiation happened and the difference between that like that $4.6 million that it's costing us to do the same thing we've always been doing. We would split that between the contractors. So, the stipen stops. So, there's no more move forward with that. It's on a pr-rated deal. uh at whatever point the RFP comes in and has it. This is all contingent on it being lower than what was previously lower than the stipen. If it's not lower
137than the stipen, then that wouldn't make sense for us to then pay additional monies. But if it's lower than the stipen, which historically it's been significantly lower, then it's a marriage in which everybody's ideas up here could potentially work out. So that so the savings could be quite significant as long as the it's picked up through RFP. If nobody picks it up, the stipens's in place. That's really all we have at this point. Miss Sharp. Okay. Thank you. So I got three questions, Mr. Renan. Um if this we give a $4,000 stipen, how is that taxed? Is it like a bonus where there's a higher tax rate to it? Because that may be something to consider as well. It would just be as if because they're contractors, we would be cutting them a check for
138$4,000 just as if we were cutting them check for for their driving. So, it's not going to be taxed any different. Yeah, that's not what I've been hearing. That's go. Whoops. I'm sorry. You had two more questions. Yeah, I've got I got two more questions. So, um did the RFP that the county sent out include buses? cuz I'm being told that it did not include buses. Okay. So, number three, why would the insurance carrier not put the buses on? Is that what you wanted the question, Mr. Yeah, that's a riskmanagement question. I didn't understand your third I didn't hear your third question. Why were the buses Why were they not carry the buses? Was that what you want? Did they give you a reason? They did not. They're they Well, I don't I did not
139talk with them directly. I understand they were just not willing to pick up that liability and that risk that coverage this year. So, so, so who do we talk to if the buses weren't on the RFP? How did we get to the no? Historically, risk management every year they put they're putting an RFP for insurance coverage. So, in years past, they have had the bus contractors on there as part of the package when they bid it because that's what the law had allowed. The law changed. So, and and based on the new law which prohibited that, they issued the the RFP based on the current status of law. Then the insurance companies, there are multiple insurance companies review it and decide whether they're going to quote it or not. It's a very extensive process. It
140takes 30 days or more for insurance companies to get the RFP, get their information together, get their premiums together, quotes together, run lost reports, how many claims have people had last year, all that information together to give you a rate for the coming year. So, it's a great deal of work for an insurance company to respond to an RFP the size of Rutherford County. It's not as simple as someone quoting a car insurance or insurance on a house. It's a very complicated process and a lot goes into it on on behalf of the both our risk management department for the county and for these insurance companies who bid it. So u so the one insurance company who who bid the package this year responded to the request to the RFP did that did not have
141contractors in it based on that because that's what the law was then and we went back to the one company who responded to RFP and asked them to add the contractors to it and they simply said they're not willing to write insurance for contractors and even asked under what cir do they can pay them more money can we pay them additional premium Is there some thing we can do to get insurance coverage for the buses? They're simply not willing to write coverage for the bus contractors. So, but at that time, the law was still standing and there there was no no the law at that time when they quoted it did not allow them to pick up coverage for bus contractors at that time. Oh, there's nothing saying that we but we have gone back
142to them after saying we expect the law to change which we told them and asked them based on our pro the prospect of this law changing we want you to provide insurance coverage and they basically said no we can't do anything is a private insurance company there's nothing we can do to force them to provide insurance coverage for us so um you know we talked about the option of doing a separate RFP there risk manage a minute it will take a minimum of probably 30 days for any company to respond to the RFP we sent out today because that's how complicated they are to respond to these things because they look at your your claim history, run loss reports history for years and um it's not a simple process to get something quoted for an
143insurance policy of this type. it's going to be easier to get it quoted in the context of pack of the county as a whole when you go bid the whole county package out because then it's just a little piece of the overall picture and they may they historically have been more willing to quote it in that context. Okay, Mr. Vaughn. So really what you know, like I said, we talking about insurance or no insurance. Nobody's going to take it. And if $4,000 is not good enough, I mean, I don't know what else we can do. County says we're not going to take it. They can't take it. So, you know, it's either they take bus drivers take $4,000 and get the insurance about it or we don't have any bus service. And to me, that's
144a simple. Miss Maxwell, that's Mr. Zealous. Thank you. Um, so risk management will have to rebid the whole thing again to No, they just had to bid it. We just have to redo it. Send a an RFP with just the bus contracts on it. That's it. You don't have to rebid rebid RFP. Mr. Vault, I don't want to banner, but if it's all right, just go ahead. Yeah. And again, I I don't want this to be the Stan vault show. It's not. I've just got You asked me to be the leazison. I've met with them. I've met with risk management. I've talked to 10 different insurance companies. I've talked to seven, eight different lawyers. Uh Katie was good enough to get TSBA to respond to it. I've got opinions from CASS. I don't know who
145else to ask. Okay. I I but I have promised the bus drivers I would continue to press forward with this. And actually Ed Ed a risk management and Susan McQuary risk management they are as a and I don't want to say as a personal favor to me. I think probably as much to Jeff as as me, but they are already in the process of writing an RFP to put out. My motion behind this motion is going to be that we engage the county commission to engage risk management to put this RFP out because this is a bigger decision than the seven of us. They are our funding body. This also has to do with their insurance that we are a significant part of their insurance of the overall county insurance. But if I remember right,
146don't quote me on this for sure. Uh Scott Broadden, I don't know that my numbers are exactly right, but I think it's 2.5 billion in property insurance, school buildings, courthouse, jail. There's over 900 other vehicles, ambulances, fire engines, police cars, private vehicles. I mean, you you start looking at how big this thing is, it's huge. And and so the kind of the personal discussion I Ed and I have and we grew up together and we've known each other for 60 years almost is you know has the package gotten so big that the insurance committee needs to look at pulling it apart because it kind of disturbed me as a taxpayer really that only one carrier responded. Right. So and I and I'm not trying to do the county commission's job. I I and y'all have
147heard me say this before. It's like the tax increase. That's not my job. My job is to advocate for schools, support Dr. Sullivan, his staff, try to make good decisions with the money that we get. That's our job. But, you know, you stop and think about this. Okay. Is there a different way to approach it? You know, should we look at a just a carrier that would do the vehicles? Are there carriers that just specialize in transportation? Are there carriers that just specialize in buildings, cyber security, right? We we we've just got through going through that. That's part of this insurance. And so I'm prepared. I I This is a point of discussion. I firmly believe we've got to make up for that's a first thing we've got to do for the drivers, for the
