001board meeting for the Rutherford County School System. We will be opening the meeting with a brief moment of silence or prayer and the pledge of allegiance 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. Miss Sharp. Thank you, Madam Chair. Heavenly Father, we thank you today again today for this beautiful weather. Sustain and make whole those who were touched by last week's storms. As we enter TCAP testing time, give our teachers supernatural energy and strength. Protest protect our testing systems and let the them perform perfectly perfectly like never before. We ask for us to people to remember the Nixon family and the Blackman and their loss of their father who was the first principal at
002N Blackman High School. We ask for you to bless and protect student services and the central offices. And last but surely not least, please be with Dr. Sullivan and his family tomorrow as he has a procedure in the hospital. We ask for quick recovery with no complications and so he can come back and be with the rest of us. We thank you for all these things in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. I allegiance 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. [Music] First up, we have the approval of the agenda. Any comments or questions? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion
003passes. Next, we have the approval of the consent agenda. Any comments or questions? I entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second. Thank you, Miss Sharp. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Next we have Rutherford Proud. All right, we have math specialist Dr. Kyle Prince and Melinda Fleer from the Rutherford County Schools Instruction Department. They're going to present the winning entries and students from the annual Desmos math contest which includes students from both middle and high school. And I believe Dr. Prince, what year is this for us doing this? Four. I thought it was four or five. Yeah. Before we get into Desmos competition, we also wanted to honor our winners of the high school math competition yesterday. Thank you. Um we we have uh at MTSU every year we we compete
004with the schools from around our area including uh people like Independence, Nolanville, things like that. So uh we had a lot of winners yesterday and we wanted to honor those and we have a few here with us tonight. Uh it was kind of a last second because it was yesterday. In algebra 1, we had Jaden Hang from CMS uh Central Magnet School. in geometry. Third place we had Saka Thermali and he is here. Saka, come on [Applause] up. In algebra 2, Jason Lynn from Central Magnet School. In pre-calculus, in first place, John Gamble from Central Magnet School. And in third place, Aiden Haynes from Blackman High School, calculus. In second place, Elijah Bower from Central Magnet School. And statistics, we took the whole show there. First place, Jacob Anderson from Central Magnet School. Second place,
005Benjamin Shu from Central Magnet School. And Lucas Bevelin from Rubido High School. So, congratulations to all of our winners. And before you keep going, I became a math teacher because of that same competition that they used to have at MTSU. So, it's been it's a great competition. Yes, it is. The the middle school competition will take place tomorrow. So, we were hoping to be able to recognize our middle school winners if the board meeting is tomorrow night. We completely understand they had to change. So, we expect and anticipate to have lots of awards and winners tomorrow, too. Um, and I'm sure our communications department will share out about both the middle school and high school students. We had several middle school students in place in the top 10 for algebra 1. Middle school kids already
006taking algebra 1 yesterday. So, that was really exciting. We'll have more winners tomorrow, I think. And then next up, and what we're most excited about is the Desmos Art Competition. And we want to thank our sponsors, the Redstone Federal Credit Union and MTSU for helping with our prizes for this competition. Uh, every year we've done this for like the last four or five and it really just to get students to u be able to learn the calculator as well as learn how math and art can be combined to create some really beautiful things. And so we want to start with our teacher winners. In second place, Samantha Garcia from Stewart's Creek High School. And this is her artwork that she did. All of that is done with equations and math. So, it's really cool what
007she did there. And in first place, for the third or fourth time, fifth fifth time, Jonathan Anderson from Stewart's Creek High [Applause] School. And for our student projects in um the honorable mention, we have Vicky Yang from or sorry, Madison Sample from Central Magnet School. In sixth place, Vicky Yang from Blackman High [Applause] School. Every one of those dots is a circle. The equation of a circle is used to create each one of those. Pretty cool. In fifth place, Heidi McDaniel from Central Magnet School. In fourth place from Blackman High School, Zanadra Zingzong. And in third place, and he was this this one was our winner for the last couple years, Colin Sullivan from Stewart's Creek High School was third place. And this is the first one. You can see it's animated where the the
008plane going across there and everything. All that's done with math equations. Pretty cool. In second place, Zoe Boston from Central Magnet School. And in first place, please give it up for Marshall Thompson from Riverdale High School. So, he created a Tetris game and he's got his Tetris shirt on, but all those buttons are clickable and it rotates and flips and it's like a it's a full operational game in Desmos all using math equations. So, I don't know how many hours you spend on that, but it's pretty awesome. So, sign him up. Yes. And the Oh, yeah. And a special recognition from MTSU. We have a $500 scholarship from MTSU for Marshall. And he'll be attending there. Thank you. That is something. You ready? I'm ready. Good. All right. We've got something special for you all
009tonight. John, would you mind switching over, please? Um, one thing that's not on the agenda, but still falls under Rutherford Proud. I think you guys have met before, Milan Raglin Hudgens and Barton Henley, who are in the communications department. Uh, we've been working on something for the past couple of months, and they did a ton of work on this, but this is a new promotional video. Oh, wow. For Rutherford County Schools, and this is the first time it's been shown to anybody except for Dr. Sullivan and a few others. So, we want to show that tonight. It's going to premiere worldwide uh in a few days. This is the soft launch. So, here we go. Hang on a second. There's no sound. Programs and passionate educators who inspire success with a strong At Rutherford County
010Schools, we're shaping the future with cutting edge classrooms, award-winning programs, and passionate educators who inspire success. With a strong sense of community, a track record of high performance, and a commitment to excellence, RCS is the premier choice for preK through 12 education. With a graduation rate of 97.2%, Rutherford County Schools offers a wide array of opportunities for students to gain the knowledge, skills, confidence, and industry certifications to be prepared for college or the workforce. Located in the heart of Middle Tennessee, Rutherford County Schools is a thriving and fast growing district approximately 30 mi southeast of Nashville. The district's enrollment has grown by 20,000 students in more than 20 schools over the past two decades. Today, Ruther County Schools boasts more than 52,000 students in 52 campuses, making it the fourth largest district in Tennessee. As
011the district grows, what hasn't changed is the commitment to excellence for all students. Rutherford County Schools has been recognized as a level five district by the Tennessee Department of Education for student growth for five consecutive years. The district works to take an individualized approach, investing in every student every day. The district provides more than 220 early post-secondary opportunities and 75 industry certifications. Our schools connect to their communities with regular academic showcases and community partnerships. With more than 6,000 employees, educators take part in various programs designed to enhance classroom instruction and prepare them for leadership roles along with enriched educational programs. Weather County Schools students compete and frequently win state championships and national awards in athletics, fine arts, robotics, and skill-based competitions. It's just another way we provide strong schools, strong students, and a strong community.
012All right. If you have any criticisms, um, Barton did a ton of the editing on that. Uh, in fact, I think he did pretty much all the editing on that. Milan shot a lot of the video, wrote the script for that. Uh, and this they all did a lot of work. But if you have any criticisms, please direct it towards them. They're here. So, awesome job. Yes. Good job. Yes. Thank you so much. All right. Any feedback? Looks amazing. Great. That's what we want to hear. Thank you. Good job. Thank you, James. Next, we have public comment. First up, we have Alan Youungren. Yes, there are 10. Ladies and gentlemen of the board, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today on my son's behalf. Um, for the last couple of years, I've
013been trying to get my son down here with me, but it's been to no avail till most recently. In front of you, you probably got a docket with his information on it. He's a transfer student from Illinois. Um there was a case brought against him up there unfortunately. And the fact that this type of stuff happens still today is is appalling. Um the case has been dismissed. It's been thrown out. Um no no evidence and there was a video that was recorded for the state's attorney that it was all in for attention. So they dropped it immediately. They're no longer pursuing. And I have that paper here if you want to see it just in case. Um I do apologize for taking up some time of this. I know everybody's got things to do. Um,
014and please forgive me a little nervous, but I just I want him to have the opportunity for that tomorrow's possibilities. The investing in him. He's a good kid. You know, he's caused a little bit of trouble. What What kid has it outside of what happened up there for that? It minor scrapes and burns in the process of his education. He's a smart kid. He's very athletic. I know he'd be a great asset to Rutherford County. You guys got that video was correct. You guys got to probably one of the I wouldn't even say the state, probably the nation. I've been around. I've been in Colorado. I've been in Florida. I've been in Illinois. I've been here. This is why I chose here. You know, the Constitution, the people, God, the whole nine. That's why I
015chose here. U this is why I wanted to bring my son down here, and I finally got the opportunity to do so. Uh but again, the case has been dismissed. And when we tried to go back in front of the board up there that he got it, he expelled cuz he expelled him over that. When we tried to go back up there to uh get the expulsion lifted after the case was dismissed, they wouldn't even allow us to speak. They didn't give us any opportunity to say anything. It was closed doors. We weren't allowed to say anything and they just they just denied it across the board again. So for me, like it's why punish him for something that he didn't do. And well, I mean, that's that's pretty much the case. I'm pretty much
016what I'm trying to do is is plead to the board to to give him a shot. Just, you know, invest in him at least a little bit. Give him a chance to prove himself. Um, don't let what you see on that paperwork, you know, decide 100%. Like, give give him an opportunity. My name is Allan. I forgot that part to introduce myself. My son's name is Jackson. Um, if that helps as far as what case you're going to be looking at moving forward. But again, you know, I every I believe every father needs sorry, every son needs his dad, you know, to teach them to be a man to to to really kind of grow as an individual, put him in the right path, put in the right direction. I haven't had that opportunity in
017the last few years and I it probably reflects on his on his report there. Um, but that's not him. That's just that's just a lost kid. So, thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Melissa ECM. Okay. Next, we have Hannah Falner. All righty. Thank you all so much uh for coming out here tonight. I know there's been some comments made about the uh bill, the resolution that was passed about prayer being implemented into the school before the the the before the school board meetings. And uh for all the naysayers saying that this is an infringement on the separation of church and state, it's ironic that the same people saying that are the ones that uh forced us to close down our churches and keep strip clubs and bars and casinos open. Uh but nevertheless, the
018separation of church and state, which was mentioned by Thomas Jefferson uh in one of his speeches, was specifically to protect the church from state influence, which was the reason why we left England in the first place, was to get away from a state sponsored religion. Uh but number one, that is not mentioned in any of our founding documents. Uh number two, our nation is a nation founded on biblical principles. We are a constitutional republic. 26% of political quotes me mentioned in our constitution is comes directly out of scripture. The three branches of government comes from the book of Isaiah. Many other agencies and parts of our government come from scripture. The most quoted book from our founding fathers was the Bible by 34%. I can assure you all that if the Bible if our founding
019fathers were not religious, were not faithfilled men, uh they definitely would not make the the Bible one of their most quoted books. Uh John Adams said, "Our Constitution was created for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. And the reason why I think the Democratic Party and the left and many of those here in Rutherford County that are so up in arms about prayer being implemented before schoolboard meetings is because our constitution, our nation was not created for immoral people. This nation is not a Muslim nation. This nation is not a Hindu nation. This is a Christian nation founded upon biblical principles. And if you don't want Christian prayer being uh prayed before a schoolboard meeting, well then you can move to Iran. you can move to
020another country. It is very simple. We will not back down. And another thing that I hear mentioned uh is that if we are banning pornographic and explicit books from the libraries and we should ban the Bible. The clear difference between the pornographic books is that they are endorsing pornographic behavior. The Bible does not condone sex outside of marriage. The Bible does not condone incest. Actually, it is condemned. And it is a it is a sign of God's judgment on this nation that we are even having these conversations. And I say that as a 17-year-old here today uh that is graduating with my bachelor's degree in April. I've done plenty of research on this and I encourage you all to do the same about this nation's founding. And we are indeed founded upon biblical principles. I
021hope you guys have a great day. God [Applause] bless. Please no clapping. Uh the next speaker is Miss Heather Cook. Hello and thank you once again for allowing me to speak. Um I would like to thank you all for voting to reinstate the practice of beginning these meetings with prayer and the other steps that you're taking to stand for the truth on behalf of the children. As you all know, I am a firm believer in and an advocate for prayer, the word of God, and Jesus my Lord. I want to maximize every opportunity that I'm given to invite everyone I possibly can to know him and to continue to spread the good news to everyone that you know. As I said before, I want to express my sincere gratitude for your decision to bring prayer
022back to these meetings. Prayer is simply inviting the creator of all things into whatever situation we encounter or decision we need wisdom or guidance in making. And who better can we seek wisdom and guidance than the creator of the universe? The Lord tells us in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that if we who are called by his name will humble ourselves and pray and turn from our wicked ways, he will hear from heaven, forgive our sins, and heal our land. If you turn on the news for just a second, you recognize that our land, our nation, and our world is in desperate need of healing. The nation has been a blessed nation because it was founded on the our founding father's belief in the sovereignty of God, our creator, and the Christian principles taught in the Bible.
