001So, uh, we appreciate the board allowing us to come and and showcase some of our amazing kids and programs that we have at Oakland Middle School. So, who we have with us tonight, uh, this is about 30 of our roughly 200 students that we have um in our choir and and musical theater program. So, uh, total we have about 400 kids who are in our performing arts at Oakland Middle. So, that's about a third or I'm sorry, about a quarter um of our student body. So, what they're going to do, uh, they went down to the Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, um, in January, and they competed against 24 other middle schools from around the country, and they came in first in best in show, which is like best allaround. So, uh, that was
002a really cool achievement for them. So, what they're going to do is perform, um, a piece of one of their songs. And so, I'm going to turn it over to Miss Spin. She asked me to speak. She didn't want to because she said she would start crying. Um, so I'm going to turn it over to them and they're gonna perform for you. [Music] We can be [Music] both. The world can be our one. [Applause] Wonder Alice in Wonderland. How do you get to Wonderland? Over the hill or under or just behind the tree? Where can it be? Oh, that's the rainbow. Follow the brightest star. Your heart will lead you straight to who you are. Palace in wonderland. Where is the path to wonderland? over the hill or here or there. I want to [Applause]
003[Music] do Would you all stand? I pledge 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. Give them just a moment. That was wonderful. It's not mine this time. Thank you, sir. Would you please bow your heads for a moment of silence? Thank you. Next, we have the approval of the agenda. Any questions or comments? Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. Thank you, Mr. Tidwell. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed. Motion passes. Next we have the approval of the consent agenda. Any comments or questions? Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. Second. Thank you, Miss Darby. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next we have Rutherford Proud. All
004right. This is one of our favorite things to do each month. So, thank you for letting us do it each month. one programming note tonight. The custodian that we're going to recognize tonight, uh, is does not care for being on television. And so he said, uh, I'm not going to be able to make it to the board meeting. And I said, well, let us recognize you next month. We'll pick somebody else this month. He goes, I won't make it next month either. So, we are going to recognize him tonight, but he's not here, but we are. I talked to Dr. Ash. I'm going to come out to the school next week and do a picture with him there and those kinds of things. So, uh, still want to make sure we recognize him. So, uh,
005we'll start with John Bubba Tims. He's a custodian at Central Magnet School. Bubba has worked in Rutherford County Schools for many years as a lead custodian. He is dependable and goes above and beyond to make sure our school operates to its full potential. Bubba is a dedicated member of our school family and his work goes oftentimes unnoticed. He will come to school after hours to help any teacher in need. And so, this was absolutely a teacher that uh recommended him. The next is Dustin Brandon. Come on up. Assistant principal at Rocky Fork Middle School. He really cares about the students and they are his number one priority. He's super professional and always looking for a solution to resolve any issues to do with student or staff. Thank you. We're going to do a picture over
006here in just a minute. Thank you. And then next is Morgan Darnell, who's a science teacher at Seagull Middle School. This is a long one, which is always Miss Darnell is a fantastic science teacher and leader at our school. She works hard in class to help students be successful by organizing material and topics in a fun and engaging manner. She goes above up and beyond as a teacher leader. She spends many hours organizing, developing, and creating activities for the good of our entire school. To top it all off, she is an amazing mom of four small children. How old are your children? 64. Yeah, you're you're tired. I thought you looked tired. Yeah, that's um She deserves to be recognized for her regular work as a teacher and her extra non-paid, they put that in
007there, work as a school leader. We appreciate all she does for Seagull Middle School. Thank you. And then last but not least, Mary Collier. She here tonight, bus driver. Oh, yes, ma'am. Miss Collier is bus driver for 56 Walter Hill Elementary School. Did I get all that right? 56. I know you guys really care about those numbers. I want to get it right. Okay. Miss Cer, I'm sorry. Yeah, Miss Carter is an amazing bus driver, and this is what every parent wants to hear. She treats the kids that ride her bus like they are her own. And that's what we want is from someone that has that parent heart. So thank you all for we are these are known as our strong outstanding staff awards. They're brought to us by our partners at Sonic Drive-Ins
008of Brother County. This is Alan Shure who's one of the managing partners there and they come every month gratefully and like I said last month they said hey we're in for next year too. So just go and write us down. So we really appreciate All right. So, we're going to do a quick photo over here. And we appreciate the board letting us do this once a month. We'll be back next month. You want the whole board? Okay. Congratulations. [Applause] [Music] Next we have public comment and we have two uh people signed up tonight. The first one is Bentley Schoffner. Mr. Schoffner. Okay. Next we have Gabriel Gabriel. Sorry. Gabriel Ragdale. Good evening, members of the board. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to make a very brief statement. Uh obviously we're not in working
009session so we don't have an open debate but there's just one or two things I want to emphasize based on the discussions related to the Rutherford County bus contractors organiz or on behalf of the organization related to the contract. Um the first thing is is uh of course we're still working through many of the uh terms of the contract uh many of which you went over in the last session and uh one thing I wanted to emphasize was in relation to the insurance terms. Uh our our position is still consistent that we are prepared to provide insurance in accordance with Tennessee state law and with the regulations uh of the county and of the board. Um, as it stands today, our position is that the current proposal for insurance coverage is not in alignment and
010not something that we're prepared to agree to, but we're willing to continue to work with the board uh on that point. Um, specifically, you know, the extent of coverage and uh what exactly the law requires in so far as property liability coverage. Uh, again, consistent with the law and with the county and board's regulations. to that point. Um, we think that part of the insurance, the debate over the insurance could be mooted by a recent development at the Tennessee State House. There is currently a bill that has passed uh through uh committees and is up for a full vote on the House floor within the next week and then we'll go on to a full v vote on the Senate floor the week after that. the, you know, and I know that your attorney will
011pro, you know, provide advice on what the meaning of these laws are and what how that would relate to specifically these insurance terms. Our interpretation is that two of these state laws, and I have copies of them if you'd like to look at them, uh, work together such that when this bill is passed, it will effectively bring the county and the board back in the opportunity to provide insurance in the same way that it has been. so to effectively uh remove the prohibition on the county from extending and purchasing insurance coverage in the way that it had been. Be happy to continue to talk about that and if it allows for an opportunity for the taxpayers to save money and continue on with the coverage that we've had to date. We think that would be