148owners, operators, I believe, is we've got to make some type of preparation here. Some of them don't believe it. Some of them don't think I'm looking out for them. I don't care at this point. But but I know from the everybody I've talked to and and that being some of the owners right now already have liability insurance. Okay. Some of them already carry it and so they're prepared. They're already I know I know the the the the association here represents 70% of them, but there's a lot of contractors that are already gotten insurance and they're going to probably continue driving for us, you know, whatever is put out there. They may not like the pay rate and they may park the bus because of that, but they're not going to park it because of this
149$4,000 insurance. So that's the reason I say we we we've kind of got to put a number together to send it to the budget office. This is a starting point. Somebody wants to amend it and make it $5,000 or something like that. I'm not I This was just a number I wanted to throw out there for for discussion cuz it was kind of the happy medium of the the four different carriers I talked to and kind of how they priced it. But but if you talk if you poll those people right over there, you're going to hear 20 different numbers. So it sound I'm sorry. Hold on. Mr. Tidwell was next. But but I was Okay, you can respond. Well, I was just saying really quick, like I said, it just sounds like it's almost
150like a three-part thing to move forward with a stipen of some sort and continue to press on for the RF for the carrier and possibly looking at coming to some kind of compromise where the following year the stipen could possibly be shared the cost between both sides. That's what I'm thinking where we may need to Because here here's here's my here's my vision. Here's my vision about this. And I may be wrong. We're going to get this cont. This is not the contract. The these are numbers we're discussing tonight to send a budget. The final contract that's approved that that that that is put forward to them to sign or don't sign is, you know, we're probably June 30th because we've got to do this subject to funding anyway. So So th this is about
151budgetary numbers tonight. Okay, Mr. Tidwell, agree agree with everything that's kind of been set up here as far as how that you're breaking it. We're breaking it up into three separate parts. I mean, that's kind of the idea. The this the potential savings. I'm going to keep going back to the insurance and the RFP and Jeff spoke to this a little bit yet. They didn't accept it this year, but the the law did it for forbade it at the time of the bid of the overall package. And so, you know, just from a construction standpoint, you know, there may be parts of the project that you don't really care to do, but there are parts that you can do good. So, you're going to take the parts you don't want to do to add it
152into your full package. But if somebody comes, if there's parts of the package that you like, and they come after the fact and say, "Hey, we want you to add this on." And and you weren't willing to do that, you're less inclined to do so. So, I think that the probability of the main contract, unless they end up breaking it up, which may be a better idea as well, but as a package deal, what it may end up being is a uh a better likelihood that they're going to take the bus contract in together with the whole county because it' be part of the county package year 2, year three, year four most likely, as it has been all the years prior. What would happen this year? It's a little more tricky uh because you're
153asking for a carrier of some point of some kind to carry simply the bus contract uh which you know we don't know exactly the reasons that the current carrier for the county government rejected this but I there's certainly incentive you talk about pressing them to do it there's certainly incentive because it saves the county money saves the schoolboard money provides protection they're looking for there's a lot of incentive for us all to work together and try to press on this. Um, so I'm I'm for it. I do want to add in the portion. I don't know if I should make an amendment on your motion or if we should just vote, but just that if it comes back, say if they put out the when they put out the RFP, which we're going to press
154them to do, if it comes back September, October, August, whenever the stipen stops, if it if the RFP is cheaper than the 1.4 4 million we're paying for the stipen. The stipen stops and any savings that are um saved between what we were paying previously and the RFP would be split between the county and the contractors. That's that's the only difference there because like you said everything's going to kind of foil into the next topic which is going to be the raises. But I think that is the only way we're going to find a compromise that benefits everybody. It's not a guarantee. So, I'm saying that out front. It is not a guarantee, but that could really work. So, before we vote on the original amendment, which I second about, but the $4,000 stipen, we
155need to go ahead and vote on Mr. Tidwell's amendment. Made a motion yet. Hey, I want I want to bet they'll remind you. You won't you won't have to make that part of the motion. They'll remind you what you said. Oh, the other thing and and this is something and if maybe we I need just need to redo the motion alto together, but the other thing is that I I believe the $4,000 needs to be made available immediately at contract signing. I don't know if I see that number. I don't know if Michael Smith can cut those checks or whatever, but not in June. Whenever, you know, so there's no way in June because books are closed in July. Books will be closed, too. Yeah. Well, whatever the first check writing day there is that
156they can do it in July. That would have to be coordinated with you and and it'd be the budget office. It probably be the end of July. Yeah. Whenever it just immediately that I don't want to in other words, I don't feel like that needs to be prrated out over the 10-month contract. What I'm getting at that let's provide that upfront since this is a new expenditure for them. Yeah. Let me start. I was going to say if they want to combine their emotions together. I think you brought up a good point though because that's going to be concerning. Great. If their insurance ends at the end of June and they have to get new insurance July 1st, but we're not giving them that stipen before then. Yep. I think that's a part because we
157don't have the ability to write our checks under the private act. But I'm just rais I mean that's a that's a valid concern though because I'm sure they're with everything they've been talking about with the increase of all their costs and everything like that to ask them to have to go purchase that without giving them the funds ahead of time if they're even if we can even work it all out. I talked to county finance. We can get a check cut in June. We can. We can get check cut to them in advance of July one. Okay. Okay. If they've signed the contract. They would have to sign the contract beforehand. contract before. Thank you, Mr. Reed. Okay. Yes, Mr. Z. Yeah. So, let's say hypothetical we went and did this RFP and for whatever
158reason a new carrier shows up and says, "Hey, we're willing to do this and we're giving them a check in June 30th or whatever." How will that how will that play out? Because if they're saying they're going to Miss Maxwell, yes, go ahead. From a budget perspective, we're going to have to do a budget amendment, find the money to go ahead and pay the $4,000 upfront because that's not a budget and expense. I'm in this year's current budget. Have it approved by the full commission by June 23rd somewhere, hit some type of pay, but we'll have to talk to county finance. Um, but it is a it have to come out of this year's budget and it that is a completely unbudgeted amount. So, okay, it's a good point. I mean, it's totally and that's