023I know some may say, "What about the separation of church and state?" But that was intended to keep the government from trying to control the church, not keep the church out of the government. Of the 55 men who formed the Constitution, 50 52 were active members in their church. Just to name a few, George Washington said, "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God in the Bible, and that we cannot have national morality without godly principles." Patrick Henry said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ." Noah Webster, who has been called the father of American scholarship and education, could literally quote the Bible chapter and verse. So obviously the
024father of education recognized the need for God and prayer in our nation and in our schools to educate future generations in the importance of involving God in our lives. There is an obvious battle between good and evil in the world in which we live and in our personal lives on a daily basis. Every day we encounter situations in which we need the wisdom of the word of God and prayer and communication with him to direct our path. Every day we make decisions based on our morals. It reminds me of the cartoon I'm sure we've all seen that depicts a character of an angel and a demon sitting on each side and they're whispering in your ear like which way are you going to go? The depiction dates back to 140 AD. So the knowledge of
025good and evil influencing our choices and the existence of the battle between good and evil is not a new thing. But spoiler alert, I read the end of the book, Good Triumphs over Evil. The victory has already been won. We as Christians are called to stand for the truth and overcome evil with good. So once again, I thank you so much for standing for godly principles in the face of opposition. God bless you all. Next up, we have Miss uh Barbara Dilman. Good evening. In the past, I have come to pray for you. However, tonight I'm coming to speak to you. While I continue to pray for you both individually and collectively, I wanted to come to thank you for your recent decision to begin these meetings with prayer. You've made the best decision possible
026to help bring a calm, clear decision-making presence into these most important meetings. This is not just my opinion. On October 14th, 2021, I spoke at a schoolboard meeting. Some of you were there and you may remember that. If not, go back into the archived meetings and watch that section. It was highly charged and many speakers were arguing loudly both for and against what they believed at the time to be a life and death decision that had come before the board. One speaker refused to relinquish the lectern when her time was up and after being asked repeatedly to sit down, had to be escorted by security from the room while another filmed the foray. I was the last speaker who followed that scene. I began to pray and a tangible feeling of peace fell over the
027room. A presence of calmness and yet power. When I finished praying, order was restored and the meeting continued. The effect was unmistakable, undeniable. So much so that after the meeting adjourned, a reporter came to talk to me about it, asking me why I would do that. The next day, in his news story, he reported that mine was the most powerful voice in the room. He was wrong in that assessment. It was not my voice. It was not my persona, not even my words, but the power of prayer demonstrated publicly when we humbly come before an almighty, all- knowing creator God and ask him to give us wisdom, guidance, and direction in decisions that quite honestly are too big for us to handle on our own. When we pray, we're inviting the one who knows the
028future and is guiding it to come into the meeting. There is no resource or entity that can do that. A better question would be why would we not pray? I'm so grateful to you for having the insight and wisdom and courage to begin these meetings with this amazing gift. Yours is a thankless task of mammoth proportion. However, you've decided to access a resource that will make it much less so. May God bless you, strengthen you, give you his wisdom, discernment, and grace as you continue to make decisions for our children, staff, and schools. Thank you. Next up, we have Reverend Joy Warren. Good evening. I'm here on behalf of our local chapter of Public School Strong. We're a national network of ordinary people working for honest, equitable, safe, and fully funded public education so that
029every child can thrive in highquality public schools in their communities. This legislative session, we've been following many bills that would impact public education, and we're very concerned about House Bill 793 and Senate Bill 836. This bill would permit district and charter schools to disenroll students without documentation and exempt those families from complying with truency laws. Schools may charge those students tuition to be readmitted. Much of the debate on this issue centers on undocumented students being expensive to educate due to the cost of English learner education. However, we know that while there are an estimated 10,000 undocumented students in Tennessee schools, we have more than 87,000 English learners enrolled. More than 2/3 of English learners are in Tennessee are US citizens. Also, we must accept the fact that all people residing in Tennessee pay taxes regardless
030of their status. The American Immigration Council estimates the amount undocumented immigrants pay in taxes in Tennessee is over $900 million. The sponsor of this bill acknowledged that due to a provision of the voucher bill, any students who are disenrolled will not result in a decrease in funding for the LEA. So, the cost actually will not go down. In fact, he suggested it was good news that schools would receive the same amount of funding but have fewer students to spend it on. As a faith leader, I was in complete shock as I watched this exchange in the committee. A school can reject a student, keep the money they received to educate her, and charge her family $7,000 to read her. This is wrong. Over 200 pastors across the state have signed a letter to our legislators
031declaring our opposition. The logistics and cost involved in tracking down documents and employing immigration attorneys for compliance are injurious to our schools. We hope you will join Murphy'sboro City Schools and adopt a resolution or otherwise proclaim you will not eject students from our schools or charge them tuition if this bill becomes law. Thank [Applause] [Music] you. Next, we have Lindsay Schultz. Hello, school board members. Once again, some of you board members are allowing racist, homophobic, and a love of censorship to rear its ugly head in the school board. I've spoken numerous times begging you not to ban books that represent the amazingly beautiful experience called the human experience. Instead, you want to whitewash absolutely everything from existence unless it falls in love with your beloved Christian nationalism. Every time that you ban a book, you're
032telling people that they don't matter and shouldn't exist. You're telling the LGBTQIA community that they are not loved. You're telling people of color that they are not wanted here. I do not know how to get you to understand that like Jesus Christ who cared about everybody regardless that you guys have to care about people. I I don't know what to do to get you to understand that you should care about everybody even those who are different from you. Trying to learn and understand the world around you and appreciate its diversity and beauty should not be this hard. And since some of you guys like to throw the Bible at us and judge us and condemn us and banish us and overall show hatred towards us, let me offer these thoughts. My command is this. Love
033each other as I had loved you. John 15:12. Banning books about divergent cultures and trying to remove them from society shows hate, not love. What would Jesus think about your behavior? Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of law. If you are following Christ's law, why don't you try and love your neighbor instead of banning books that might help you know and accept them. So, it seems to me that you're breaking Jesus's commandment by showing your hate and being unkind to your neighbor. Also, God gave you free will. Why don't you use it? Stop removing books and just be an adult and don't read the book. Parent your child. Monitor what they are reading. If you don't want them to read, have a discussion with them and parent them and
034say no. I say no to my kid all the time and she's fine. You don't get to tell me how I raise my kid. I don't get to tell you how to raise your children. We should be allowed to access whatever books we want to read from whatever place that we can without religious zealatry interfering. So, just to be clear, because I'm pretty sure you guys are going to ban all the books anyway. Um, you guys are great disappointment to us in Rutherford County. I'm not even really sure why we're all here because this is supposed to be a democratic republic in which citizens should be allowed to weigh in and make a difference when this is actually a dictatorship of you guys. So, when we get sued for violating civil rights, I'd like to
035know who's going to pay that because I don't have the money. And also, I know that we still have a school who has a mold problem and a heating and air conditioning problem. So, I would like to know why we're banning books instead of fixing school systems. No clapping, please. Next, we have Judy Whiteall. My name is Judy Whiteill, retired teacher. I'm so sorry, White Hill. Okay. And I will again ask each of you to accept the recommendations of the RCS media specialists for the books you'll be considering this evening. Since there are only so many different ways to state my concern, I want to spend the remainder of my time on another very important issue. There's currently a bill in the Tennessee General Assembly that will give the local school board the option to
036refuse to enroll any child whose citizenship is in question. This has to be the most heartless and punitive legislation that's ever been promoted in our state. House Bill 793 and Senate Bill 836 even go so far as to stipulate that a school system could charge tuition that would then allow these students to be enrolled. The the sponsors state that the enrollment of immigrant children is a financial drain on state resources. I find it not only ironic but maddening that the very legislators who voted for a multi-million dollar voucher scheme to transfer public school dollars to private schools have the nerve to utter words like financial drain. I've already called both my state senator and representative to express my concern and yes outrage and I would like to ask each of the board members here to
037do the same and I've made copies that you can look for your representative and your state senator. It has their phone number. You're in a unique position to personally reach out to them and while speaking with them please take the opportunity to share the Rutherford County school systems mission which is investing in every student every day. Should state funding come up while you're speaking and they use this funding as a reason, remind them about a popular adage that says, "If you think education is expensive, consider the cost of ignorance." You were elected to represent all constituents in your district. And this is the most critical issue that will have a harmful impact on our children. If this horrible bill does happen to pass, I hope and pray that the Rutherford County School Board will continue
038to enroll all students and refuse to consider any fee or tuition cost. All students have the right to a free and appropriate public education. It would be wonderful if you as a board would draft a resolution like the city did last night showing your continued support for all students. And I will conclude by asking this question. How can we teach our children the importance of kindness, acceptance, and inclusion when we allow adults in leadership positions to promote hate and divisiveness? This is a time to show that our community believes in unity and compassion. Please oppose all efforts to deny children at a as a at a public school education. As caring adults, parents, grandparents, and neighbors, it's incumbent upon us to demonstrate human qualities and to support and educate all children. Amen. Next, we have