012a real benefit in moving the contract forward uh for all of its key terms, that being one of them. Um so I just wanted to make you aware of that. be happy to provide uh additional information about that to the board and to your attorney and I'm sure that those discussions will continue. Uh also in closing, I know that you know we have been talking a lot about you know those key issues and the pay increase being one of them. Um we're still kind of putting together what uh that looks like uh on our end and are obviously awaiting you know you know the board's determination about what its budget will uh cover. To that end, we're prepared to submit uh just very briefly, we've put together a a a rubric that uh sorry, we
013have a uh a calculation kind of a rubric based on what revenue and costs are going to be at kind of each of those incremental raise terms. that may give a little bit more color to what the difference is between 10 to 12% which in our view is is not going to cut it versus 20% 18% 21 23 that type of thing. Joe to give a little bit more breakdown similar to the invoices and things that we've provided so far. So thank you for the opportunity and uh hopefully continue that dialogue. Thank you. Number eight, instruction. The elementary, middle, and high school textbook committees are recommending the adoption and purchase of the following instructional materials for use beginning in the 2526 school year and running the course of the adoption through the the 3233 school
014year. K5 Science Studies Weekly Science Publisher Studies Weekly Biology BSCS Biology Understanding for Life Kendall Hunt Chemistry Tennessee Chemistry McGraill Physics Tennessee Physics McGraill Environmental Science Tennessee Principles of Environmental Science Cunningham First Edition McGraill Earth and Space Tennessee Earth and Space Science McGraill Anatomy and Physiology Tennessee Welsh Holes Essentials of Human Anatomy and Physiology McGraill 68 Science Open sed 6th through 8th grade powered by Kdum. Um and then I'm going to ask Dr. Chastain to explain that one a little bit because it's a little bit different. This is an evolving situation. Uh so we are in a bit of an unprecedented scenario with what has been put before us with the combination of TDOE. So TDOE uh sets all the standards. The Tennessee textbook commission and the state board of education kind of have ownership
015of the textbook process where we seek to adopt approve they formulate the list of approved textbooks. They have committees. They give the LEAs those lists and we have our local committees and that's what you see before you tonight. The one that has a bit of an odd situation is our grade 68 science uh which is an open educational resource material. So that is uh some we call those OEERS. So they're available publicly on the internet and a publisher the publisher is KDUm. The publisher has chosen to essentially package the OEER resource in a platform and that is what was on the state adoption list. So the our local adoption committee moved through the entire process with our waiverss to ensure we have completely aligned materials that they're high quality both in content and the pedigogy
016that we expect our teachers uh to utilize in the classroom. And what they the the conclusion they came to was that they really liked the open sed open resource which again is available for free but as we're moving away from a onetoone model in middle school that we don't have the same use for a digital platform. So what we are asking is to use the OEER the open SIED resource without purchasing the digital platform that goes along with it. So we would therefore control the printing uh we have that the printing the purchasing of the materials that go with the experiments labs uh and the teacher materials. So we would control all that locally yearbyear. It's a much more cost-effective model and essentially we are just opting out of the digital platform. The last kind
017of tricky piece is because it exists on the state board's list, the approved material has a publisher tied with it. I'm working through like three different concurrent avenues to make sure that we are covered. I don't want to put our teachers or board in a position where something looks as if we have gone off list. The state board rule is that if if a material is less than 50% of what we're utilizing that is a supplemental material, we would need to seek a waiver for that. We're going to go through that process just to cover our bases. But this material is 98 to 100% identical to what showed up on the state list. So it's a I to my knowledge this is the first time we've been in a situation where a publisher has kind
018of nested an open resource within their platform. So it's just it's been a little bit funky working with TDOE the state board uh and getting a commission appealed waiver. Uh so that's why there's the asterisk. Um, and this option kind of covers all of our bases and we'll just keep updating the board with what we hear from the the state board. Clear as can be, right? Yeah. Anybody got any questions? Yes, Miss Max. Okay, Mr. Ross and then Mr. Tid. Yeah. So, I have a question and that's great. Um, I'm glad that we're looking at something that's cost savings for us. Um, why is it there was just one thing for open source for 6 through8 science? Is there a reason why there wasn't an option for K through I don't know how that all
019that works. So K through five or any other specific subject matter. There is this is this is the only one that had one directly tied to Tennessee standards. The others are aligned to national standards that are slightly different than Tennessee. So we're not comfortable necessarily going with with a resource that's not completely aligned to our standards. Um, and years from now there will probably be it'll be K12, but for now it's just 6A. From a financial perspective, how much are we saving by just going through the open source with this material? We won't know for sure until we're at the end of the 8-year adoption. I think one of the things that's going to save us the most is that we're not going to replenish materials that aren't used. So by us supplying everything up
020front and then we only replace what is completely used. So if there's some that are have sat there because of the number of students that may have been in that class or whatever the reason may be, we're not we're not locked into a contract that's producing x number of books over an 8-year period. We're able to handle that printing locally and only replace materials that need to be replaced. So, we we can get a lot more out of our our dollars by doing it that way than by just locking into an eight-year contract for for something like this. I think that's great. And this is my last question. Dr. Sman, do we know how much money is going to require to cover the curriculum for all this? You've got all those numbers, too. You have
021the numbers? I've got them, too. That's what I was pulling up because this will be on the agenda the next board meeting. Um because I didn't want to put the middle school edition and this at the same time with the county commission. Um, let me pull that up real quick. Kelly, you may get to it faster than I am. Yeah, I'm not sure. And while you're at it, you have Do we have the numbers of when we last purchased the the curriculum so we can have a comparison of whether when the the pricing Yeah. seven years ago, how much has gone up or down or whatever? I just wanted to jump in here first to make sure everybody knew that I found these numbers before. I've got them, too. But you win. Go ahead. No,
022go for it. You got them. You win. You get to You hit the mic. Um, so the middle school, what the middle school numbers are going to be are roughly 800,000. That's with some wiggle room depending on which print option we go for. So that that'll be the middle school total that we were just talking about. The elementary total is right around 3.2 million. The high total is around 2.6 million. So roughly we're looking at a total of $9,128 and actually we're going to decrease that because of the middle school. So in total with the the cost savings of the middle school one. Yeah. So you're at about 7 million. Uh originally we looked at middle school of 3.3 million if we purchased all middle school upfront. Um, but doing the 800,000 allows us to
023budget instead of budgeting all 8 million or all eight years upfront during one year like we do normally for textbooks, we'll do the 800,000 or for middle school upfront for one year and then see what we consume every single year so that we hopefully over an 8-year process don't have to spend that total $3.3 million for middle school. Do we have the numbers what we purchased? What it cost seven years ago? No, I'd have to go. Brian, do you have any idea? We'd have to get our purchasing department. Oh, I'm sorry. I'd have to get our purchasing department to go pull POS from a completely different system. So, I won't get that tonight. Okay. Yeah. And we are much larger since then. So, Oh, yeah. That's true. That's very true. Okay. Can you look on