159the reason I don't want to tie a date to it. I don't because this is getting in the books, closing the books out, opening the books, you know, people go on vacation, Fourth of July holiday. I just know that they need it probably as quick as they can on the front end before the buses roll August, right? That that's that's all I'm trying to suggest right here is that we work with the courthouse to get this to them. From a logistic standpoint, I'd rather know June so that way I can move forward with knowing who's driving and who's not so I can make other points. And and honestly, I would too. I I was wanting to do it at contract signing, but we would have to get permission from uh budget office to to take
160it out of ending fund balance right now and then replenish it or something. I think there's a way to do it, but that you and Michael's going to have to work that out. I'm not going to speak for you guys over a different budget fiscal year. We're going to have to work. Yeah, this is Yeah, because it's insurance for Sorry about that. uh it's insurance for next year coming out of this year's budget which is going to skew the numbers right so let's let the accountants do the accounting and let's just us try to set policy what I'm trying to do okay so we had an original motion Maxwell yeah okay just for just for clarity sake if we talk about paying them up front and the idea is that it is going to be
161cheaper when the RFP comes back than u than the stipen that we're currently giving then we probably would need to have some kind of prorate in there. Uh because once you cancel your insurance to join the county insurance saying the RP RFP comes back in favor favorable motion then there's going to they can cancel and get a refund back on the premium they paid. So we would need to have some kind of prorate in there otherwise we're really not starting till the second year no matter what. So, you don't know how you want to make these motions. Well, and that's reason I say well and and Caleb, I don't mean to be, you know, cavalier about it or anything, but but I think there's a lot of moving parts this thing and we're not back
162to we again this is a budgetary thing tonight as much as anything. We can address a lot of this in the con when once we get a final contract that is funded, we can address a lot of that in the contract. that that's I think all of this is healthy discussion. But anyway, that's just my two cents worth right now. I'm just if we can move forward past the $4,000, then we can talk about PR go back PRZ or go to the pay raise or whatever then. So you you want to make a motion or do you just I'm not going to make a motion to admit. We'll just vote on the 4,000 and then we'll I'll probably make a motion. I think they want some kind of guarantee that we're going to heavily go
163in their favor. So, we'll do it after. Okay. Motion to give $4,000 stipent. Um motion to provide 4,000 per bus for buses in service this year. Stipen checks cut as soon as possible before July 1. I don't even know if I put that date. Okay. I don't know if I put the date in there. As soon as possible. Yes. Okay. Yes. All right. Are y'all ready? Yes. All right. Mrs. Rosales? Yes. Mr. Vaughn? Yes. Mr. Tidwell? Yes. Miss Sharp? Yes. Mr. VA? Yes. Mrs. Darby? Yes. Mrs. Maxwell? Yes. Unanimous. Okay. I like seven and0. Okay. So, next group. M. Miss Maxwell. All right. I want to go ahead and tie this in behind that. Uh Jeff, I might need your help up here. Um help me figure out the best way to phrase this, but
164what we're trying to accomplish here is when an RFP goes back for the bus contractors only this year. Of course, next year we're hoping it's in with the the whole county budget, but this year if it comes back as savings more than the stipen money we're paying, which is 1.4 4 million that the stipen will be prrated because then they'll be moving to county insurance and any savings will be split among the contractors and the school board. and the if this and obviously if they're um the contractors who'd like to do this would have to reimburse the unused portion of the stipen. That's right. But that would be under the guise that they I have not had anyone say that they'd rather have the stipen than be covered under the county insurance. So the county
165insurance is is favorable. Yeah, they they would have to reimburse a little bit, but it's not additional funds because they're going to get that money they paid up front back. At least it large large portion of it depending on where it's at. Mr. Reed, could you read that before we Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I'm trying. That's why I called him up here. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. It'd be great. Yeah. Give it a shot, Don. All right. How about motion? Let's say motion to approve once the stipen ends and the RFP comes back, including the bus contractors at a lower cost than we're currently paying, then there will be a 5050 split of savings between the county and the contractors. may may want to change it to if the R RFP comes back uh lower than the
166amount we are paying for the stipen, the stipen would end at that point. So it's not we're not waiting for the stipen to end because it's a year. Madam Chair, yes, Mr. Mr. Reid, would it be better to do we need to or would it be better to first make a motion to go out for RFP and get that voted on and off the table? Yeah, I withdraw my motion. Dave, I think there was Yeah. Yeah, I think that would be appropriate. Okay. Okay. Motion to go out for a new RFP for Do you want to work it? Go for it, Sam. If you don't care. Nope. Um to send to the county commission, the county insurance committee a request for an RFP for uh liability insurance for the current con bus contractors. Second. Thank
167you. Thank you for cleaning that up. Thank you. I think it's clean. Oh, good gracious. I was on a roll, dog. Um, I'll get you. The I move to send a request to the county commission and the county insurance committee through risk management to put out an RFP for liability insurance for our current bus contractors. for for uh 20 25 2026 school year. Nope. 25 25 26. What did I say? I said 24. I don't know what I said. Thank you for cleaning me up. From July 1 to June 30th this coming year. Mr. Vaughn has seconded. Yes, Miss Sharp. Yeah, they'll send I think we have to send it to everybody. Y'all give me the names. I'll send I'll get a second. Okay. No. No. Sorry. Okay. We have a motion. We have a
168second. Let's take a vote. All right. Miss Sharp, Mr. Vault, yes. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Mrs. Darby, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Unanimous. 7 and0 again. We're on a roll. Um, next we move to M. Maxwell. I got to come back in again. All right. Did we get our motion kind of worded out, Jeff? yet I gave you a little extra time period there. So I think it needs to say along the lines of this. If the results of the RF RFP allows the county to obtain insurance coverage for the bus contractors and the cost of that insurance under RFP is lower than what the cost of the stipens are, then subject to an amendment being reached between the bus contractors and the board of education that any cost savings realized
169as a result of having coverage provided by the county or versus what is provided by the stipen will be split equally with the bus contractors and the board of education. Can I just say ditto? That is the motion I would like to make. Um, do I need to repeat that entire thing? No. Is that was very well said. That's exactly what I'm going for. Excellent job. M. Darby, you seconding? Thank you. Mr. Darby has seconded it. Now, I want to make sure I understand for sure you now you're this is assuming that the RFP comes back after we've already paid them the $4,000 is what you're saying. If if we if if by a small miracle here we get it back June 15th and everybody checks off on it and it's good and we we
170don't even have to cut the fourth the the $4,000 will be negated and we'll go with that. Right. That's I want to understand and that's what someone would like to comment on. Sure thing. It helps when you have a former auditor as your person too or at least has been involved in auditing. We will not be able to do it before June 30th because you're paying for services from one fiscal year to the next. That makes sense. That makes good sense. But we'll figure it out. Yeah, Mr. Vaughn. Yeah. What are we going to do if it comes back more than $4,000? Are they going to have to make up the difference? No. Okay. Okay. So, we have a motion. We have it seconded. Let's vote. Mrs. Darby, yes. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mr. Vaugh, yes.
171Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Y'all are on a roll. Three in a row. I'm so happy. Let me talk about the mechanics of how that would work if that actually happens. So if we get an RFP number back and it's lower than what the county is spending on the stipen then that will come back to you and you compare the numbers the bus contractors will have access to that number too. We would have to come back amend the contracts to provide for them to reimburse the county for whatever gendy's portion of stipens been not been used for premium and then you would then um the savings would be they would get half the savings and the other savings stay with the board of education. Yes, madam chair. It
172will be require an amendment to come back from the contract will come back before you. There will be another paper to be signed by everyone to officially. Yes, Miss Darby, Mr. Reid, and I have no idea how anybody feels about it, but I'm just going to ask the question. If it comes back that it's less, will a contractor have the option to keep the 4,000 and have their own or is it an all or nothing scenario? All in or Yeah. I mean, we would have to when you bid the package out, it would have to be a all or nothing bid. If a contractor chose to go ahead as they do now, as some contractors do now, they still have coverage. They've had coverage additional on top. They can choose to continue to do that
173if they choose to do it. Okay. Yes, m Oh, you got the answer. Okay. Okay. Okay. Uh let's move to contracted services rate. Anybody want to make a All right. Comments motions. Oh, Miss Maxwell, did you give me the floor? Okay, you have the floor. Okay. All right. So, I'm going to make a motion. I have some explaining of how I arrived at this conclusion. I know that the county commission is not excited about this part. We also know that uh or I also believe that the uh contractors have asked for way over what was I thought uh somewhat reasonable. However, uh we have to find a compromise somewhere and we do know that their costs have went up. So, here was my thought. There's been a lot of motions put out there. I think
17410 10% 2.5 2.5 2.5 was one of those. I'm going to make a motion for 17% 2.5 2.5 and 2.5. I had originally thought about making it at 15% 2.5 2.5 2.5. But here's the thing. This ties back in to what I think is most likely to happen based off the motions that we just made, which is the difference between I'm looking at this is four years too. I'm looking end result. I'm not trying to do year by year by year, anything like that. I'm looking final result over four years. The difference between 15% upfront, 17% upfront is roughly $600,000. the likelihood that the county when they bid back out the contract for insurance, if it doesn't happen this year, because nobody wants to hold the bus contractors by themselves, which I'm believing that's not
175going to be the case, but if it doesn't happen this year, it will be included in year two in the package itself. Very high likelihood that it gets picked back up into the budget. It's way less than the 1.4 four. And for years two, three, and four, at the very minimum, there should be based on historical evidence significant savings at least 3 million $3 million by the math that I'm doing here. We are only raising it another 600,000. So, I'm going up further than than what I initially had thought. But I think considering that we are trying to aim back to get them on county county insurance and the savings that come with that will more than pay for the number. So that's my motion is 17% the first year 2.5 2.5 and 2.5 the
176following years. Second have any comments? Yeah my go ahead. Sorry. Uh my initial thought is the the two and a half and we had talked in one of the meetings with them. I had suggested and I've talked to budget and finance about this but I don't I think it nobody felt very comfortable about it. I watched the con consumer price index very very close because it's relative to everything I do. insurance and um interest rates and the cost of eggs and the cost of everything. I think one of the big things that we noticed in sitting down with all these contractors is that the price of buses disproportionately have gone up about 50% versus the consumer price index 20 I think 24%. uh if I remember right over the last four or five years and
177so that's one reason I've kind of advocated pretty hard about a significant you know increase but I I think on the back side you know we hope I think that that the current administration is going to be able to get inflation under control but you know this month's CPI index came out 3.4 four. I really think the doesn't the current contract and somebody answer me. Didn't it wasn't it 53 and three three? Did I remember that right? Is 14 over the life of it? I guess I'm looking back at you, Trey. But it was 53 three. No, 14 over the life of it. Yes. Yeah. So, I just, you know, I think two and a half is probably too too little over the back side. I think it, you know, maybe 17's going to be
178too much on the front side for the county commission to swallow. I don't know. That's just, y'all heard me Thursday night, y'all heard me Thursday night say that that none of them have said that they're going to do some kind of tax increase. I don't, you know, we can send it up there and see what they say. I mean, that's worst thing, I guess, that can happen, but I I think the backside is probably a little little low. That's my That would be my general discussion right now. I I don't want them to be left with 10%. I thought that was too low, but I don't know if I can do 17. Not with not with what's coming down the po and I we don't know how the PR We are definitely going to have
179to do PR zones. There's no way that we are This is We are in a hole, a deep hole, and I don't I I don't know what we we can do. We've got so much coming on us right now and the county commission, we have tried to hold the line. We knew this was coming and we haven't been able to do that. I I I I don't know if I can do 17. Go ahead, Miss Darby. Something that has weighed on my mind a lot. Um I think we all looked into the salary study very deeply. My concern is the conversation that's been going on about the amount of money and and those types of things when it to me feels like when it comes to certain things, everybody's all about spending that money cuz
180those people are worth it. These people are worth it as well and they serve our students as well. And so I think that that's something that shouldn't be overlooked. Um, I also have concerns and and I have brought it up before and I Dr. Sullivan, this is in no way, shape or form. I thought you did a fabulous job when we were at our retreat with you guys cutting a lot of things and and cutting where you can. It comes down to a budget issue and our job is to educate kids from K through 12. That is what we are charged to do. I do think there are probably more places we can cut. I don't know that anybody wants to and I'm not saying that I do. But when you are spending money on
181things you're not required to do and you want to tell people that you can't afford to give them the money they need to continue running their business to serve our students. It's a to me that's just a big conflict. So I think I think 17 is a nice middle ground. I know it's not what you were hoping for and not what you wanted. We don't have endless funds though. I think 17 is probably more than other people would like for us to give because of our budgetary restraints. But I think if that means we have to go back and look at some other things. Is it more important for us to provide transportation for the kids we're required to educate or is it more important to have programs that people enjoy for students who are