039Angela [Music] Frederick. Good evening, school board members. My name is Angela Frederick and I'm a resident of Smyrna. I have been here several times before asking you not to remove books from our school libraries. Obviously, you're not concerned with violating any student or teacher first amendment rights. So, instead, I would like to focus on how your actions violate several aspects of RCS board policy 1.2021, which is titled Boardmanship Code of Conduct. The policy states, "I will seek to provide equal education opportunities for all children." You have violated this policy by removing several books that are featured on the AP College Board exams, which puts RCS students at a disadvantage compared to their peers in other counties and states. The policy also states, "I will represent at all times the entire school community and refuse to
040represent special interests or partisan politics." You are in violation of this through your willingness to hijack the limited time that this board has to address the needs of RCS and instead wasting time and money reviewing and removing library books because you read about them on the Moms for Liberty website. Speaking of wasting taxpayer time and money, let's do a word problem together. To date, you have either removed or reviewed approximately 140 books. If we assume it takes 10 hours total for one book to be challenged by a board member, read and reviewed by a librarian, and then discussed again at a board meeting, then you have wasted 1,400 hours in the pursuit of censorship. That is the equivalent of 58 days. That's 58 days where you haven't been focused on issues that really matter to
041the residents of Rutherford County like school safety, academic excellence, teacher retention, and many more. We, your constituents, are asking you to move on from wasting our time and get back to work making RCS the best public school district in the state of Tennessee. Thank you. Lastly, we have Elizabeth Shepard. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you all again tonight. I'm here as a Blackman High School parent and also a school librarian. As a librarian that teaches classes all day long and also manages a collection of about 15,000 books, I still spend a fair amount of time analyzing data. Any educator can tell you that data is essential when charting a plan forward and invaluable when assessing past behavior. If my math is correct tonight, you're set to make decisions on the last of
042a very long list of challenge books. Unfortunately, according to the trends, it is highly likely that the recommendations of our librarians will continue to be ignored. Instead of using my time tonight to repeat what I and many others have said for months in support of our books at our libraries, I'd like to take a look at what this book banning stunt has cost Rutherford County Schools and how we can learn from this as the board makes plans moving forward. So, what has this cost us? Countless hours lost out of their work days for librarians to track down and remove challenged books. Thousands of dollars in books removed from middle and high school libraries, lowering the bookto student ratio even further than it currently is. Extreme division to a level I have never witnessed in our
043community. Tens of thousands of dollars spent in stipens to our library experts for their book evaluations. Evaluations with the majority of the board ignored over 95% of the time. Board members, you may have felt a sense of relief knowing that tonight was coming, that the last of these books would be decided on and this frustrating and time-consuming period would be over. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in all these months, you have done nothing to prevent something like this from happening again. You continue to put off amending board policy to close the loophole that allowed over 150 books to be challenged all at once by one person and then immediately removed. There's nothing stopping this very thing from happening again and again. You've each spent time speaking words of support for
044our school librarians, praising them for a job well done. I would personally like to thank Mr. VA and Miss Maxwell for using uh for demonstrating that support through your voice and vote during this process. As the entire board looks to the future, I would ask that you each consider the following options to back up those supportive words with supportive actions. Continue hiring highly qualified, certified librarians with master's degrees. Provide them with the funds needed to further their training and education by attending library specific professional development and conferences. Raise the amount of money per student allotted to our libraries so the bookto student ratio can continue to trend upward and our students have adequate amounts of books to choose from and close that loophole in board policy allowing for outrageous amounts of book challenges and return
045to the common sense methods that have worked in our county for years. Thank you. Thank you. Next up we have legal. And so we will start with transfer student under discipline number one and it's labeled number one in the files. The board has been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. The student was expelled for making a mass threat. According to policy 6.318, the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student transfers from another school system while under suspension or expulsion. Director of schools recommendation is to deny. Thank you, Mr. Second. Thank you, Mr. Tidwell. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number two, the board's been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. The
046student 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 transfers from another school system under suspension or expulsion. Director of school's recommendation is to deny. Thank you, Mr. Madam Chair. Yes, Miss Darby Monica, I don't know if this is a question for you or who, but is it possible to delay this and ask Miss Ridley to look into um what the gentleman spoke about with the expulsion being the reason for the expulsion being tossed? Any options are open? So, it's my understanding the expulsion was not tossed. the criminal um investigation was dismissed. What would you like to do, Mr. Darby? Well, I think Mr. Mr. Bomb put him on the floor before I Yes, he did. Or
047we called for comment. So, did we did anybody was Mr. Vaughn seconded? Okay. Okay. Comments. Any more comments? Yes, Mr. Tipple. Yeah, I would like to u if there would be a reconsideration. So, I mean it sounds like we have some new evidence here. I know we can't talk a lot about this stuff publicly. So, just to postpone to the next meeting if you guys are open to that. Was were you making a mo an amendment to the motion to postpone for 30 days? Is that what you're saying? If you would be open to that, I can. I wasn't sure. I was just I mean make a motion if that's what you want to do. That's fine. We don't you don't need my permission. Make the motion. Okay. I believe we'd have to make an
048amendment to We have to make it would have to be an amendment. All right. I make amendment to postpone the decision for 30 days. The school year will be over by then. Okay. Okay. Then I make when is the next next school board meeting? 24th. Yeah. So I make amendment to postpone until the next school board meeting. Second. Okay. I have a second. So we have to vote on the amendment first. All in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose. Okay. Motion passes. Yeah. Postpone it till we got to now vote on the original motion with the amendment. Okay. Wait. who his original motion was. He's he's withdrawing. He's withdrawing. No, we need a new motion. Go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead and proceed. Okay. We got the vote on the amended motion. Okay. Okay. Okay.
049What is the amended? Say it back to me again. Did we just have voted to postpone it? So, we're talking about the original motion. You both original motion as amended as amended. Yeah. And his original motion was he his original to deny to deny postponing. Yeah. Okay. He withdrew the motion. You want me to just give you a whole brand new one? We can't. We have to vote on the motion because it's there. But it doesn't She's right. It doesn't make any sense. Doesn't make any sense. Everyone should withdraw all their motions. Everybody wants a new motion. Yeah. cuz when he was start Yeah. wanted to post something he denied. So it just kind of So are you with who made the motion to amend? I did. Are you withdrawing that motion? Yes. That's passed.
050Okay. You are you're withdrawing your motion to deny all the motions are withdrawn and the floor is open for a new motion. So the new motion will be to postpone till the next Madam Chair. Yes, Mr. Darby. That was confusing. I'm sorry. We're all good. I would like to make a motion that we postpone this until the next school board meeting so that we can gather more information on the new evidence. Second, seconded by Miss We will, but I will tell you that it only depends on what the school system will release. And so it's it's very likely that we get very little, if any, more information than what's already there. Is there specific information that we're looking for here? I believe the gentleman that spoke said that he had the information about the case
051being dismissed. Well, I'm I'm I'm fine with that. I just want to make sure that whoever is going to look for the information knows what we're looking for. Okay. Yes, Mr. Tibble. Mr. Reed, the question I had uh was you can't amend a motion if it's going to be opposite of the original motion. Is that correct? like it can't be in conflict. That's that's why I was confused. Right. All right. Just wanted clarity on that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tipple. That's why I was confused. Okay. Was there a second to her? Yes. Yes. All in favor for postponing till we can gather more information at our next board meeting on April 24th. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? No. Motion passes. Miss Maxwell? Yes. Did we clarify how we're going to get
052that information? We need to clarify how we're going to get the information. I will reach out to the school. I will tell you the parent has information. The school system has other information. So, you will be getting more than likely one side. Are we allowed to get information outside of the system or all depends on what the school system releases which will be very little. Okay. I guess my question still is are we able to get information outside of only from what the parent provides that the school system won't give us anymore. So the parent can't provide the information and send it to us. Parent will provide our to our legal team. Okay. So that information needs to be provided to our legal team so that we can get the information. So maybe we suggest
053the the parent meet Ridley afterwards or during the meetings and share that information. Okay. Thank you. I just needed to get clarification how this was going to be done. Thank you. Number three, the board has been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. The student was expelled for causing an extreme disruption in the classroom. According to policy 6.318, the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student transfers from another school system under suspension or expulsion. Director of school's recommendation is to deny. Mr. Bond is a motion to deny. Mr. Mr. Rosales is seconded. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Madam Chair. Yes. Is Mr. Von's mic on? I don't think it is. Thank you. Thank you. They could. Okay.