024the board agenda archives? You got it. You were the textbook coordinator at that time. That's right. Oh, she probably did not delete the email. Y we'll come back to you. Sorry. That's fine. I was asking about the financial and France is asking about it. So, okay, Mr. B got a question. How I always wonder why are online textbooks just so out of out of range financially? I mean to me it just makes sense you know cuz they update them they update them a lot quicker but are these uh book companies are they they have them online or they move in that direction or so all of the materials that I'm aware of all the materials that were available for this adoption have multiple modalities so so the one they can you can either just buy
025traditional textbooks or you can buy traditional textbooks with online platforms it It would be very difficult. I would assume that most districts don't choose the ones that don't have digital platforms because it's so integrated into most of what districts do. Uh but for instance, like our K5 material isn't digitally, it's not digitally linked because we value the the more tangible materials for those K5 students. Um but all of them have digital platforms as options and they do update them. However, the way that the law is written and in order to stay completely aligned to the standards, it is illegal for the companies to update what was what appeared on the adoption list. So, if there was a change to something, it would have to go back through that process to be approved. Since the department
026of ed in Washington's been dismantled, do you think that process may improve? May after the last two hours that I spent with various members of said departments, I hope it improves. Okay. And everything with textbooks is state run. Yeah. Has nothing to Yes. Yeah. Kelly would like the um and so would I like the state portion to run a lot smoother. Yes. Yes. That is what Kelly Yes. This was it's been a disaster the last couple hours. Would you agree with that, Dr. Chastain? Yes. But we're in a place now where I feel comfortable with exactly how it's been presented this whole time. So, I just wanted to make sure we had several options in play at the same time that we we have contingency plans upon contingency plans that our teachers and kids have
027what they need come come August. And and we're we're good. We're good. Martin, did you get what you wanted or we'll come back to you. Okay. I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Second. Thank you, Mr. Rosales. Thank you, Mr. Cable. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number two, curriculum instruction CT department would like to allocate approximately 15,000 of Perkins 2425 funds to support the Ratherford Works Ambassador School Leads for our middle and high schools. Per the Rutherford Works Ambassador School Leads program has developed the instructional capacity for teachers, counselors, career coaches, and assistant principles within our school district to support the Rutherford Works partnership. School leads will be responsible for attending meetings implementing the following opportunities at their schools: work ethic distinction, youth science implementation, workbased learning opportunities, industry tours,
028eighth grade career pathway fair, college and career night, and assist with the implementation of ACT work keys assessment allocations. For each participant, they receive a $500 stipen for attendance and participation in professional development sessions led by Rutherford Works and CTE curriculum instruction department. And then you have the individuals by school listed below. Recommended motions to approve allocating approximately 15,000 of Perkins funds to support the Rutherford Works Ambassador School Leads as presented. Any questions, comments? Yes, Mr. Motion to approve. Hold on. There was one question. I was just going to say that's the motion still good. Um, I was just going to say this is a great partnership that we have with them. Uh, I'm so glad that we are continuing that. So, and I second the motion, Mr. Vaughn. And then seconded by Mr. Tidwell.
029All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number nine, legal. Transfer student under discipline. The board's been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. The student was expelled for possession of a THC vape. According to policy 6.318, the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student transfers from another uh school system while under suspension or expulsion. Director of school's recommendation is to deny. I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Menalis. Yes. Move to deny. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Darby. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number 10, supervisor of teach now specialist Rutherford Teach Now is requesting the approval of a new job description. Supervisor of Teach Now Specialist. The job of the
030Supervisor of Teach Now Specialist is for the purpose of performing managerial, professional, technical, and analytical duties and supporting of the teacher preparation program entertainment goals. responsibilities including maintaining data collection for reporting compliance, curriculum and program development for accreditation and the training of um RTN specialists for effective teacher preparation in accordance with the state board rules, policies and procedures. Any questions, comments? I'll entertain to approve. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. Second. Thank you, Miss Darby. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number 11. Mr. Reed, we might need you on this one. Lee Road property. A contract has been negotiated for the potential purchase of 161 acres on Lee Road for a school site. This property is located in one of the densest growth areas in the county. Contract has 180day inspection period with
031two 30-day extensions. Multiple studies such as geotechnical, environmental, and engineering will need to be undertaken to determ site. The site has sewer and there are planned improvements for water with sufficient capacity for a school site. The purchase of the property is subject to approval of funding by the county commission. property will be brought back to the board after testing and studies are complete to determine if the board wants to proceed to close on the purchase of the property. So, this is a 161 acre track we've looked at for a while now. Um, this is a good location in the county to address growth needs that we have in that particular area. The um property does have sewer. It's a very developable piece of property. It has good road access. Um the um if we decide
032to move forward this contract tonight, we still have a we have a 180day inspection period that gives us a free look. In the event we decide to walk away from this deal, we have no obligation. We can walk away anytime before the inspection period's up. We have additionally have two 30-day extensions on the inspection period if we need additional time. This will be contingent upon county commission approval of funding. Um so we will have to take this county commission and make sure they approve funding for the purchase of this property. So with that, um I know there are some slides that um Mr. Lee has in the system that may he could share with us share with us tonight. If you pull those up, I can walk through these. This is the um tax map
033of the property on Lee Road. Um shows the um access there directly Lee Road at um relatively flat piece of property. There is a hill which was the green the area with the trees back there in the back. I say lower left section of the property is a little bit of hill back there. There's a creek that crosses the very front section of the property. There are some wetlands or some little mile we characterize as minor flood areas associated with a creek. It's not a major creek. Um so it doesn't really pose a major problem for development. Um and there may be so that's how the tax map looks. Um do we want to go on next the next screen? Uh, Mr. Lee, if you have anything else to add, don't let me cut you