182not required to educate among other things? We have a lot of great things in Rutherford County. a lot of programs, a lot of subscriptions, a lot of things that our teachers are utilizing that they love. And I don't want to take those from them. But a lot of these parents don't know how their kids are going to get to school if we don't have bus service. And if the kids aren't in the school, we don't have anybody to provide services to. So to me, it comes down to a budgetary thing. And and sometimes you have to go back through that budget and look at things and kind of place them in a priority order. And maybe that means for a couple years you have to do without some of the extras that we've been fortunate
183enough to have as you build back towards that moving forward while you can. Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I had initially started at 17, but seeing all of the expenses and everything that that they've had, um, I I would like to I would like to see it be more. Um, probably closer to 20%. Uh, but I will not I will not support any PRZ zone and our title schools, period. Miss Maxwell. Yes, Miss uh I I appreciate that. I'm glad we're having discussion about it. I think it's good. Um I want to tell you guys how I got the we I think we could have found a happy medium probably everybody would have been excited about well not excited but everybody probably would have been on board unanimous I I would assume at 15%
184two and a half two and a half two and a half however the reason I went up to 17 is obviously we know that their costs have went up pretty drastically but I want to paint this picture for you real quick. Just just do some math with me right here. So the difference between 15 at the beginning, the last three years are all the same. The difference between the 15 and the 17 is 600,000. That's over four years. So you know, quick math, what is it? $150,000 a year. The assumption is most like like high likelihood that the now with the law in place or amended that the bus cont the the insurance will be included back into the county insurance and bundled as a whole less stan something like Stan mentioned they bundle it
185in separate ways but they're bundling it in with more of the county insurance. Historically, the savings on that versus us paying a stipen each year would be over a million dollar a year. So, the likelihood if we're if we're just saying forget it, RFP, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen years down the road. It's you're avoiding a lot of historical precedent uh on that and the figures. And if I'm off by $500,000, guess what? That's still $500,000 a year in savings year 2, three, and four. And we're only going up 600 over four years, which is 150 a year. So, I mean, to me, the math, it's more it's it's better for us. It's it's better for them. They like it's the coverage they are desiring. It seems extremely likely to
186happen. So, I don't want it to just be painted into a picture that I just randomly went up $600,000 for no reason. No, they they probably, as M. Sharp said, they probably do need more. We do not expect inflation to be at these extreme levels like they have been over the past several years. So, the next contract will probably look a lot different, but where we are currently, let's give them some stuff up front. The significant difference, like I said, it will be covered in the most likeliest of scenarios. Worst case, we're looking to being covered more so in year two to make up the difference of one and two. And then year three and four are likely going to provide additional savings to the county and school board. So that's how I got to
187that conclusion. Any other comments, Miss Maxwell? All right. So, um, I will not be supporting a PRZ and I will give reasons why. However, I'm kind of leaning more with Stan that I think we need to go a little bit low the lower not I think we're too high and we need to increase a little bit more the other years. If you were to do 15% and then increase instead of 2.5 3.5% that will give you almost a 25% increase over time versus 24 and a half%. Between the two from a fiscal perspective, Mr. Tidwells is more friendly for the district. Okay. Yeah. that and I think the reason I brought that up yeah is that I don't want to make any misnomers here that inflation's running three and a half% right now. So the
188the 2 and 1/2 2 and 1/2 2 and 1/2 is probably not going to cover inflation. Uh unless dramat you know unless we go into a recession or something like that and then we go into a recession we won't have thousand kids 1500 kids a year moving into the district. So, we won't have to have as many uh buses or teachers. You know, our expansion won't be as great. So, I I don't know. All of this is subject to county commission funding anyway. You know, as we've said earlier, um I' I've disclosed to y'all the meetings that I've had, you know, with with all the um stakeholders. I guess that would be what I would call them. Uh the stakeholders, the powers that be, whatever. um that you know they fund it. If they don't
189fund it, it all comes back to us anyway. So anyway, we'll have to adjust. I I'm curious, Katie, not to put you on the subject, but um you know, if it does come if the county commission, you know, says y'all got to hold the line, where are we going to cut? What what where would you start? Or do you have not to put you on spot, but just curious right now? You got any ideas? Like I said, I know there are a lot of things that we subscribe to that our teachers use and enjoy, but they're not some of them are not necessities to be able to educate the kids. Um, so you can start with some of those things. I know that it is super popular and I'm not saying that I want to
190get rid of it, but we do have a prek program that we spend at least a half a million dollars a year out of our budget on. And those are kids that we're not charged with educating. I know it's helpful to parents. I know it's helpful to teachers and students, but my job is for us to do what's best for the kids that we're required to educate, which is K through 12. So there are places I think in our budget, and they're not big. They're going to be small, but it could be multiple small places that you pull from to make that bigger amount to help make up some of that difference. Dr. Solomon, Miss Maxwell. Yes, M. How much have we already cut? Um, today I've cut 8 million to get us down to
191get 12 to be 12 million in the hole. Um, I've cut I just sitting here. Brian doesn't even know it yet. Um, lots. I mean, I today I hoped that I was down to 14 million in the hole and I will tell you right now I have I have 6 million plugged in for bus transportation. Um, and 17% is above that. Of course, whatever the board goes with is what is my job to then advocate for. Um, but I believe that we have a June 30th board meeting on the table. I think that that's a possibility. Um, but I will work with our staff. We have we continue to cutting everything I have. The $6 million included that $400,000 I mean the $4,000 sip. Yes, the $6 million did. Yes. Mr. Talk about the prek,
192you know, about cutting that program. That's probably the most beneficial thing we do for kids. If we want to do what's best for kids, you ask any educator out there, you ask anybody and they're going to tell you the value of the prek. So, that's what I'm saying. We got when we look to cut things like that, please look and see what's best for the kids. That's our job. And I'll be honest with you, that's probably the best thing we do in Rutherford County. Every kid should have prek. I'm telling you, it's just success rate. I mean, everything supports it. And uh you know, it you know, we can't fund everything. And we've got to you know, we got to be fair to everybody. And and I mean, that's that's everybody. We got we got