054Number four, please. The board's been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. The student was expelled for possession of THC. According to policy 6.318, the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student transfers from another school system under suspension or expulsion. Director of school's recommendation is to deny. Can you speak up just a little bit, Mr. Vaughn? Motion to deny. Thank you, sir. Second. Thank you, Mr. Tidville. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number five, the board's been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. The student is expelled from making a threat. According to policy 6.318, the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student transfers from
055another school system under suspension or expulsion. Director of school's recommendations to deny. Motion to deny. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. Second. Thank you, Mr. Sharp. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number six. Number six is different. This is a disciplinary hearing appeal number 2550301. The board has been requested to review a decision of the disciplinary hearing authority DHA to uphold the remainment of a student from Simon Springs Community School. Based on a review of the DHA's record, the board may a affirm the decision of the DHA, B overturn the decision of the DHA or C grant a hearing before the board. And Madam Chair, if you don't mind. Yes. As part of our policy, this also goes to the director of schools first um after the DHA. and I chose to affirm
056the decision of the DHA. Yes, Mr. Sable. I'd like to make a motion to affirm the decision of the DHA. Second by Miss Rosales. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number nine, engineering and construction. So, we have several. First, Blackman High School video schoolboard request. Principal Justin Smith is requesting to install a video scoreboard at the football stadium. Cost of the project is $256,865 and will be funded with a loan to the field enhancement organization from First American Bank. Schoolboard is like one already approved by the boards of Rockfell High and during construction reviewed the request and has no objections and you see the recommended motion. Any comments or questions? I got I got a question about that. What liability we have any I mean I know it's guaranteed but is
057there any liability on the um school system for this type of thing? I mean you know if uh something goes wrong with it are we okay? The loan is has nothing to do with the school system and the school system has nobody on the loan. It is strictly the booster club that is on the loan. It's the same booster club that was uh had the loan for the field at Blackman. They're just continuing it on. Okay. I got a question. Yes, Mr. Block. This just dog on me. Talking about insurance. Once this is on school property, does our insurance kick in? Correct. It will kick in, right? I mean, let's say there's a high wind damage or something. I any improvement improvement or facility that's built on school property once it's completed it becomes school
058and county owned and it does fall under our insurance after that. Just want to make sure everybody periodically I meet OJI and uh we get together and compare notes. Ed Ed and I have had some of these conversations reason I'm asking. So we want everybody aware the upkeep of the it's on them, right? If it gives out of gas in 5 years, they they replace it, not us. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. Okay. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number two, Blackman High School softball outfield deck request. Principal Justin Smith is requesting the construction of 16x6 pressure to deck area outside the right center field fence. The area will be utilized as a fan experience area. Materials and labor for the project are being donated and this project is at no cost
059to the board. Engineering construction department has repeat the request and has no objection. And you see the recommended motions to approve. I'll entertain a motion. Thank you, Mr. Wal. Second. Thank you, Mr. Title. A question. I should have this last night. I'm sorry. What is a fan experience area softball? I I think we're adding a place area. Yep. All right. Like I told you, T whether to drink beer. What Butch what Butchie and I are thinking about fan experience areas is a different idea than you would have at a high school gathering where they will no longer be students. Yeah. Right. So So what does that consist of? So thank you for indulging me. Is this parents going to be not allowed to be up there? Because I mean I can see one of them
060jumping up in the air cuz their daughter hit one out of the park and they fall off the top of this thing. That wouldn't be good. No parents allowed. Liability just went up. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number three, Smyrna High School baseball stadium naming request. Principal Dr. Sher Sutherland is requesting to name the baseball stadium in honor of Sunny Gray. Sunny had a decorated career at Smyrna High and Vanderbilt University is currently pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals following extensive career major league baseball. Engineering Construction has reviewed the request and has no objection and recommended motion to approve. Make a motion to approve. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. And thank you, Miss Sharp. That's a that's a great honor and a great young man. It is. Y'all keep it a secret,
061don't they? Surprise. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number four, Popler Hill Road and Sewer easements. The new Popler Hill School site requires some widening to Blackman Road to safely access the schools. The Rutherford County Highway Department has kindly agreed to complete the portion of the road widening work beyond where the school contractor's responsibility stops and to also fund the cost of the construction. School system needs to acquire the rightway easements along Blackman Road to enable the county highway department to begin. In addition, sewer easements are needed across some properties to tie into sewer to serve the school sites. Recommended motions authorize board attorney Jeffrey to negotiate with the affected land owners and to obtain the right of way and sewer easements needed for Popper Hill, including using imminent domain if
062necessary. Any comments or questions? Move to approve. Second, Mr. Rosales. Thank you, Mr. Bond. All in favor say I. I'm sorry. Do it again. Um, and I'm going to address this to you if that's okay. How do we alleviate this going forward? How how did how how was this missed in the original purchase of this property? Did we not know? Can I address that? During site plan, it was not it was a requirement from negotiations between the city and the county. That's what I'm And then the school system often times gets stuck now having to fund the roads and and how can we alleviate that moving forward that we do we need to we don't build the roads agreement how I feel about all this I'm just trying to figure out how we get on
063we did have an agreement and the city elected to change that agreement after Yes sir. That was very kind of them and and I'm not throwing the city under the bus and I'm not No. And it has all been negotiated since then afterwards and this was all agree done after the fact. County government. Well, that's what I'm getting at. So, the taxpayers of Rutherford County have had or subject to a renegotiation by the city officials. It sounds like after there was already a bill. Now, this was prior to me getting here. I'm ignorant to the fact. I'm sorry. But these are the mistakes that used to drive us crazy on the county commission. I'm just going to state it publicly. And we voted to start the purchase process of new school down in the north
064end. I I would hate for this to happen again. So, anything we can do to alleviate prior to what agreements we need to execute before we do purchase land, I guess I'm looking for Jeff and you to look at all that for us, right? We always knew there were going to be road improvements required on Blackman Road. There's nothing missed. There's no mistakes made going to be some improvements required along Black Blackman Road. There was always going to be a sewer line extended to the school site, right? This is just a mechanism to get the easements in place to extend the sewer to the site. Okay? As we knew from the beginning, the sewer would have to be extended across some other properties to the site. Right? That was not a mystery. It was nothing
065missed, no mistakes. It was just normal pro de development cuz sewer was not on this property. Sure. So to get the easements um we have to cross some people's property to get the sewer easement in place and for the road widing that has to occur on Blackman road there's some additional property along the width of the road we have required to widen the road. So I don't think there's nothing there was really nothing missed or mistaken. I don't know. Was it was it built into the budget? Pardon? Was it built into the budget? U is Yeah. Do we have funds available for this these costs? That's what I'm getting at. So there was estimated cost related to this. Yes. Now the road widening the county highway department has has kindly agreed to pick up the
066cost of the road widening which they've always been really good to do that beyond what is in the school contract itself. Okay. All right. I just I I just don't want these are the mistakes that just drive anybody crazy. I don't think it's a mistake. Yeah. Yeah. So, I I do think I I mean I I've been dealing with the city on this. I don't know the city's been bad to deal with in regards to this. I think they've been cooperative and helpful about getting the road improvement situation worked out with us out there and to get sewer extended. So, I can't say the city has been bad to work with. So, this but my I guess my real question is this was budgeted or this was not budgeted? This is budgeted. This is all
067stuff we knew was coming to serve the school site. That's what I want to make sure of that we we've got a full cost on anything we do. Thank you, Miss Maxwell. Yes, Miss Bonzalez. So, I just want to point out to Stan because he wasn't here, but before we went into an agreement with this situation, we listed out all of the inspections that we were going to do and name all of them, which included a traffic sort study, and it also talked about the sewer aspect of it. So, I think there were about 11 inspections that we had to do and that they that we the board um ensured that we were going to be doing all those all those um inspections and then make a decision after all the inspections were done during
068the due diligence process. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. Any other questions? Okay, we have a motion on the floor. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number 10, instruction. The Rutherford County Schools academic calendar for 2526. Counter committee met and made revisions on March 21st. And this is due to the primary election date that was made for May 5th, 2026. And so we need to change one of our dates. You will see the date that is changed is a teacher admin day and May 5th are basically switched. And so recommended motion is to approve the 2526 academic calendar as presented. Motion to approve. Thank you, Mr. Bonnie. Second. Thank you, Mr. Tidville. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next, we have number two. Number two, the state moved
069from a six-year to an 8-year textbook adoption process to balance the RCS run schools budget in GP41. Last year, RCS cut the textbook line item and communicating intention to use fund balance for the upcoming purchase of science books. The cost textbooks for elementary $3,181,95 for middle school $748,55 and high school $2,724,764 and again this is for 8 years. Recommended motion is to approve the purchase of science textbooks in the amount of $6,654,414 utilizing fund balance. Any comments or questions? I'll entertain a motion. Thank you, Mr. Darby. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. All in favor, say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number two, safety. If we need to go into executive session for any questions. Anybody have any? Okay. So, we um recommended motions to approve the purchase of metal detectors for Rutherford County Schools. Motion
070to approve. What? Correct. Yes, that is correct. Correct. Okay. To make a motion that we uh go with the communication technologies. Second. Second. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments, questions? All in favor say I. I. I any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you all very much. Next we have financial matters under 12. So these are going to seem for the audience this is going to seem very duplicative because it's basically going back and doing exactly what we just did, but now we're asking to move the money for what was just approved. So number one is fund 141 fund balance amendment. This budget amendments to reflect the receipt of additional state revenue not including the original budget. It includes moving innovative schools model grant funding around to appropriate accounts. add funding for weapon detection systems, funding an
071additional day added to the calendar for 12-month classified hourly employees, and adding funds to maintenance contracted services for multiple projects that have increased expenditures. This amendment has a net increase of both current year revenue and expenditures of $4 million with no use of fund balance. There are not any reoccurring cost included in this amendment. And just for the audience and for the board, this is accepting and utilizing the funds that were part of the ARF bonus that we received last month. Most quick. Second. Second. And Mr. Sh's got a comment. No, I just think this is a great use of that fund. Okay. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number two. Number two is to fund the textbooks. This budget amendments to reflect the state of Tennessee moving from a six-year
072to an 8-year textbook adoption process to balance the RCS fund 141 general purpose budget. The textbook line item was cut in fiscal year 2425 and the intention to use fund 141 unassigned fund balance was communicated previously regarding the purchase of science textbooks. This amendment will decrease fund 141 unassigned fund balance and increase expenditure account 71100430 bound textbooks in the amount of 6,654,414. Any comments or questions? I'll entertain a motion to approve. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. All in favor, say, "I." I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next, we go to the book review. Before we begin, I would like, if it's all right, um, for Dr. Chastain, just to kind of review where we are, what Okay. No, that sounds wonderful. Yeah. [Music] Okay. This is just to kind of summarize where we
073are and to conclude this part of the process. You all all the board members have a copy of this in front of you. So this this is brief. First I have to say it's National Library Week. So I wanted to make sure to recognize our librarians. Uh these are some of them. It's also National Library Workers Day today. So we have educational assistants in our libraries and they do a phenomenal job as well. So, I would be remiss if I didn't take the opportunity to put a spotlight on them and what they do every day. To just highlight the continuing partnership we have with our parents and our community. These are things that exist and will continue to exist and are focus. One, we highly, highly encourage parent communication with our librarians. Whenever there is
074a doubt or something that they have that they would like to communicate, please reach out. Parents always maintain the right to restrict access to specific titles or even genres that or topics uh within the catalog that they would not like their child to have access to. Eligible stakeholders. So that includes teachers, parents, students within a school maintain the right to file a formal request for reconsideration that's outlined in our policy. So all of these things remain valuable to the the entire process. Just as a reminder, these are the three distinct aspects of the review that our librarians uh completed and are are important aspects of any review that will be done by the district. It is also important to note that none of the materials that were brought before you were found to be obscene
075based on the Miller test. So this is kind of where we end where we landed and this is what I wanted to make sure to communicate with our community just for clarity. There were 160 titles that were brought before were given to us for reconsideration. Not all 160 have been recommended formally to the board. So 99 uh recommendations will be presented by the conclusion of tonight. All 160 titles were reviewed by our committee of 22 librarians. There were 61 titles that were withdrawn from the reconsideration process for various reasons. Those are kind of outlined here. So, there were 12 titles that had missing information of some kind in the original list that was submitted. So, that could either be um a a title, an author, a duplicated title of some sort. Uh in any of