034off. John, if you'll back up briefly and two slides later, you'll see it again, but you see a very distinguishable line that runs right to left across there. That's this photograph was actually taken right after the completion of the sewer line. So that is the sewer line installation following the creek and I'll we'll show it to you in a minute on the city's maps, but that's the sewer that crosses there. The next map is an area that shows the flood zone area. We do have a little bit to deal with it. It is fairly minor uh in con in conjunction with areas that we've dealt with in the past. Um and we will study that like we have done the last couple of properties that we've dealt with. But that is the only um area
035of flooding that is on the property. This map there again the green line is the actual sewer um which you saw a minute ago on the aerial but the green line is the city sewer map. Purple is the city limits. This property is still in the county. Um, and but if it was in the city limits of Smyrna, they're one of our good partners. So, I don't think we would have a whole lot of problems, but currently it is still in the county. This is uh from CUD. This is a tentative preliminary breakdown of our cost sharing for the waterline upgrades. This is very similar to what we saw when we built uh the school at Plain View. Uh we would be uh somewhere around a million dollars. Um it would be our portion these
036numbers are not finalized. Uh CUD has been working with us for some time on this property. There's been some developers that are in and out and in and out and so some of their uh Cooks Lane one, Cooks Lane 2 may not be ready to um move forward yet, but our portion would not change. Uh CUD would go ahead and make those upgrades and as those developers, you know, went ahead and tied all they would get their portions, you know, at that time. But that's a preliminary. Um they're they feel fairly close. They do not have a time frame on this, but I would think in the time frame we're looking at, um, they weren't prepared to start at Plane View either. So, uh, CUD is a good partner. Um, I'll make a motion. We'll
037go ahead and approve this cuz we just a moment. I'm so sorry. Okay. So, Rosales has a question. Yeah. Okay. Sorry about that. Um, since we're talking about water. Okay. So, one of the things that this piece of property has is that it has our sewer hookup. Correct. Sewer is on site. The sewer is on site. And so, this is to what? Explain this to me. I'm sorry. All right. So, there currently is a domestic water line on Lee Road. Okay. It is not adequate to support us. Okay. And any future developments that would come. Gotcha. So CUD had a long range plan where um they've looked at certain sections based on PUDS which are submitted to the county and to the city so they know where these developments are coming. There's one at the
038sort of at the end of the sewer line that's been sitting out there for a while. It's 4 or 500 acres that um Smyrna Readymix has put together and they go they do have access Lee Road to Rocky Fork. Okay. So, so they that subdivision is not the the water line is not adequate for them either. Uh there's a couple of other developments along Cooks Lane. There's another development between Cooks Lane and the property that we're looking at. So what they do is they look at those developers and what pieces of the pie are truly just for them and what part is for the whole and then they they break it up and and each party pays a portion. We did something very similar at Plain View except at Plain View at that time we
039were about the only partner out there and CUD absorbed the cost for the other portions and then as those developments come on then they get their money back from them. They do not charge you a larger portion. So in other words, we're not paying for So there are we're not paying for their development. And you're saying that our portion is going to be about a million dollars? That that's not a hard number. That is a good estimate based on what we know right now. Okay. All right. Thank you for the clarification, Miss Short. Thank you, Madam Chair. And that's that's pretty much what we've paid historically. My memory serves me correct. Right. And and Plane View was about 850. So, so it some projects we do this and some projects we don't. It just depends.
040The Batty property we didn't have to because the water line had already been upgraded. Uh so, but we didn't have sewer. So, so it's a it's a trade-off, but that that CUD is it is in their plan. They are working for it and we think we can meet our time frames with it. So, thank you for that. Um my question is you're saying flood zones, not wetlands. So there's no we we will I do not based on my knowledge and of the property um I I would say that there's probably not however Miss Rosales asked for a list of things that we will test for and in that is a wetland study and a stream mitigation report. Um I'm not doing projects after what we have had in the past. I'm not doing projects anymore.
041I don't care if it looks like the Sahara Desert. We're going to do a wetlands and stream mitigation report to protect us. Yeah. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Can you rattle off the the list? Are you gonna send us the list? I can cut into that. We're doing We will do an appraisal. We will do a title search. We will do a phase one environmental. We'll do a boundary survey in topo. We'll do a wetland study and a stream mitigation report. We will do a soil and subsurface geological testing. That's two different tests. And we will plan to do a traffic study. Those are typically the ones we do. The one that's kind of new that we started doing after um Plane View was the wetland study and the stream mitigation. Okay. Believe it or not,
042I did get a call from I spoke to a county commissioner and they were asking him about all these studies. I know that you had the list and I said we were going to be very thorough like we've always been and so I wanted to go on record that we were going to go through the same studies that we did the same inspections that we had last last when we went through the uh Batty property be sure thank you. Thank you again. I'm sorry about one more. The elevation pretty much the overall elevation. I I I'm like I said the other night the vast majority of this property is what we would deem as flat. It is not perfectly flat, but it's elevationwise it's very buildable. The portion of the land that does have a
043hill, which is the wooded section, is not um much different than what we encountered at Rocky Fork Middle or Rocky Fork Elementary. It's not excessive to the point that we could not use it. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Is there any other questions or comments? Um this is uh as a continuation of the CUD. They've basically shown the three sections. Purple is one developer. The yellow's the other. The blue would be to get you know where the red X the property that we're looking at is the red X. So and they gave us the footages of each. So those correlate to the graph and the numbers that you saw on the previous slide in the dollar figures. So you can take this drawing and lay it with the other and see what each portion is. Next
044slide. And basically Steward's Creek is down to the bottom right and then Rock Springs is up top right. Rock Springs Middle. Mhm. Yes. Basically almost due north is Rock Springs Middle. Uh this and there again we do this on each project that we look until we get all the testing completed. Everything is finalized. This is a basic drawing because you don't see the roadways and the park all the parking lots and you see some. This is a depiction of to show us that we have enough property for two schools and everything that they need along with our storm detention areas and road access to show us that yes, we do have enough property. Um we actually h as you can see with this there would be some properties left. Uh and this is not a
045nailed final layout but this just it's a depiction that we can get our current programs on this property. One more question. Thank you. All right. So this is how much of the acres does this two properties take up in this? You talking about the two schools in this in this basic configuration probably about 115 to 120 acres. Do you think that there's possibility that we can put like a third site that is for multi-use purpose like a like an academy or um CT a CT school or or even a small Mac? I mean just a third building that is just a multi-purpose building. Yes. Okay. Especially because these are our current prototypes. They're the big schools, not the smaller. Okay. So if we and that was going to be my next statement, if we look