193an obligation to uh to to give a raise to the teachers. You know, we're obligated what two years to be up to 50,000 and we've got to we got to do that and you know um so we've got to make cuts and we got to do things that are prudent and what we can live with and everybody's going to have to hurt a little bit to be honest with you. So Dr. Sullivan, I think it's important whatever the board decides that two things we put in the motion that it is pending county commission approval of our school system budget. And then second, um, county commission does not have line item veto power. So, it would be sending it back the entire budget and would be up to us to then decide what we wanted to
194cut to adjust. So, I have a question, but I anticipate getting it to be able to find a way to get it approved. I mean, that's I hope so. We have a healthy enough fund balance. I know that's a horrible thing to be able to go into, but that's something we need to be united on. So, zealous. Yeah. Okay. So, the $4,000 is is it $1.4 million, correct? So, then you budgeted six million. I lied. I was at five. I didn't lie. I was It's five. And hold on, let me pull it up. I'll tell you what we have in here. Brian, you have it pulled up, too. Give me just a second. And we just have placeholders right now because we had recommended 10 knowing that that was probably low. Um, let me go
195to this big master spreadsheet real quick and you may get to it before I do. transportation amount, the increase Domino's deliver. Brian will be more accurate than I am. He says and have a dinner or something. Are you on the overall increase the transportation right now? Okay, hold on just one second. I have to go to a different tab. You said Dr. Svin we're 12 million in the whole Brian still has us at 14.7 right now but I'm at 12 because I've been cutting things over here. As long as you haven't cut anything in transportation. I have not. It is what I currently have is $5.8 million and that includes new routes from last year's budget. But that would include about 500,000 per year. So we had about 5.3. So that kind of puts it
196in between 15 to 17%. So it's like because I took 5.8 million subtracted 1.4 that leaves 4.4. You subract 500,000 for the 10 new routes. What now? Subtract 500,000 for the 10 new roads. I guess $500. Okay. Five. Okay. So, quick question. Transportation is one of those line items that has to be shared city. The whole thing has to be. So, yes, the whole thing or just the portion dedicated to the whole portion the 141 does. The whole portion 141. So you we're looking at a nickel on the tax rate, right? It's it's a nickel on the tax rate. So you you're going to need to lobby your county commissioners for a tax increase of a nickel. And that's what I started out asking for two months ago that very give me a nickel and
197make this work. Miss Maxwell. Yes. I would also just like to to point out again that yes, all the math that's been done is kind of a more of a worst case scenario, but in a more likely best case scenario, the savings of getting the contractors back onto the county government insurance would be significant, at least $3 million starting from year 2, three, and four. I mean, just based off historical precedents for a long time. So, when we're talking about these figures, yes, I agree. It's 17%. That's a that's a big percentage. 20 I think it's 26% increase over four years. Again, this is not a common contract because we've not had a common run of inflation. So, it's not the standard, but I just want to keep pointing out that this plan really hinges
198greatly on that if it goes back to county insurance, the savings are going to be more significant than the numbers than what we're talking about. So, that's that's why I'm kind of holding that position there. And I'm going to follow that up. I'm going to dive off in this and I said I wasn't tonight. That's a 50/50 at best. Yeah. If and here's why. Tor liability. The county commission and the insurance committee says they will not let us give that up. So I don't see any way around it. But if the powers that be at the courthouse say let's do it. they want to give it up because the numbers I that have been shared with me is that we have paid out almost $5 million in claims this year alone. And the great fear
199that I have for those guys and this body and the taxpayers of this county, I'm driving down Nolanville Road two months ago. just finished an auction and I look up. We've all seen them. Morgan and Morgan, they get more money than anybody else. There's a case that was settled here against a Middle Tennessee company, $72 million. I do not believe that our 21 county commissioners will allow that to go unnoticed and allow this body or any other part of the county to negate that tort liability protection. So, at best, don't convince yourself there's going to be a big savings here because I don't I don't think there is, Caleb. I'm being as straightforward and honest with you as I can. Uh, I said I wasn't gonna dive off in that tonight, but it's that that
200is scary. And you know, and I understand why these guys don't want to carry it. I mean, when you see cases like that, but I mean, you know, if there's a in our armor anywhere, there's insurance, there's uh attorneys, big groups of attorneys that are looking to poke a hole in it. And I'd hate to be the one to sit here and say, you know, because of our actions, you know, there's a$25 $50 million I mean, you know, hell, that's 5% of our budget on one settlement. So, I I I don't I I would not be prudent right now if I didn't caution everybody on that one factor. So, so please don't convince yourself that that's going to come back as a savings because I I don't know. At best, it's 5050 right now. I
201don't I don't think it's 50/50. I think it's probably 9010 because they've already said that uh the carrier wouldn't take it. So, I mean, I don't know who they going to get to buy bite off into it, but it's a lot of money. So, Mr. Rosales is Max. I'm sorry. I um it is a gamble. We're we're banking that we're going to save money and it's not a guaranteed and right now there's been a suggestion to make cuts to the prek program as an example because it's $600,000 because we don't have to fund prek. Well, I don't look at it as something that we don't have to fund prek. I for me in being in the schools I see a noticeable difference of kids that go through prek and go to kindergarten versus kids that
202do not go to prek versus kids that go to prek and go to kindergarten versus kids that do not go to prek and enter in kindergarten. And it is vastly different. Vastly different. And so well I'm talking right now. I've I've allowed a lot of people talk and not and agenda. No one's off of the agenda. We're we're talking about making cuts to positions and staffing and right now I don't I I have been since I've been here for three years in this position all I've done is been trying to figure out how to be creative and generate more revenue for three years. I think I appreciate the board to come alongside some of my some ideas to go to the legislation to figure out some differences with TISA funding and the formula because of