076those cases, we sought clarification before removing those titles from the list. There were also 25 titles that were withdrawn by the original complainant. There were 15 titles that were weeded from our collection for various reasons. Oftent times that was a case of there may have been one title in the district and that book may have not been checked out or circulated or was a really old title or it was lost. So, there were there were titles that were simply removed by the librarian or or natural process that was still reviewed and we've still kept track of those titles, but those weren't presented before you as a formal recommendation because they no longer exist in our collection. And then finally, on the original date of the list that was submitted, there were nine titles that as
077of November 14th were not in our district collection. So, that gives you the kind of totality of those 61 titles that were not presented before the board. as of yesterday. So there are 15 titles that the board will still make a decision on tonight. There were two titles that were voted to retain, 15 were restricted and 59 were voted for removal. You can see there is a disparity in the recommendations. We we agreed on about uh 14% so far. This was our original commitment and this remains our commitment not only to the review process just to to the work we do for the students. We remain committed to be transparent and honest. There will never be a case where we are trying to hide something or not not make sure that our community and our
078parents are well aware of what is within our collections. We will provide multiple ways to communicate that information and make sure everybody is informed. We will not be perfect every time, but that is certainly our that's what we strive to do. Some things that we are working in many cases with our board, with librarians, uh with our community and our school leaders. One is communication. Again, always always parents are encouraged to reach out directly to their school librarians, principles, teachers. We have uh based on legal requirements and just in in what we would do anyway, the school collections are posted and available to search online for every school in a district as a whole. We have since this process began, we have worked with our vendors and made sure that we have notifications that can
079be selected for parents to be notified of any activity by their student. Uh and they can also select individual titles that they would not like their their student to have access to. Again, as we kind of mentioned, there are multiple feedback opportunities that makes us better. We support all of those. We have a yearly collection development process that occurs at each school. That is where this work will continue. We have uh information about that process on our library services page that anybody can have access to. One thing that is a goal for us as a district is we are below the state library standard for titles per student by a fairly drastic margin. We uh th those standards are set based on just collection size, age of titles, number of titles in various areas. Uh
080so that is a that is a goal for us to make sure we are up to par for our students have access to intellectually rigorous materials as well as uh reading for leisure. So that is that is a goal for us. The collection review process is is cyclical and ongoing. We have prioritized based on the last few months, we have asked our high school librarians, we have prioritized a review at all high school uh libraries and within those collections. It's collaborative. All the librarians are working together. If I haven't mentioned how great they are, I'm going to do it again. Uh and it is inclusive of all school level stakeholders. So, we're working towards a process that brings in parents, teachers, uh, community members as a way to kind of be more open about how
081we purchase and review our materials. Those titles are internally tracked to make sure that we are not uh accidentally or uh incorrectly purchasing materials that have already been voted on by the board. uh and to make sure that another school is not purchasing materials that school C found to not be worthy of their collection. So, we're tracking all those titles to make sure we can onboard any new librarians uh and provide information across our district schools. So, I just wanted to take a minute to give everybody an update on kind of some ongoing work since I think it's appropriate to make sure that we kind of close this this chapter, no pun intended, and move on to uh kind of the ongoing work that is serving our students. So, thank you for the time. Madam
082Chair, yes, Miss Sharp. Dr. Chine, can I just ask I know you said you're tracking them internally in in the library system. Is there a way that they are notated in there so that if one were to come into a school and they were going to add it to their collection, they can tell when they go to do that? So, we we have tracked all of the the titles that have been removed obviously formally on our website. I don't want to misspeak and say that that is why we wanted to do it internally to ensure that within the system once a title gets removed it is just it doesn't exist. So I don't I don't know that there is a way for that to be flagged for the public. Um but it will be flagged
083internally for our librarians. So it is flagged in not necessarily within the vendor but it will be flagged by we will have oversight over that. So the librarians will see that. Correct. Perfect. Um the missing information books when you reach out for more did you reach out to the original complainant? Yes. Okay. Yes. More have a question if um with and it may be Dr. Sullivan. Um, what was the funding before with the BI and T7? What is it now for student for the library for the BEP versus now? It's all controlled um internally. It's all lumped together. So, we do it per student based on their grade band library. Is there is there a difference? That's what I'm trying to I for what how we Yes. We are funds. We are basically what did
084you say about $5 per student. Historically um we were allocated $3.50 per student. Last year we were able to raise that by a dollar. So the first time in several years we are at $4.50 per student um for library book allocation. So just so everybody can hear, we're roughly under just under $5 per student. I know surrounding districts are closer to seven and eight. Uh, so again, just something to keep an eye on to make sure we're providing our students what they need. Yes, Miss Sharp. Mr. Darby, sorry. Darby, I'm sorry. I have a follow-up question. The 12 that were missing information, were they ultimately withdrawn? Correct. If they exist on that list, there were some that once we got clarification, you just saw them as as normal. But if they were withdrawn either as
085a duplicated title or that there was no information on the complaint to begin with, they may have just been withdrawn by the complainant. If they went back after clarification to the list to be reviewed, you saw them as reviewed. And what I would say is to the $4.50, all of that is it's not a state appropriation. It is our instruction funds that come down and then we as a school system just like we do for instructional supplies and materials and technology designate that to the schools. Mr. Bullet, I've got that looked. Yes, you do. What would it take to get to the standard or what how many books per student do we have and what is the suggested? That's what I I had a feeling you might ask that. I just text Caitlyn that. Um,
086we are, would you say, rough the the standard would put us closer to 14, which honestly we probably don't have enough room in our libraries for that anyway. Uh, but we're we're we're to hit basic standard would be about 12. Where are we? And for high schools, we're at five items per student. We're at five. We're at five. And the suggestion is 12. Correct. We're half a little less than half. Mhm. That is why it's it's a goal. Great. Um Mr. B, it revolves around more money. Everything for this what we've been talking about for the last month. It's going to get even diceier going forward. Uh talking about money. A couple of follow-up questions to that. I noticed this whole dialogue has been related to taking books out that are not approp. Has there
087ever been do students ever request a genre or parents ever request some you know that we don't have like and and I'm thinking I'm going tell off myself right here that back in my good old Oakland days there was a book called Introduction to Coding for Dummies. I should have read that book. I really should have. Right. I I would understand computers a lot better now. But that was a request from my good nerd friends at the time. and you know they're all computer programmers. So I'm I'm thinking about AI right now. I'm thinking about the change in our demographics, the change in society, the movement toward technology. How do we adopt to that? Do you have students that ask those questions or ask for books like that? That's just a curious. Absolutely. And they
088and that's one of the goals of the collection development process where we're bringing in stakeholders is to make sure we have that gobetween between our you know CTE teachers that maybe are in in it and to make sure that we are the library works really hard to support the standards and the curriculum and what is what the students need to have that next that next job basically um or to be successful in college. So that that is that is the the balance and making sure that we are staying current which is why you see the age of the titles and age of the material as one of the standards as well as having diverse options for just leisurely reading because we know that is entertainment purposes. Yes. Well, not just entertainment, you know, we are
089trying to make really educated students as their graduates and that is directly tied to the success they have. I make that a different It's hand in hand. But yes. Yes. Uh and follow up one more and this is the damper question I guess. Has there been any cross reference to any other district statewide in as far as the books that have been pulled out? I there is a I'm hoping we're done, but something tells me we're done. There's certainly a professional network of of librarians and media specialists and and district leaders that has communicated titles of concern. Okay. Hesitant to exchange lists, per se. You know, we're just Okay, I get that. But but be aware. Correct. Obviously. Yeah. which is what we're we're targeting those those titles within our high school review just to
090make sure that we are doing our due diligence and any any title that may be flagged as young adult things that could rise to a level of concern we're trying to make sure we're ahead of the curve on the review proactive we're being proactive as much as we can be and that is ongoing um and to be done in the high schools by the end of the year thank you for your diligence Miss Sharp thank you this will be my last one hopefully Um, Dr. Chastain, could you put a wish list together for Amazon and let parents purchase them and send them to the libraries and name their student? Can we not do something like that? So, here here's the thing, and I so appreciate that the conversation I didn't intend for it to go
091here, but I do appreciate this conversation. Um, we are, again, our due diligence is trying to be super careful about the books that are being vetted and and in our collections. So, we can certainly look for titles within our vendor and ask for parents to support those titles and just just to make sure that we're keeping track of the the books that are in our collection. For sure. You have control of that list because I don't think anybody would want I mean, in honor of Easter, I'm going to buy you a book. Absolutely. And and we have you have an Easter basket with candy in it to gently need. Yes. And and we've had a few discussions about Absolutely. We can put wish lists together. We can we can add whatever our community is interested
092in that. Yes, Mr. Darby. Does Fallout have a way for people to purchase gift certificates or gift cards? They have something called title wish. Um and each librarian can produce a wish list according to their own collection development parameters and um stakeholders can go into their title wish and purchase for their library. So we can look into that. Perfect. Dr. Mr. I mean Yeah. So um Blackman High School recently had a um a fundraiser of some sort. they were collecting funding to buy different books and they invited they they sent a flyer and sent it to various people because I participated in that and so if we can be aware of things like that that the school is doing in trying to uh bring books in as part of the collection I think that'll be
093great. I I think we'll have a good opportunity to have this conversation again. Uh so next board meeting on the 24th I believe we're recognizing our librarians as part of library month and I think you'll hear a little bit more about that process. I again just want to as we're talking about books coming in and reviewing and development. It's a it's a big job uh and we do we are fortunate to have our librarians are master's degree holding specialists that are very attuned to this process. So, I am very appreciative of them and I think we can talk more about that on the 24th perhaps. Any other questions or comments. Okay, we're going to get right to the books. Everyone has a list in front of them of each book and we will do a
094roll call v vote on most of majority of these, but I will do a vote of acclamation when it is the recommendation is to remove by the library committee. And the first book up is A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. The media recommendation is to remove. Thank you, Mr. B. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. All in favor say I. I. Okay. Next, we have A Love Story starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily her. The recommendation is to retain. I'll make a motion to remove on the grounds that this book has sex in it al alternative. Uh please stop. No, no, no comments. and it had alternative um lifestyle and things of that nature that uh religious and social documentary that uh creates problems I think for society and I just don't personally don't see the
095the benefit of of this book myself. I have a second. Motion dies. For the lack of a second, I'll entertain another motion. Move to uh follow the recommendation of the media specialist. I'll second it. Madam Chair, I have a question. Yes, Mr. Darby. This might be for you, Dr. Justine. Um, some of these say retain and then others say retain at the high school level. However, this one says there's one copy in the high school and the age relevant for high school students. So, when it says just retain under that, it would be retain at high school. Correct. Can we amend the motion to retain in high schools? Sure. Second. Second. Thank you. All right. Any comments, questions? Madame Chairman, I would accept that just as the original motion without having to complicate this. Okay.
096We need to restate the motion. It would it would be to retain it at the high school level. Is that okay with the person who made the second? seconded by Maxwell, right? No, I think and then I'm second. No, because he's he's redoing the motion. I'll conclude that. So, it is Stan seconded by Miss Maxwell. Okay. Okay. Yes. All right. Hey, to make this clean, why don't we withdraw the motions and someone make a new motion? Go ahead, Stan. That's agreeable. He just did that. That's what he I did. That's what I was stating. I would gladly accept that as part of the original motion. Okay. So, are you making the motion now as amended? Yes. No, it's not as amended. Not as amended. It's just he made a new motion. I'm restating my motion.
097I move that we follow the librarian's recommend the media specialist recommendation to retain only the high school level because he made the original motion. Are you okay with that? Second and I'll second it. We're good. Okay. Okay, we'll do a roll call anyway. Okay. Mr. Tidwell, Mrs. Rosales, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mr. Bought, yes. Mr. Vaughn, no. Mrs. Darby, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Yes. To retain. Next, we have adjustment day by Chuck Palhounik. I'm not sure. And uh the media uh recommendation is to remove. So moved. Second. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next we have All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson. Media recommendation is to remove. I move. Thank you, Mr. Second. Thank you, Miss Darby. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed?