046at doing something smaller, then this footprint decreases. So that even leaves more opportunity to do other things. But yes, the answer to your question, even at these footprints, there would be room for something further. Okay, great. That's my question that I want to know. And that would be something that we would want to discuss prior to because we would want to orientate if we do look at a threeight. We want to we want to look at our road system, our water system, and our sewer system so that we're not having to go back and take things out that we've put in to facilitate this new. We want to plan that space as we plan the overall site. We don't necessarily have to plan the building, but we need to have a plan that yes, we
047do want to do something that's a so that we can as we do these roadways have a road stub that goes there, have our sewer line developed so that it does go there and our water as well so that we're not spending money to put things in and then turn around and have to take them back out because we didn't plan for what that third item is. Miss, I just know I'm one vote, but I do I I will highly encourage our board to consider that consider having three schools in this location. Not necessarily for that is going to happen today, but later down the road there could be land space for something that will be beneficial that we can use for meet our need to meet our needs. So, let's go ahead and buy
048it quick. Are are there any more comments or questions? And then we will get right to on to Mr. Vaughn's motion. We know how you feel. Now that that's the end of the slides I have and then that's kind of a typical preliminary of what we would provide at this point. Then once we each thing that we do I I will tell you in the last at the Batty we spent somewhere between 75 and $100,000 on all the testing and I would present it would be the same or maybe a little bit more but I it wouldn't be order of magnitude. I would not think we would be much more than that. Okay, for all of the different testings. Any other questions for Mr. Lee or Mr. Reid? Uh Madam Chair? Yes, Mr. I don't
049know if it would be better to put [Music] in the verbiage here or to ask Mr. um Vaughn to amend his motion, but to Miss Rosales's point from Tuesday, um something in here about wanting the appraisal to come before the board before we move forward with the testing. Let me comment on that. You know, appraisals are sounds great, but it's all in in what the man can what we buy it for and what it's what it's worth to me. It's what the man could he's given us a break on the price of this land by far. Yeah, I mean I'm I'm telling you that you look all around it and everything around it is is developing and uh when a man can get more money than what he's selling to us for what what's used
050to doing a appraisal either we buy it or we don't you know I don't know why what's sense in wasting money on the appraisal but the appraisal is in part of what we're going to be doing so we and we can walk away if we don't if we don't like it. So, I don't, you know, we're still going to buy move forward with it, but I I I will I agree with doing the appraisal first, too, as well. And I don't understand that. Well, whatever the board likes, if y'all like to include that in the motion, and I don't have a problem if you don't, I'll get the appraisal before we do anything else. Well, we still lock in the contract. We're not walking away from We vote to lock in the agreement with a
051contract with the asking price of $80,000. Yes, Mr. Spot. I'm going I swore up and down. I was going to keep my mouth shut. L I'm the only licensed agent on here, but I will make a tentative recommendation. I think you turn Mr. Lee loose and let him do all the background. You want an appraisal, get an appraisal. If you want a rap, get an A-P flood study. You want to get a flood. I don't care. Y'all y'all line up everything that everybody tells y'all need to do. But turn him loose. Gather all the information. Let it come back before the board. Vote it up. Vote it down. Long as everybody's satisfied. Because if we I'd say this, if you didn't get an appraisal, there'll be half the county commissioners ask, "Why didn't you get
052an appraisal? If you don't get a new survey, if you don't get a title search, somebody's going to ask, "Why didn't you do this?" So, we have to be very, very transparent with taxpayer money. So, so I advocate for anything, any concern anybody has right here before you purchase a piece of real estate, get all the questions answered first, but turn him loose. Don't hold back. Yes, Mr. Darby. We we came to this conclusion with the Batty property because we brought up the fact that if you do all of that at one time and for some reason the appraisal comes back low and we decide not not to move forward for that reason, then you've spent $100,000 or more on testing on something you you weren't going to purchase anyway. So the whole point is
053to enter into the contract, get the appraisal done first so that then when you move forward with the testing, everybody understands that the property appraised for what we're going to pay. That was the whole purpose when we went through it with the Batty property. So, just for those that weren't here, just to kind of understand how that came to be, if you do it all at one time and then the appraisal came back lower than what we were going to pay and the board decides not to move forward, then you've wasted $100,000 on testing for a property you're no longer going to purchase. So, that was the point in doing it in that order. It doesn't stop the contract. It doesn't have anything to do with that. It's just saying if we all agree, we're
054going to purchase the property. We would like the appraisal to come back before we proceed with the testing. Would you like to change amend or would you don't you really I I want to sign to go ahead and agree to sign the contract cuz thing about it is these folks have been offered more money than what we're paying for this now. I don't take a chance because there's not a whole lot of land as good as this available to us at this price. And I I don't I mean with all the the outs that we have, if things don't qualify and don't meet our standards, I mean, I don't see why we don't agree to go ahead and and uh to the contract tonight because we're we got all these if they don't meet all
055these criteria, we're out anyway. We don't we don't have a you know, that that negates the agreement. Uh, but I I don't want to put it off cuz I I'm telling you, these folks could walk away tomorrow if they wanted to. Now, if they walk away, we're going to be in really dire straits. Miss Maxwell, hold on, Mr. Tid. Oh, behind you. Yeah. Sorry. Uh, I mean, what we're entering into tonight is just a I mean, it is a contract, but it does give us uh a lot of options to back out at any time. My question is really directed toward Trey, which is if we did the appraisal first and then we did the the following test shortly after, does that set us back any are we still going to be able to get
056everything done in plenty of time? We in theory, we should still be able to get it done in 180 days. So unless the when you reach out to the the appraiser and they're like, "Oh, we can't get to it for x amount of months or something like that." Unless that arises, then I would be totally good getting the appraisal first. Okay. Yes. Mr. Lee, do you think that we're going to need more time than what's in the contract if we do the appraisal first before the testing? Well, you've got 180 days and then you got two extensions. If if the app appraisers and we Mr. You would have to gather an appraisal. What What's time frame for the for the appraisal? 45 days. And then another two weeks to get on this schedule. So So
057you're looking at 60 days. That leaves me 120. Uh, I'll have everybody else there at the exact same time. I'll send the surveyor and the and the wetlands guy and the geotechnical people. I'll have them all over the top of each other. Um, and try and get through in two or three weeks. Okay. So, I I mean, from the 180 days, I don't think we it it I don't think it's a deal killer. I If that's If you would like to do the appraisal first, that's fine. I make an amendment to to the motion to add to do the appraisal first. So it'll be to approve the execution of the contract for the potential purchase of the le road wrote. You'll have to we'll either have to vote amending means you can add to it.