203the way that the BEP versus TISA is changed. We do not get funding now specifically for transportation in the BE compared to TISA. So I've gone to them to ask to make some modifications. There's no appetite right now with the current legislation for whatever reason. and I can't speak for them to make modifications. I thank you board for allowing me to present the idea of bringing a foundation and thank you for approving it. Thank you for Miss Maxwell to helping and create generate a board so that we can use it as a fundraising tool to allow other businesses to mad. I am talking you do not I'm saying stop this is not a point of order. Could you please just bring it back to to I am going to bring it back to you. I'm
204gonna bring it because get there. Yes. Because we right now we're talking about less cut parental zone PRZ. But I'm going to be honest with you, Miss Arby. You own a transportation service. I do not. You do not know. But I'm Roselle. Wait, wait, wait a second. We do not know if that transportation service mad that you're going that is a and not only but I've received an email ro that you order take a recess order I would like a recess please but I think we need to understand why with the provisions we talked about because we not voted on the we voted on these little sections of the contract. We haven't gotten to the PR zones yet. Don't we need to do that first? Yeah, I want to do that first. All right. I
205just want to say I feel very strongly that we need to incorporate personal responsibility zones. Not that I want 5-year-olds walking down busy roads, but I feel like this is something across the state that is the norm. And we've gotten too large and our budget, like I said, we're between 12 and 14 million in the hole now. And it's it's not something I like, but I think it's something that we have to do. Now, I'll shut up. I think it's important. I just wanted to clarify. So, like when I'm talking about cutting the difference between the two of us, I'm over here taking like a $100,000 out of medical insurance in different lines, which will impact like next year's offerings for medical insurance. Okay. 50,000 out of textbooks, um 40,000 out of those are where
206I'm making cuts from. So, it's not like I just frivolously going through and removing a million dollars here and a million. Wish that I wish that was here. So, sorry. That's okay. Yes, M. So, um, we have the sheet. So, looking at the sheet, Dr. Sullivan, we have a $13 million deficit, but these charter allocations will come back to us in October. We're looking at part of that money from this one that you gave us. Are we not looking at part? No. And those will not that those are actual students. So, after that first year, those are their students they'll actually receive. So that will go to them directly, right? But it's we don't we no longer have the children. Correct. So that come that that money goes to them directly. So those allocations are
207out of our budget. So we receive not included in this. We receive NRISA um funding. So 300 and I think it's at the very top 360 366 366 and then when it actually is allocated to us they take the funding for Rutherford Collegiate Prep off for those students that they serve this year and so they served 400 is it 419 roughly that today. So they will get that money directly from coming off of us and which is fine because they serve those students rightfully so. And then for the students that are served under American Classical in Springs, we at the county finance department write um cut checks to them. So these are actual students that existed this year. So would the true up be just the the new one? Yeah, just the new grades. So
208we've got we've got $500,000 in coming back in October if they true up the same. Correct. No, we won't still not receive funding for that till the next year. Okay. I thought I thought that we discussed the other night that we haven't seen that law yet. So that was news to me. I have not seen that yet. I was wrong. I looked it up. It did pass in one of the chambers, but it's still waiting to pass in another chamber because I went back to check and make sure that it was and it but the true up is that it's just going to the the way it's going to be divided is still coming from the total number based on enrollment for the year before but the funding is going to be split before it
209comes to us. What is O? So that the 8.7 and the 397 like there's no issue. Those are students that are served this year that is generated for the three schools. No issue whatsoever. Those are kids that are there right now. It just for some reason TISA includes it in our number they send to us even though it's a separate the charter commission is a separate LEA. I have no idea why it's included. It just is. No clue. Mr. Vaughn, you originally had a motion and I seconded it of personal responses instituting personal responsibility zones K through 5 for a mile and 6 through 12 for mile and a half for everyone. Save $3 million. Yeah. Let's do a roll call vote, please. Whoa, whoa. Go ahead. I got to amend it. Okay. Um, and
210and I think this is a legitimate request. I had a neighbor of mine call today and he's blind. He can't drive his kid to school and he lives 9/10 from last cases. So, I would offer a motion or an amendment that any parent that is, forgive me if I state this wrong, Jeff, legally handicapped I don't know exactly what I'm looking for here. The termin I don't want anybody gaming the system, but but I mean this guy he he can't drive. So how does he get his kid to school? So I I would offer an amendment that anybody that's legally handicapped or disabled. Yeah. Disabled. Is that what I want? That's what I'm looking disabled for guidance. Yeah. So, any person with a disability, not I don't know how we do that, but how do
211how do I phrase that? Because I'm not talking about special ed or anything like that. I'm not talking about the kids. I'm talking about the parents where the parent or guardian has a disability preventing them from providing transportation. Yeah, that's what I'm after. Butch, would you like to He he just she just so eloquently stated that your Yeah. You know, I think that person sort of following the uh special ed, wouldn't he? He won't because the student doesn't have it. Yeah. I mean, we could we could put them on the bus just like they are. I think that's good. Would you you you accept that in your motion or you want me? He said yes. He said yes. Okay. And I'll second. Yes. Okay. Good deal. Okay. Thank you. So, can you read that back
212to us, please? I'm sorry. Okay. So this will be motion um to initiate a PRZ for K5 one mile 612 for 1.5 miles for everyone with the exception of a parent or guardian who has a disability preventing them from proving yes that sounds good. Okay, any comments or question before we vote? I got to make one more statement. I know y'all tired of hearing me talk though this week. Um I almost I know this is not popular, but I think with this significant pay increase, and I'm not saying drivers don't deserve it. That's not what I'm saying. But I think for any of this to I'm going to say something real ugly right here. For any of this to stand a snowballs chance in hell of getting passed through the county commission, we better do
213this because this is this is a $3 million savings right here. And that takes care of about half of what we just spent tonight. So, you know, my vision starting at the beginning of all this was that, you know, maybe the bus drivers don't get exactly what they want. Maybe the taxpayers have to pitch in a little bit. Maybe we've got to do some things that we don't necessarily want to. But as Caleb or one of y'all said down there on the other end, that we've all pulled together tonight to try to make this happen. and and this is a unifying voice uh for once and that just tells you how important I think all of us believe this is. I'll second that as well, Miss Maxwell. Yes, Mr. Rosales. I will not be supporting