098Okay. Motion is to remove. Next we have bumped by Megan McCafferty. The media recommendation is to retain. So moved. Second. Can you clarify at the high school level please for the record? Uh age re relevant for high school students. Is that that's their recommendation right? Yes. Yeah. She's concurred. That's what it is. Yes. No it is. It's for high school. Yes. And I'm seconding it. We can do a roll call. Can I make an amendment to the motion with parental consent? Second. Okay. Yeah, we're going have to vote. We have to vote. Oh, I don't want to confuse anybody, but I would gladly accept that amended version of that. I'll restate the motion and that would be to follow the media specialist recommendation to re retain it only at the high school level with parental
099consent. Thank you. Does that suit everybody? I'll second. We discuss. Yes. Do you want to stay with your second? Yes. On that. Okay. We have discussion. Yes, we can have discussion. the uh this book I mean it's got sex in it, child prostitution, drug use, uh alternative lifestyle, and madam chair. Yes. I don't I would ask that you please excuse the people that continue to disrupt the meeting. Yes, I seem to Please do no more chuckling, no more cackling, no more commenting or I will ask you to leave. Show them the door. So, but you know, let's just on this book, you know, we need to look at both sides of it. You know, that's what you're voting on that you're going to put this book back in the library, these kids. And I promise
100you, it these kids read this stuff and it affects the way they think. And why we put them in there is beyond me. But everybody's got to vote their own opinion. So that's just mine for whatever it's worth. But okay, any other discussion? The motion is to retain bumped in the high school level. Parental consent. Parental consent. Okay. Miss Sharp. Yes. Mr. Va. Yes. Mrs. Rosales. Yes. Mr. Vaughn. Nope. Mr. Tidwell? Yes, Mrs. Darby. Yes, Mrs. Maxwell. Yes. Yes. To retain. Next, we have Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lucavix. The recommended motion is to retain. So move. Second for high school. Get it out of the way in the motion. Yes. And Mr. Rosales seconded. Mr. Maxwell. Yes. I'd like to make a amendment that we retain this at the 11th and 12th grade with
101parental consent. Mr. B. I have no problem with that. That's board's wishes. Yeah. I I You want to mention You want me to restate the restate? retain it at the uh follow the media specialist recommendation to retain it at the high school level for 11th and 12th grade only with parental consent. I'm looking for a nod. Yes. Are you good with the second? Yeah, that's fine. Okay. All right. Mrs. Derby, yes. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mr. Mr. Ba. Yes. Mr. Vaughn, no. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. All right. It's a pass for retain. Okay. Next, we have emergency contact by Mary HK Choy. The media recommendation is to retain. So moved at the high school level. Thank you, Mr. Vault. Albert seconded. [Music] in discussion on this year. Feel free to discuss
102sex, nudity, drugs, and alcohol use. That's one thing kids don't need. You know, it's a it's a problem we're facing in the country and I don't want our books in the library to be part of it. And again, it it talks about racism in this book and uh it's definitely something we don't need in this day and time. Okay. Yes, Mr. Tidwell. I appreciate Mr. Von's comments. Um for me, I'll just speak only for myself. For me specifically, uh hard topics are are going to be covered. Um, I'm looking strictly try to look through the eyes of the law in which they determine what is sexual conduct and depictions of nudity and what that equates to sexually explicit. Uh, so that's why I'm still following that same mode of thought moving forward. Um, with that
103said, I would ask that the same be done here, which is retained at the high school level with parental consent at the 11th and 12th. I'll second that. Any other discussion? Okay. With that motion amended, how do you feel? Yes, I'm fine with that. Yes. All right. Mr. Vaugh, yes. Mr. Vaughn, no. Mrs. Darby, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Mrs. Rosales. Yes. Mrs. Maxwell. Yes. Yes. To retain. Thank you. Next we have Fade by Lisa McMahon. Media recommendation is to retain in the high school level. So moved. Thank you, Mr. Vetain in the high school level. And I will second that as well. Mwell. Yes, Mr. I do think this one does violate in in my opinion um the the law. So I would vote to remove the well there's a motion on
104the floor but that would be my recommendation. Any other comments? Go ahead with the roll call vote please. All right. This is to retain at the high school level. Title is fade. Mr. Tidwell. No. Mrs. Rosales. No. Miss Sharp, no. Mr. Vaugh, yes. Mr. Vaughn, no. Mrs. Darby, no. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Motion failed, Maxwell. Yes. I'd like to make a motion to remove. Second. Any comments? Okay. All right. This is a motion to remove the title fade. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mr. Vault, no. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mrs. Derby, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, no. Motion passed to remove fade. Next we have Fire Force Book One by Atushi Oubo. The media recommendation is to retain. Mwell. Yes, Mr. I'd like to make a motion to remove this one as well. Second. Any
105more discussion? Okay, Mrs. Derby to remove. Correct. Yes. Yes. Mr. VA. No. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, no. Mot motion passed to remove. Title is Fire Force Book One. Number 10, we have Gia Holik by Carolyn Mler. The recommendation is to retain in high school. So move second. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. Any other comments? Mr. Tidwell, did you have your hand up? I'm sorry. No. No. Sorry. So sorry. Okay. We can go with the roll call. Okay. This is a motion to retain Giah. Mrs. Rosales. Yes. Mr. Bot. Yes. Mr. Tidwell. Yes. Miss Sharp. Yes. Mr. I'm sorry. I think I Vaughn. No. Mrs. Darby. No. Mrs. Maxwell. Yes. Okay. Motion to retain. Passed. Okay. Next, we have Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera. Media
106recommendation is to remove. I'll move. I'll second it. Yeah. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed. Motion passes. Next we have Lady Midnight: The Dark Artififices by Cassandra Cla. The media recommendation is to retain in high school. So move. I'll second it. That's it. All right. This is a motion to retain in high school. Title is Lady Midnight. Mrs. Darby, no. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mr. Vault, yes. Mr. Vaughn, no. Mr. Tidwell, no. Miss Sharp, no. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Motion failed. Next we have Lexicon by Max Barry. Media recommendation is to remove. So moved. Second. Thank you. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next we have maybe now by Colleen Hoover. Media recommendation is to remove. So move. Thank you. Second. Thank you Mr. Rosales. All in favor say I. I. Any
107opposed? Motion passes. Next we have Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. The media recommendation is to retain in the 11th and 12th grades only. Miss Maxwell. Yes. I'd ask that we'd remove this one as well. Second. Okay. We have a second by Miss Darby. Are we ready? Go ahead. All right. This motion is to remove the title Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl. Mrs. Darby, yes. Mr. Vaugh, uh, no. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, no. All right. Title, Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl is removed. Next, we have plan A by Deb Kleti. Media recommendation is to retain in the 11th and 12th grades. I'll make a motion we remove. Second. All right. This is a motion to remove title plan A. Mrs.
108Rosales. Yes. Mr. Vaughn. Yes. Mr. Tidwell. Yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mr. Vaugh, no. Mrs. Darby, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, no. Title Plan A is removed. Next, we have Real Live Boyfriends by E. Lawart. Media recommendation is to retain. So move. I'll second it. Miss Maxwell. Yes, Mr. Tidwell. If you guys would be open to putting this in the 11th and 12th with parental consent, then that'll gain my vote. Why, sure. We'll include that. And I will second that. I'm good with that. Okay. So, our motion is to retain uh real life boyfriends in 11th and 12th grade only with parental consent. Miss Sharp. Yes. Mr. Vault, yes. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mr. Vaughn, no. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Mrs. Darby, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Motion to retain. Next, we have the detour by SA Bodin and the media
109recommendation is to retain. So, moved. I'll second it, Miss Maxwell. Yes, Mr. Rosales. Okay. So, um, this book talks about a, um, a pretty heavy topic and it's in the middle schools. So, will it be possible to have parental consent or or just leave it in high school with parental? That would be up to Mr. Blet. Are you willing to amend? I'm looking for a recommendation from checking to see on the spot. But so we do have several titles that are like eighth grade only and we could do that with parental consent or what or just parental consent. I was just making sure we had a mechanism for them to be able to track that. But wait a minute. Let me restate my motion to retain in high school only. Okay. Retain in high school
110only is a motion. I will second that. Okay. Okay. All right. So, this is for the title the detour to retain in high school only. Mrs. Darby, present. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mr. Vaugh, yes. Mr. Vaughn, no. Mr. Tidwell, no. Miss Sharp, no. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. All right, this one did not pass. It failed. Next, we have the testaments by Margaret Atwood. The media recommendation is to retain. Move to remove. Second. Okay. All right. Mr. Va. Uh, no. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mrs. M Darby. Yes. Miss Sharp. Yes. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, no. All right. This title, the testaments has been removed. Next, we have This is the kind of epic love story by Cassine Calendarer. The recommendation is to retain in high school. Move to remove. Yes. Second. Okay. I think Mr.