058You don't have a second. You don't have a second. I can amend this motion. I haven't even finished my amendment. Okay. But he we still have we still have Mr. Vaults on the floor. No one has said a second. Oh. Oh yeah. That's what I was trying to say. No one said Oh, I'm so sorry. I thought the second was already done. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. I I mean, personally, I It's It's like you're appraising on a car. If you walk up there and you like that car, if you want to buy it and it's what you need, you buy it. You don't worry about the appraisal. And this man can get a lot more money per acre than what he's charging us. We're to buy land. Mr. B whether we do the
059appraisal first or we don't do the appraisal first. We're signing a contract tonight. Yes, that's that's what I'm saying. Let's the contract tonight. We're signing the contract and then I'm going to go get an appraisal. I'm going to second your motion and then I'm going to make my amendment to your the I think that's what they're asking. That's what we're asking. I'm going to say I'm seconding your motion. So, it's second. Okay. Now, we're making an amendment to the motion to add to it to do the appraisal first before the others. We're going to sign the contract tonight. I I your motion. So, we're signing a contract. Is everyone clear? We just after we sign the contract, right? But I need someone to second them. I will I will second the motion. Okay. I'll start
060whatever it is. Do do you do you have that, Miss Miss Williams? Okay. Can you read it back to us? We don't know. All right. Our original motion is to approve the execution of the contract for the potential purchase of the Lee Road property. That was uh Mr. Vaughn and Mrs. Rosales. Then the amendment from Mrs. Rosales seconded by Mr. Tidwell is to approve the execution of the contract for the potential purchase of the Lee Road property including an appraisal before we begin testing. Correct. Sounds good. You vote with the amendment first and then come back and vote the on the amended motion. Okay. Uh all in favor say I on the amendment. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Now back to the original motion as amended. As amended. All in favor say I. I. Any
061opposed? Motion passes. Thank you for all your hard work, guys. I can do that for two. Yep. All right. Christian Elementary playground court request. Principal Chris Lafert is requesting utilize the Richard Seagull Foundation grant for the Asher Sullivan memorial projects to install a half court on the playground with the Asher Star. The school has been in contact with the Spurner ready mix and summit concrete since June. Most of the materials have been donated. The school will be funding the remaining $7,250 through the basketball account. This project is at no cost to the board. Engineering construction department has reviewed the request and has no objection. Motion to approve. Thank you. Thank you. This is beautiful. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Of course not. Motion passes. Trying to help doctor. Thank you. Appreciate it.
062Didn't have to read it. Thank you. Moving on. Trying to get out of here. Trying to get your number. Rockville High band shed. Principal Steve Lucer is requesting to allow the band to purchase a 12x 24 storage shed to be used to store band equipment. The shed will not exceed 14,000 will be funded through the band account. Engine construction has reviewed the request and has no objection. Any questions? I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. Thank you, Miss uh Sharp. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Let me ask one question. Uh, I guess they have security on this building. You know, with all this band stuff they got out there. We have a camera on it, too. Okay, good. Number four, Wilson Elementary playground. Principal Angela Barnes is requesting
063to purchase additional playground equipment and install a sun shade utilizing funds from the Richard Seagull grant. The cost for this project is $24,86.80, fully funded by the grant and donations. This project is at no cost to the board. Engineering construction to review the request and has no objections. Any questions? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Thank you, Mr. Tidwell. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number five, Riverdale High School JOTC obstacle course. Principal Tamber Blair requesting to allow the JOTC program obstacle course improvements. No new construction will occur with this project. The JOTC instructor noted this upgrade will save money on future field maintenance to provide a safer place for JOTC and anyone else who uses the course. Construction will be completed by JRTC instructor, students,
064and parent volunteers. Anticipated cost of the project is 5,000. The funds for this project will come from the JROTC fundraising. So, the upgrade will come at no cost to the school or the board. Engineering construction review the request and has no objection. The motion recommended motion is to approve the Riverdale High School JTC obstacle course as presented. Any questions? I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. Thank you, Miss Sharp. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number six, custodial equipment repair tech. New job description for the custodial equipment repair tech. This position will replace the HVAC level six position as part of the current 2425 school year budget. This position will make general repairs, perform preventative maintenance for the custodial equipment and machinery such as electric buffers, floor
065scrubber machines, propane burnishers, and other equipment. Any questions? I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. Thank you, Mr. Tidville. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Number seven. Number seven is the Popular Hill Middle bid approval. Uh this afternoon, Thursday, March 20th, purchasing engineer receive bids for the Popler Hill Middle School project. After review of the bids, we recommend RG Anderson Company contractor for the lowest and best bid of 59,197,000 to include unit prices 1 through3 and all unit prices. Engineering recommends moving forward to health and education committee and the full county commission overall request for funding of 70,897,000 and then we have a breakdown. Construction is 59,197,000. Construction related cost is 2 million. Furniture, fixtures, and equipment is 4.5 million. Design is 3.7 million. Site contracts 1.5.