214PRZ because um for safety reasons, there is infrastructure that is not conducive to for children to walk. I'm going to use one school, Browns Chapel. There's no sidewalks there at all. It's on a country road. It's going to be very difficult for kids to walk home in in ele elementary grades to get to there. Second of all, I do have concerns that there could be some personal conflicts here because it hasn't been disclosed what are the terms of agreement of something that a business that was sold because this is going to benefit a third party transportation service as well. Mr. Tidwell, Dr. Sullivan. Um, if this were I'll tell you I'm on the borderline of it, but I'm just thinking through this what it might look like. We have after school programs, correct? I'm thinking
215about not at all of our schools, but I think it there is the ability to expand that partnership. Um, the Y is only at some schools. It used to be at more schools. Um, it has dwindled. Boys and Girls Club, Smyrna, and Murphy'sboro have after school care. Um there's opportunities there, but as a district there's not a there's definitely opportunities, but it would be up to those entities to increase, but the potential for Yes. Okay. Because I'm thinking two working parents here. I'm just working this through my both of my parents' work. U would it be possible and what would it look like maybe know from a financial standpoint um to expand the drop off portion? So for instance, parents, uh, what is the typical drop off time for elementary school? What's the early 45
2166:45? Is it possible to bring that back even a little bit further? We would need to pay a stipen in your house. Look, I mean, I'm just talking. Oh, we don't have we don't have that. Um, we're already well above the city of what we open our doors for in some places. And so we're now we're offsetting some potential savings with increasing cost for another area. I got you. But I totally totally understand. Madam Chair. Sure. Thank you. Um I I will not be supporting it if it includes the titles uh which all the titles are up in the Lever and Smyrna area. Uh when my son was at Steuart's Creek and I worked downtown, I had to be downtown at 8:00. Even if I was the first mother or car rider in the line,
217it was still very difficult for me to get downtown by 8:00. It's impossible. It's impossible anymore for you to go up 24 uh and leave at 6:30 in the morning or 6:00 and be downtown Nashville. It's impossible. And I I we do need to try to move some things around with the PRZ. maybe a half a mile for the elementary and a mile for the um high schools, but don't include the titles because um it's it's it's impossible. We're we're putting parents in a in a really bad situation. And I know everybody needs to give a little bit, but we've got to find a happy medium with that. But I will not be supporting the PRZ's as long as the title schools are involved. Okay. Can we go ahead and vote, please? We're voting the
218amendment. You restate. Yes. Okay. Let's see. This is the motion to initiate PRZ K through 5 for one mile, 6 through 12 for 1.5 miles for everyone with the exception where a parent or guardian has a disability preventing them from getting their child to school. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Mr. VA. Yes. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mrs. Darby, yes. Miss Sharp, no. Mr. Tidwell, no. Mrs. Rosales, no. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Majority passes. Okay. Next we move on to the cola increase salary table. So this is the cola increase which sorry. Oh, you need to do the whole contract. Sorry. We do have the bus contract itself, the whole document that was attached to your appendix there. So the board needs to consider approving that contract which would incorporate the terms of the earlier motions tonight. would incorporate
219everything that we just agreed to. Okay. I'm sorry. Let's go ahead and Well, I was going to say, do do we have to I mean, I thought what we were doing was just simply budgetary kind of waiting maybe till we got the P the U RFP back or something like that. Do you think we need to vote on the contract itself tonight? It's not going to be signed till the end of June, right? Middle of June or something. You be signed by July 1. Yeah. I mean, whenever we get funding, but we won't. When's the county commission meet filing? June 23rd. June 23rd. 23rd. So really, I mean, we just Whoop. I'm sorry. It's got to be signed prior to cutting a check for insurance. Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Which is going to be
220earlier than you think, right? Dr. Sullivan, I just I think the latest would be maybe the May 15th. I think that portion would be okay for the rest of it. Um because we need to go ahead and see where contractors are because we will need to potentially if our contractors aren't happy with where it is, we need to initiate some other things on our own. All right. Can we can you give us an updated version and then us vote on it that meeting and and make sure that cuz I I've lost track of all the adjustments we've made. Will that work for you and work for them? And then then we can plug the numbers in and we know where we are. I can do that. Yes. What do you think? I'm here to administer
221what you approve. Why? I always keep looking over to you. I don't know why I look at you. You're just such a handsome fellow. I guess I don't Thank you. If if if that's the if that's okay with the rest of the board, let's Yeah. I would say that if we're going this direction with the insurance contractors should at least start talking to agents about getting insurance in not wait till May 15th. Yes. Because if anything needs to be done on that, they need to be ahead of the game on that. Okay. Okay. So, we don't need to vote on that. Okay. So, we'll move on to the 2526 cola increase salary table. Our recommendation, we talked about this the other night, is a 2.5% increase. Um, and then the next year between 1 and
222a half and 2 and 1/2 depending on where we are budget-wise. And I know some people have asked me, can we do more? Um, I'm ask I know I want to support our staff. Please, from a budgetary standpoint, please don't. Whoops. You need a motion for approval with that 2.5%. So moved. Second. Seconded by Mr. Tidwell. I've lost my mail. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Okay. Do we have anything under Tennessee legislative or the federal? Y'all have listened to me enough tonight. Okay. Do we have anything under general discussion? Oh, yes. Jazz Fest. Yes. Jazzfest. Jazzfest. Jazzfest. tomorrow night all day Saturday uh because of the threat of thunderstorms it's been moved to Oakland Middle the same times and everything Jazzfest is the Facebook page and all the scheduling and
223everything is out there and thank you to um Mr. Decker for hosting us. Uh over there being Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. And please come out and support these kids cuz they are uber uber talented. They're going to be it's going to be a phenomenal show. And please stay just because your kids aren't on the stage. Please stay. Yep. Okay. Go ahead. Just just a reminder, we have a policy meeting at 5:00 on Tuesday and then um health and education at 5:30 on Tuesday as well. So either myself or Dr. Martin depending on how we're moving and we started talking to principles about cell phone policy yesterday already. So is there anything else? There was something and I cannot remember. Did I tell you? I didn't tell you. Okay. Well, it's not evidently
224it's not important. I'll bring it up next time. So, life or death. All right. Mr. Thank y'all's patience with this for me tonight. I feel kind of responsible for it. But anyway, thank all of y'all. Move to journ. We'll adjourn.