111Tidwell came in second to Darby. Yeah, he beat you. Okay. All right. The motion is to remove this is kind of an epic love story. Mr. Tidwell. Yes. Mrs. Rosales. Yes. Miss Sharp. Yes. Mr. Vaugh. No. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mrs. Darby, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, no. Passed to remove. Next, we have, you know, sex, bodies, gender, puberty, and other things by Corey Silverberg. The media recommendation is to retain in high school. Miss Maxwell to remove. Second, Miss Maxwell. Yes. Thank you. Sorry. Um I I was trying to get the floor before it was said. So this particular book um we received an opinion from the district attorney and it talked about where we were um asking the questions about in relation to pictures that are showing um genitalia or just n like frontal nudity or or
112or showing the back of of a of a person. Anyway, so so their opinion from the uh attorney general is saying that under the state law with a library collection if there is pictures that they are to be removed. And so I got the book and this is a picture book and this was I think before we received the opinion from the state of from the general attorney. That's why I will be recommending that removed because of the opinion that the general attorney gave us in regards to what it means about nudity nudity in regards to the library books that in our library collection. Okay. So that's why I will be recommending to remove. Okay. We have a motion on the floor to remove. All right. I got I got a question then. Why why
113would it say that Kirkus reviews recommend this book for ages 11 through 18 if it are they I mean you said you got the book are there illustrations or pictures I I'm confused so it talks about obviously the topic is about going coming of age about puberty right and it talks about in different formats not just about reproduction purposes but other things that are tied to sex in general and it has pictures of genitalia in all various forms and according to the law that is automatic a removal that's per the state law not an assumption to make whether it's the prudent interest or the community standards that was based on the picture the image not words on a but it goes on to say that ages that this book is recommended to middle school students
114ages 10 through 14 as a language and illustrations are intended to inform a younger audience. However, because of health standards, these covered topics are addressed in high school curriculum. This book is housed in the high school. I personally as an adult like I wouldn't recommend this for my child at 11 years old. Okay. I mean, and I understand that this is an 11 through 18 for whatever reasons, but Well, I think that's the reason they recommended in high school. Exactly. For high school. Yeah. Right. Just curious what you knew about it. That just seems And the motion is to remove it. Okay. Mrs. Darby, yes. Mr. Vault, yes. Mrs. Rosales. Yes. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, pass. All right. This title, you know, sex, bodies, gender, puberty, and other
115things is removed. Last one. You two 25 voices share their meto stories. Edited by Janet Girtler. And the media recommendation is to retain in the 11th and 12th grades. So moved. I'll second it. Any discussion? Okay. Roll call. All right. This motion is to retain an 11th and 12th grades only. The title is YouTube. Mrs. Rosales. Yes. Miss Mr. Vaughn, we're moving to remove it. Is that right? This is to retain it. No. Mr. Tidwell? No. Miss Sharp? No. Mr. Vault? Yes. Mrs. Darby? No. Mrs. Maxwell? Yes. Motion failed. Okay, that's um the end of the books. Now we go on to the financial report. We go ahead and pull up fund 140, the two documents I sent you earlier. So this is just an overview of what we are looking at budget-wise. Um so
116a couple budget things to look at and I think this is good for everyone to understand kind of where we are. So this is a TISA estimate. Most of our funding is actually done by at the state level. That is where all of our additional funding is coming from. So the board has a copy of this just to give you an idea of as we're compiling this. This is for everyone to see. The state funding we are looking at in our preliminary and the board has a copy of this as well. It's just as our March preliminary. From the state we will get 366,123,828 as of right now. Comparatively to last year, we received $343,375,620. That gives us new revenue in the amount of $22,748,28. We that does include charter school enrollments and after the
117first year, charter schools are funded directly based on their enrollment. So you will see that enrollment for the three charter schools currently Rutherford Collegiate Prep, American Classical, and Springs Empower is 794 students.52. We know that there's not a half of a student somewhere, but that's just funded as a on the reporting periods. You'll see beside that is a average of $11,000 per student. uh just like us for Tissa it actually generates per student whether it's special education ESL 11,000 is just kind of the average so you will see our three charter schools will earn $8.7 million and so that's deduction from the 22 million in Tissa there's an additional $500 for charter school students this will used to be part of the um charter school construction grant that was allocated so it's here that subtracts
118397 7,000 and again that's this is not controversial. This is students that are at our three charter schools generating funds. So those funds go to them. The caveat is that anytime you as a charter school adds a grade level the just as last year it's projected on that grade level's funding. Our two schools that we authorized have communicated to us they have to by March 15th. American Classical is going to be adding a middle school grade level of up to 30 students at 11,000. So 330,000. Springs adding sixth grade. Sixth grade can only have 25 students in the class. And so that's why that number is different between 25 and 30. That is 275,000. Rutherford Collegiate Prep is only adding 7th grade. Um, I have 500,000 to 2 million because it is a little bit
119unknown. They don't have to have our that to us until June. It should be just on projected enrollment for seventh grade, which would only be a couple dozen students in a couple classrooms. Uh, something I think the board just needs to be aware of. Charter schools did not meet their enrollment projections and so we are watching to make sure there's not just a couple hundred students added to that. Um, that would definitely skew that number close to 2 million. But I went with the honest answer of 500,000. That gives us a remainder of 12,56,000 in additional revenue. Then I want to show real quickly what our numbers were of you guys not have a copy of it. We um we got Okay, guys. I got another needs one. No, we we've got it. Okay. Here's
120what we are looking at from a budget perspective of what we are looking at from a district. a 2 and a.5% raise for our staff, which is roughly $8 million. Popular Hill staff and opening a brand new school is $2.5 million. That includes we have transferred over 40 positions over there. Is that correct, Dr. Chastain? 40 positions to Popular Hill. I know maybe 39 counting like the behavior intervention is academic. Yes. So, we have transferred within our district. So, they didn't have to hire new positions. And then we do have to hire music, art, PE. those can't transfer because already another school. You have insurance increases, electricity, all those different things that go into opening a new school. Then you have high school computers is 2.7 million. Half of it right now, half of it
121at a fund balance you'll see in May. Operations, we're estimating at about 3 million. Part of that is our hazard and liability insurance went up $700,000 last year that the county gives to us. Anytime property tax goes in up, we have to increase how much the trustes percentage is. And so three million roughly. And so then transportation I have is 10 million. That is the high end of what the bus drivers kind of requested. That leaves us in a deficit of $13,693,000. Um in meeting with county government and county finance director, I don't envision a scenario that we have an additional more than $2 million to put towards that. And so best case scenario, we're looking at about an 11 million dollar deficit. We don't have anywhere to cut outside of of staff. And that's
122that's kind of where we are as a district. So I know the transportation contract is coming up and we've talked about it. That is why my recommendation has been that 10% the entire time is because from a financial standpoint of how much money do we have? I feel comfortable budgeting to the deficit of about $8 million because I don't actually think we would end up in a deficit. But as we go further, it goes to the county commission. We have to ask permission to budget into the deficit anyways. We used to budget 20 25 million to the deficit. That that's not a good practice. When you budget to the deficit of about 8 million, we can probably cover a lot of that with property tax, sales tax coming in. That that'll probably cover. But as
123we go much further than that, the county commission still has to approve us to do that to budget into the deficit. They could always on June 23rd say, "No, you cannot go $8 million into the deficit. Go cut $9 million." And if we have a bus contract signed, the only place I can go and cut $9 million is by laying people off. And I would have to do that between June 23rd and June 30th. And I know that's not a fun conversation to have, but that's the that's the reality. Hopefully in working with our county commission it wouldn't come to that. But that's something I always have to keep in the back of my mind. We've never had that issue of not being able to to go into fund balance before. We have a very
124healthy fund balance. So I don't want anybody to to worry about all that kind of stuff. It's just something that I have to to think of. Dr. Svin, you have Mr. Tidwell first. Oh, sorry. What does this number look like based off the recommendation you just gave? The 10 million get shrinks down to Yeah. Give me just a second. And a lot of it depends also what happens with the bill going through about insurance as well. Yeah. Um all I would do is pull up the transportation dock, the bus contract percentages. 10% is 2.7 million and then you would add the insurance on top of that. So it's about $4 million. That would take that minus 10 to a minus 4 instead. And then you're looking at that 78 million which is kind of what
125I've targeted from the beginning of stat. You said the insurance was one point 1 1.3 is what we're looking at just as kind of as an average of looking at $4,000 per route that we recover. And I don't like those numbers either. That's just from a financial standpoint. That's where we are and that's what I have to look at. Yes. Sorry. So the 22 million is what we got in TIA from TISA, right? How many new students did we get this year? Because I think enrollment is down a little bit. Yeah. But it's increased since then. Oh, okay. It's gone back up. Oh, good. We were funded at 50,000. Right now it's at 51,608. Let me pull up what last year what we ended up being funding on. Actually was like 50,000, right? It was
12650,7 something. Give me just a second. So, we got a funding for 1,600 students. If you subtract 15 minus the 51 second, I'm blowing it up. Last year we were funded on 50,751 and now this shows 51,608 but that does include 790 for charter school students. So it's kind of a wash there. Okay. But I do anticipate this number continuing to climb as the year. Yeah. So what was our enrollment the increase just for RCS not the charter schools or the state or the ones that we authorized right now 50 students just 50 students the entire year as of from 50,751 to 51608 and you take the 794 off. Yep. So we only increase enrollment by 50 students this year this academic year. I thought it was more than that. It'll continue to rise as
127the year goes on because we had some funding enrollment numbers that had to change from some of our charter schools as well. I'm so confused. I thought we had about 400 new students that were just for RCS, not counting. Now, I'm not counting charter schools that we authorized. So, this number includes an a weight and an average. So, it is taking the first reporting period, the second reporting period, the third reporting period. So it's every 20 days and this number gets averaged in. So as we go grow throughout the year, we don't get credit for those students who were not here in August, September, October, November. Oh wow. So we have grown as the year goes on, which is traditionally what we do. So I would expect this is the March estimate. We get another
128April estimate. We get another May estimate. We get another June estimate. So the number will continue to go up to match to where we're closer to 400 because if you look at today's number, we are at that. If you look where we were in August, we were not. Then there was also a lot of transition between schools, charter schools, traditional schools, public schools, private schools, Murphy'sboro City. All that impacts that first reporting period, but the state is not going to give us an enrollment projection based on adding those 400 that we're talking about. We'll get a partial credit because this number will keep going up. Okay, that's a little confusing. Yes, it is. That's why you see the 0.59 and the economically disadvantaged of a 38 of a student. It all deals with how students
129are coded in EIS and Skyward. But I thought yesterday No. Yeah. Yesterday we were talking about the change the state did in coding Medicare for econom economically disadvantaged and we're getting like 75% now. It'd be a lot less than that if we weren't. it'd be 72 or 7,300 and we'd be in a lot worse shape than this. So, we're getting back money then if we're if we're getting 7 if we're getting 75% back. It's already calculated. It's already calculated. Okay. So, that's just a where we are budget wise. We we've been working on this. We've we had a budget retreat and these numbers are pretty pretty close to what we discussed at the budget retreat as well. And I would I would love to hope that there was extra funding available at the county level
130because that's really where we struggle. We are we are running our district on the additional funding from the state. You want me to Can I follow up? Go for it. You're next up anyhow. Well, I'm a little I'm a little reluctant because talk about a contract out loud in a public meeting, but I'm going to say this. I've spent and and I'm talking about the school bus drivers contract or owner operators, whatever you want to call them. Um I have met with that group, the association group um three different times for four hours. I think we we we all originally said, "Okay, we're going to meet for two hours." And we kept getting a little bit more done, a little bit more done, everything. And and so, you know, a lot of it has been
131just listening. I I hope that their perception of what I've tried to do is is just listen to everybody and see where we are. But the reason I I feel obligated to say something to y'all tonight is going back to Dr. Sullivan's numbers there, that $13 million deficit, 10 million of it is is this from the school bus contractors, the the 35% increase. And so the, you know, I had a couple meetings today. I'm trying to feel my way through this. I may be doing it the right way. I may be doing it the wrong way. I don't know. Uh because this is my first rodeo. I'm going to say this, but I'm trying to listen to everybody. Um central office. Trey's been great with his numbers trying to get it. Um Miss Darby had
132made a suggestion about what you call it the personal responsibility zone. We we I've I've incorporated that into it and and this this thing is beyond Stan making the decision. Okay. I'm not doing it that way. I What I think I'll end up with in the next week, probably the end of next week, I think is kind of my deadline with y'all is to give you some options. I I think it's the board's decision. It's not my decision. I have visited with our friends at the courthouse. Um, short of beg bar stealing money, I've suggested two or three different revenue sources. Um, a small tax increase, possibly a will tax increase. I'm just going to throw it out there. I asked for everything. You know, is there is there any appetite anywhere? because the majority