066The total request is 70,897,000. I do want to make note though, um, and Miss Williams, if you'll add this to the minutes as well. Uh the total request is 70,897,000 but something this board has done a great job of doing is funding things ourselves. We have already funded 3.7 million back in August for design. So we are only going to be requesting 67,197,000. Um that is very much under what our initial proposal was on our 5-year plan. We had this estimated at about $89 million and construction alone at $74 million. We came in way under. We came in way under. And so that is good news. Um that definitely will help with borrowing capacity as well. So the number we'll be requesting for funding is 67,197,000. And this is a two-story building. So it'll be
067our first middle school two-story building. Yes, Mr. Where where' the 3.7 million come from? 141. Okay. Fun balance. So, we funded 30 million for the elementary school at a fund balance last year and 3.7 million out of 141 fund balance this year. You sure you want to do that? We already did it. No, I'm not talking about I'm talking about not requesting the full amount. Could we need that 3.7 million somewhere else? We could build an auditorium at Thurman Francis with that money. Easy, easy, easy. Design fees for a high school. Yeah. I'm just trying to be since we Let me talk through it real quick. Okay. Just just hit me because I hadn't seen it um till just the last 30 minutes. But if if since we've had such a windfall, yeah, roughly $10
068million, $15 million right here, why would we back oursel back in a corner when we go back for the funding that we originally That's my only thing. I mean, it's kind we we've taken you before I got here, you took it out of your savings account to pay for this to get started. Okay. So, why wouldn't you put it back in your savings account? Why would you keep it out right now? Especially since you bought the new car a lot cheaper than you thought you was going to buy the new car. That's the only reason I'm saying it. Knowing that we're headed into this path of building this capital purchase here. I mean, if we need it, we we we can return it next year, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. We put
069it back in savings account some other or use the savings account somewhere else. That's that would be my only advice right here. I think that'd be a great recommendation for the board. What what would the what what does our budget man say about that? Would you comment on my proposal or my idea? I don't have a problem with it. So, we would have to change the No, you wouldn't. You would do it exactly as written. Just as written. Okay. Yes, Mr. Tidwell. Dr. Could you repeat a couple of those figures again? So, it was 3.7 is what we put in before. Yes. So the currently 67,197 is the estimate of what it owed but the total request is as Trey wrote 70,897,000 is the total cost of the project. So that total funding request for
070the county commission I'll go with that as my recommendation. Okay. The $70 million. Yeah. 70 million897. Okay. I mean, even with that, there's still several million still 9 million over the very base. We said hope would be 80 million at the very lowest. And our budget that we looked at was was it 89? Does that sound I think in our 5-year plan document, I think it was 89. So, okay, Mr. V, did you put a motion out there? I do I need to change I mean you you just go with the one that's you were just fixing to make the recommendation to her to change that but it's like it is on the minutes or on the agenda so Mr. Tib I think we're fine right there would someone like to make a motion move
071to I don't think we need a motion somebody's got to make a motion move to approve well I'm so moved then okay Mr. Rosales second by Mr. Tidville. There you go. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Wonderful. Number 12. Also want to thank Mayor Carr. He attended today. Um we had a separate meeting and I invited him to attend just to see how it works. So it was it's good to attend and appreciate the partnership. All right. Next is the bus contract. Um so we know that we had bus work session as well. Anything's open for discussion. Um, I talked on Tuesday about deadlines and that type of thing. We are perfectly fine after talking with Brian. And actually, I will not be here on April 10th because I will be
072at the courthouse presenting this. So, I'd feel much more comfortable if we were to make that decision on April 24th so that I can be here. So, and Brian, Brian, you're okay with that from a budget perspective, correct? Yep. So, and as per Jeffy's email, if any of us have any questions and things that we would like discussed towards the contract, Mr. Vault will be available and of course, Mr. Reid would be available as well. So, Madam Chair, yes, Mr. Can we get um even if they're just roundabout figures on what it looks like routewise that we would save if we instituted a PRZ and what it would look like if we removed the routes from the alternative schools, please. I've got it. I can send it to you. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I've got
073it from about what a month ago. It would still be there. It's not going to be drastically different than what we sent you a month ago. Yeah, I've got it. So, no problem. I I missed it so I apologize if you already sent it. No problem. I don't know that I've sent it. I just know I have it from him. Okay. Thank you. Financial report. We have count health and education on Tuesday night to ask for funding for this and then we will be moving forward at the ne the April 10th board meeting to ask for funding for the science textbooks and probably part of the one to one for gank um high school devices. I was like high school textbooks is not right. high school one to one. Martin, do you have textbook prices?
074No, it's a little more complicated. I can tell you kind of what what we spent, but it's not comparing apples to apples. 5.2 million. That was a shorter adoption period and fewer students. Six years last time, much fewer, fewer students. And if you also remember um this adoption was delayed so we had to come back um last year or two years ago ask for more money. So you're just not comparing the the same purchase. Also when I clarified saying it was a disaster. The disaster is the the you have department of education, state textbook or state department. So you have state department of education, state board of education and the new textbook commission. you have all three that are in new roles. So that's when I talk about the disaster. It's not any one department.
075It's just different people doing different roles, which is the it's new for everybody. So it's a it's a struggle. That your director? Yeah. Update. Okay. Mr. Vault, do you have anything hot off the presses of capital? Oh, it's it's it's fun to watch them. It's fun to watch them. What we think is going to be a problem one day is fix it. Fixes itself. So anyway, I encourage everybody to watch your TSBA updates and if you do have a concern, we'll get on the phone. But I think most of the stuff seems to be working itself out right now. But whatever we end up with, we'll we'll deal with and we'll be fine, I believe. Okay. General discussion, anything? Yes, I have qu two things. Um, one two questions. One is um I know we
076are in March and we haven't really brought this up or talked about it for a while and I know that we have an action plan because we went over that action plan last academic year that we are trying to there's certain goals that we're trying to achieve but I just wanted to give an update on the third grade retention and how we're doing because we're getting ready to do that TCAT testing and it's going to impact a lot of third graders right now. So, I just would like us just an update on that. We're kind of in the uh repeat cycle since we this is our third year now. Um so, we just got I got the report today for the most recent screener for our third graders. Anybody that is within that possible appeal
077window. Obviously, we don't have TCAP scores. They haven't taken the TECAP yet, but there's several avenues for parents with appeals, exemptions, etc. So that communication will start uh trickling to parents through the school within the next couple weeks. Um we're going to have a call with all of our principles to go through the process again. Uh so so should feel pretty similar with retake options, appeals. The district is now able to do the appeals with parental consent on behalf of the families. So that's that's what a lot of the communication will be between now and the end of May in preparation for the summer camps. So just for clarification, the communication just that's sending out to parents in two weeks are for the kids that are not on track for the universal screener or that
078based upon that diagnostic test or is it for all the families that we just had parent teacher conferences. So this was a big push with our third grade teachers this week. Uh, and then with those screener results, we we won't have the final screener until right there after TECAP. So, we've got some competing data. What we have is the most recent winter screener that will give us a a guess of where some students that might need specific appeal options to be communicated early. So, that's kind of what we're we're weeding through now to make sure we have everything ready to go after that first TECAP score comes back. Do we have a rough estimate of how many students? No, it would be inappropriate to say I think at this point I can tell you that
079our third grade teachers as usual are working hard up to the very last minute and our students are performing where we expect them to. So I feel good about it. So my daughter is not in third grade. However, my goal for her in kindergarten was for her to read. And I will have to give kudos to Brown's Chapel cuz that girl is is is reading right now. And not only she reading in kindergarten level, but she's reading up to first grade level right now. And she's not even done. So I just want to give kudos to how awesome and amazing our staff is. And so I'm a happy mom and excited about her capability of reading and um and the and just the effort and the time putting into emphasis on reading. So, thank you.