133of this deficit again is going to come back to this school bus contract and there's going to be some tough decisions that's going to have to be made. Um, a couple of things I'm going to advocate for personally. One is I believe the insurance that we can that they can no longer uh couple to the county's insurance. We've identified that number to be roughly $4,000 per bus. I think there's probably 350 buses total including the the spare buses. So, you know, what is that? A million3 that we're looking that that is a new expenditure. That is that that hadn't been there. That and as I've pleaded uh this morning as as late as this morning with the courthouse, uh that is an unfunded mandate. The way I look at it, that is the ch that
134the legislature has changed that. That is something they have put on us as as a board, as the school bus drivers, as a county. We got to pick the tab up. I don't think you can force that. I I don't in good conscience, I cannot force that on our school bus drivers. I really think they would. If I were them, I would park all the buses if I couldn't get that money for sure. I mean, that's that's deficit. Second thing that that I'm going to strongly advocate for is that if you look at in the inflation index right now that that they're upside down even with their pay increases that they're almost 10% less in 2019 than where they are right now. I think that's kind of what I didn't that about where I showed
135you and we met Yeah. And we met with courthouse and commissioner today finance director to go and that was what we were kind of going through. You know it's like you know heck you know we've got to get them up to at at least zero. I mean that that's got to be the starting point. I mean they you know they came in asked for 35%. I get that. And we've been back and forth and you know there's some numbers been tossed around by by both sides of it if we could get the funding. But this is going to come down to the appetite really for our our commissioners, the county commission trying to get 11, 12, 13 votes there to to fund this. U and and I really it's going to take all of us
136to got to come together really to get it done. And I'm I'm speaking out loud. I'm talking about this board. Uh I'm talking about the school bus drivers and and the contractors. And I'm talking about the county commission cuz it's we, you know, we can't afford to go backwards in u instruction. I don't think I want to have the conversation with uh Dr. Chastain. She's already shaking her head right now. She's made they've made such great improvements. Yeah, it's just Robin Peter to pay Paul and we're paid somewhat on performance with the students anyway. And you know what is good for the students. You know, one possibility, um, not to spring this on anybody, but I think we identified possibly 25 to 30 routes could be cut if we went with her idea. U her
137her being you, Miss Darby. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to refer to you as her, but you know, that is a possibility to to look at that. And that would be uh roughing that through my head about 2.7 million, $2.8 million right there. that would go a long way to a pay increase for the rest of the remaining drivers. Uh so those are I think everything's on the table right now is and when I get through with this, y'all are going to have a cafeteria plan of choices to make. But but there's there's a couple of things I'm going to advocate strongly for and one of them is that insurance. I just can't see that us not picking up the tab for that. But I I don't did I say anything out of place? Now,
138the only thing I'll bring up, and the board has this as part of our TISA from last year, part of the TISA funds is required to go to teacher salaries. And so, last year, as an example, 6.5 million had to go to teacher salaries as designated by the governor's requirements to get to 50,000. And so, when you're looking at 8 million going, it's there's not a lot of room to cut there either. What kind of response did you get on the wheel tax? I mean, to me, that's nobody. M I didn't get a good response on any suggestion I made that morning. I'll be I mean nobody wants to pay more taxes, right? But and and the reason I said the reason it just came to me last night about the wheel tax digger, I
139thought, of course, everybody hates it, right? But there's there, you know, cuz it was put on for the retirement of the debt for Oakland and Riverdale High School and that bond's been paid off years ago and we still have that. I mean, it's just a revenue source. But, you know, cuz this is transportation. Th this is this is something related to transportation. You know, did it make sense? Okay, there's 300 a little over 300,000 vehicles. 10 bucks would get us $3 million. Would would every taxpayer in Rutherford County that's got a vehicle? Hell, I got I got five at home and 10 at the office, you know, it's going to hit me as hard as anybody. Uh, you know, is that a hard ass for for for for us? I don't know. I I'm just
140I'm looking at every angle. Everybody's going to be mad when this is over with. I'm going to tell you probably. You know, there's no Ed Jan told me years ago when I got in politics. He said, "Stan," he said, "A when you vote on something, after about three votes, you've made everybody mad." And so, I've got that behind me. That happened in September. So, everybody's already mad. Nobody's going to be happy. But but the only thing we I I think we've got to be rational about it. We've got to look at, you know, the opportunities as they present ourselves. What are they? I I I don't know at this point in time. I've looked at different I've asked Trey to help me analyze the cost of smaller buses and larger buses. Y'all heard some of
141that discussion. I think you know if you want hanging on somebody hanging on me. I'm looking for I'm approaching this the same way I've approached every business that Terry and I have been in and and and analyzed it from the inside out. That the the drivers, the owners, they have been very good to me. I won't say that publicly. They have shared with me their cost uh what what the what the buses are costing, what the operational costs are costing. Uh you know, we've had a hard discussion about the insurance. I will go to bat form on that. I have no quorums about that. That's just it's not their fault. It's not our fault. But we got to have liability insurance. And but but nobody's going to be happy with any kind of tax increase
142in the courthouse. We got a lot of new commissioners that have not been around. Um you know, we Bob Bullen and I figured out years ago it was easier to do two or three cents a year a nickel than it was to do 10 or 15 cents at one time. and and you know that's kind of what I'm pleading for here with them. But it's right now it's falling on deaf ears. But we'll we'll see how this unfolds in the next 30 45 days. Our problem is Dr. Sven's got to have a budget. We got to vote on it to submit it to the courthouse and and then that ramification of what goes on back and forth. And I don't feel for the commissioners. I I really don't. Nobody wants to vote for a tax
143increase. I don't I've said it publicly. I don't want to pay any more taxes. But a wise man told me in a budget committee meeting one night, and I never will forget him asking that, and I've told several of y'all this. This is back when it cost $4,500 to educate a a child in this school system. And one of one of the best businessmen I've ever been around in this community, Mr. Vtor Waldron was chairman of the budget committee at the time and he asked the question uh how much does it cost to incarcerate a a prisoner at the workhouse or at the county jail? And at that time it was about $18,000 and the statement was made. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to educate them than it is to lock them up.
144I I know and that that sounds Yeah, I'm being facitious. I'm trying to be funny. I'm really not because we as a society have obligated ourselves to educate our young people and to make them productive citizens to help them find their way in life and and and I tease all Jackson and Chandler's buddies right now. I want to make sure they get a good job because I'm going to be drawing social security for much longer. I want to make sure somebody's paying into that system right now. Right. But but somebody did it for us. We you know we've got to do it for the next. We just got to be prudent about it. That's and and somehow we'll get there. I know we'll get there. That's my campaign. Yeah, we'll wait on we'll wait on
145fund 177 till the next meeting. Um because I want this No, I want this to kind of be the highlight of what we're talking about. The one thing on fund 177 that is an option is that the board or the county commission could always request to use fund 177 to fund this. Now, that would take away our ability to do pretty much anything with deferred maintenance, um, HVAC, roofing, paving. That is an option that the board has. That is also an option the county commission has on the floor at any time is to whatever we submit, they could very well say, "Here are five pennies and that covers the deficit for your bus drivers." And so, I had hoped we'd be able to get further ahead on fund 177 with some of that funding. And
146eventually I we had talked about using some of that to start building high schools, but in the whole realm just know that that's a possibility that could happen as well instead of a property tax increase. Yes, Mr. Sh. What is our deferred maintenance currently? [Music] $488,484,610 and that's a budget. and Miss Maxwell. Yes. And to thank you, Stan, for um all the work that you're doing and and trying to help us navigate this waters and trying to figure out what is the most uh what is what is appropriate for us. I don't know what word to say, equitable or whatever. Uh but thank you. Um and to Dr. Sullivan's point is that with that fund 177, we've taken money out of general fund 1441 to fund um 177. Like we took 10 pennies last budget
147and the budget before that it was 10 pennies. So we've been funding that with general with our general purpose budget. And we've we've stopped the bleeding of that going up. We're just not making very much progress in lowering it because of inflation. And last budget, the budget before last um the one that we're operating right now in 2025, 2024 and 2025, we also gave money out of general purpose budget to pay back our debt service. And I think it was what eight was it $8 million or was it more than or was it $14 million? No, we covered the high school additions. So it was 14 or 15 million of what covered the actual debt service. Yes. So we and 30 million for the elementary school that we paid for and we paid half of
148that. So we've been trying for the past since I've been on the board being fiscally responsible by moving around panties to service both funds and to pay that service just so that we can build schools. And on top of that, with this budget that we have, when you compare our district with other districts in the per pupil expense, as big as we are, we we're not even in the top. Like, we're at the bottom. We're about $10,000 per student, which is just shows in in what we're trying to do with not as much money, but yet we are able to have great results. I mean, we're level five schools. We're I mean we're it what I'm trying to say is that we're trying to pull a weight even though it doesn't seem like we're trying
149to pull a weight and some people may not see that but we have been trying to pull our weight and trying to be fiscally responsible and um and and watching the taxpayer dollars as well. And I say we have said for the last two and a half years I know since Brian and I have been doing this we could float it for two years and balance it. third year was when we were and this is this is the third year and I I can't speak for the county but I think they're everybody's been under the same understanding of we could do it for two years the third year is when we're going to struggle and in two years the maintenance of effort moratorum on not increasing it goes away so that's going to be a
150I know Miss Sharps you stepped out for a second has brought that up multiple times the right now the maintenance of effort doesn't have to increase but there's going to be a a pretty big increase in a couple years when that goes away. But it's mindboggling to me that it's always been close to $500 million and we do things to try to you know shave off and it just doesn't seem to move the needle at all. We still remain at almost $500 million. 500 million and you're only taking 20 million off a year. It doesn't do it. Yeah. So it's it's so it's a balancing act in trying to shuffle all of that. Um, so I think what I'm trying to get at is that we need help from everyone that's here. And I said
151that during um um when we were going through the whole resoning, when we were trying to figure out the building and parents are asking what we can do, we need you guys to help us advocate and go to our county commissioners and trying to help figure out other options and to bring revenue. Um it's it's very different when I've I've sat in a seat where um I managed a big budget in the millions and it wasn't because I was handed the money. It was because I had to generate the revenue to get to $15 million and to be profitable. It's another thing when you're given this money and then you're still short in some aspects and you have to figure out how to do revenue. We're not a business that can sell products or increase
152prices to get generate more income. And so it's going to require the community and since the community is here to help us in talking to our county commissioners and trying to think outside the box. I appreciate what the effort that they tried to do last year which was um trying to look at looking at impact fees. Okay, that's great, but that was just one drop in the bucket. We need more drops into the bucket to generate revenue so that we are able to continue the effort. And having $2 million extra is just difficult in trying to navigate what we have to do. And like even transportation, they're like waving their hands over there. So, we need everyone to help. So, and I appreciate everyone coming because they're advocating for books, but we need to advocate
153for revenue and funding as well. Just so that the community knows, per people expenditure is how much you spend per kid. Rutherford County ranks 125 out of 143 districts in the state of Tennessee. And so, our county does do an amazing job of funding our new buildings. So, I don't want to think it's just a Yes, they do. Taking our we have a great relation with county commission. They will have approved hopefully in the next week over 300 million in new buildings. But when you're funding growth, your operations hurts. And we're behind Ventress County, Hamlin. I mean, places you would never expect that Rutherford County per people expenditure, Grundy County, Green, I you would not expect us to be behind them. And we are well, well, well well behind them. And I want to clarify
154the county commissioners have been great. They've been helping us in trying to figure out how to fund it. and Michael Smith and you've got a great Brian Wyan has a great relationship with Michael Smith in the county um in trying to do this but it's a balancing act but we're just at a point where there's only so much advocate advocacy that can be done and this is where the community can help with us is trying to talk to our county commissioners and think figure out other other things to think outside of the the the box in how to bring more revenue bring more drops to the bucket and not just rely on one. I appreciate their efforts, but we need more drops that come to that bucket so that we can finish so we can
155continue providing great and amazing education to all our kids. That's why people are moving here. People are moving here because of education. I'm honest. I'll be honest. I that was the main reason why I moved to Rutherford County. It was because of the schools. So, let's maintain the quality and let's continue to bring excellence, but we need everyone's help to do that. And that's my spill. Anything else, Madam Chair? I would like to wish board member Miss Tammy Sharp a very Happy birthday. Nope. No singing tonight. Singing tonight. Now, I'm going to move to adjourn. Thank you. We're adjourned.