080Job well done. Um, second thing I have is that um, over the retreat we talked about the five-year building plan and I'm just wondering when are we going to be looking at those options and that and as we were talking about now that we kind of laid down the groundwork in building the elementary, middle and high school to put emphasis intention to those older buildings like the Thurman Frances um, um, central central and there was One more a Mac McFadden as well. Fatten in the alternator. Yeah. Uhhuh. And so that way we can start looking at a plan that we can bump them up more towards the front. Um especially after the high school. Yep. Since we're already doing that. Um because I believe we're starting to catch up like where we left off because
081of COVID. So I I would like to know when we can start that by that April 24th meeting. At April 24th. Yep. That'll be when we have discussions on the 5-year plan. We may be ready to update it and officially vote on it, but I would like to have it attached to our budget that we present to the county commission. It's always good to give them a new updated plan if here's where we're going. Perfect. And then um the Leverne High School edition, when is that set to completion? When is that going to be done? 26. Winter 26. Winter of 26. Winter 26. Kind of like Smyrna was this year. Yep. be sometime around. I'm hoping I'm shooting for October, but we'll know more after we get through the summer. Perfect. Okay. Well, if you
082can come back to us and give us an update on that in the summer, that'll be great. Just to know where we're at with those, Mr. Vaughn and then Mr. Tidville. Thank you, Mr. Vault. And I went to visit some more schools uh this week and I tell you it's it's just we've got such a phenomenal school system that I don't know of any school system any better than what we have. And uh I mean we're just we're just blown away every day how well these schools are run the quality of teachers they got the way they do business and uh you know from the leadership up here with all the Dr. Southern and the staff and they all have praises for the for the job and the support that they're given you know from
083these people up here. So, you know, we just need to to constantly thank and uh the people that we have that do the work every day cuz they're some of the best and I wouldn't trade them for anybody. So, Mr. Tidwell, I agree with Mr. Vaughn that uh we do definitely have an amazing school system. It's been recognized by the state. It's recognized by our community. I think it's incredible as well. Um, we got a budget of over half a billion dollars. What 7,000 employees roughly? Roughly 7,000 52,000 students. I mean, we are making decisions that are affecting a lot of people. Um, and I think with that comes, you know, a large responsibility that we all take seriously as well. So asking for guidance in those decisions is something that historically was a a
084practice of the Rutherford County School Board uh to open up and ask for some divide guidance at the beginning. Um and I just want to see if we could I'd like to make a motion that we pick back up that practice. Uh we looked through some of the old minutes of previous years back in I think it was the I don't know if it was the 50s, the 60s or the 70s. I don't remember which one it was, but how they used to do that. And I'm not sure where that had gotten away, but I would like for that to be something this board considers as well. Um, so I'd like to make a motion that we start opening up our meetings with a short word of prayer. Uh, where we would have the moment
085of silence. Second. Second. Comments or questions? Okay. Okay. You have a motion on the floor. No, I've got a second. Okay. Okay. Um I agree with you, Caleb. Um, however, I would I guess this is cautionary a little bit in that these cases have been litigated for years in the Supreme Court and we've gotten pretty good guidance to what we should do and what we shouldn't do when it comes to um talking to the divine. I guess I'm going to say it that way. And I have thought and dwelled on this for basically since I've been up here trying to figure out well why do we do this but we don't do that because the county commission historically um open with pledge of allegiance and a and a and a prayer but the test cases
086have always said that the legisl the legislative body could do that but other bodies were told that they couldn't do that. I don't know the answer to it. You know, uh I think I would like to hear a word from our council on, you know, whether or not we take this under recommendation, we study about it, whatever. I don't I don't know if that's palatable or not, but the conclusion I came to, and y'all going to laugh about this. I thought, well, if we're really wanting divine intervention, we all believe in a God, we all believe in Christ. Not all of us. Some of us uh everybody has got their own form of religion or prayer. I personally will say this. I would a whole lot rather have all seven of us, eight of us,
087nine of us, 10 of us, 30 of us, 150 of us reaching out for guidance, intervention, direction than I had one of us. Now, that's just my two cents worth. That's the only way I can make peace with it. But honestly, I'd rather have all of us during that moment of silence reaching for that divine intervention and guidance. But um Mr. Reed, would you comment on the two or three or four cases that have gone all the way to the Supreme Court and kind of give us a little insight with um of course we are part of the sixth circuit um in our federal court system in the US. Um the historically Supreme Court has differentiated prayer at legislative meetings from the board of education meetings and that's been a distinction that has risen from
088supreme some Supreme Court cases um our sixth circuit um last case they had on it um said is that you should not be praying at a board of education meeting and that's the the current law in the sixth circuit. um whether that would change. There's been some change with the composition of the Supreme Court. Um there's been some cases come out since the Supreme Court uh of the US has heard that these issues lately. Um so there's no uh you don't really know how it would shake out in the end. Uh but the existing precedent that is there today in the sixth circuit um does not really permit it at board of education meetings. it does allow it in legislative meetings, state legislature, the county commission. And I don't know if the reasoning behind that
089is really sound or not, but um they have always viewed that in the school setting there's more students involved and more people can be involved that um than just people who are elected to be in a governing body. I don't know if that's a valid distinction or not, but that has been recognized in the case law before. um what would happen ultimately uh if a case um gets challen challenged and it goes up to sixth circuit US Supreme Court today you won't know until that happens um and but um so that's about all the guidance I can give you now there's a lot of unknowns with respect to uh what the US Supreme Court would rule in regards to this or the sixth circuit would rule on it today given some changes in case law
090that have occurred here in the last couple of years with a change in composition of the t of the US Supreme Court. So what what you're really referring to there is if if we move forward and pass this resolution or this motion we we run a risk small risk large risk we don't know just a risk of somebody bringing a lawsuit against the school board. Correct? Yes. Second part of that question would be this. If that happened, what would be the litigation cost to that? Well, it would depend. It would depend how in your expert opinion. Yeah, because you're if it was brought it most it could be brought in state court or federal court. These type of cases are brought more often in federal court than in state court. So, I expect it probably
091a federal court case in uh to be heard in Nashville that will be heard by the just your court there at that level, which is the first stage of the federal court process. Um to defend a case there, you're looking, you know, you you're probably $100,000 or less in defense cost on that. Um if it went on up to the Supreme Court, uh or it would go to sixth circuit next and say someone appealed it. This type of case is one that easily could get appealed. Um you probably are looking at um several six figure amounts to litigate that case and if went to the Supreme Court um that whole process will probably take years by the time we make it would make it up there. Um you could be looking at at a million
092dollars plus in regards to it. Um you don't know what kind of damages someone would claim in in a case like this. If someone claims damages in a case like this, they often times request their attorney's fees be paid. So, it might be a situation where you're not only paying your attorney to defend the case and the cost associated with that. You could end up if you if you win, you won't have to pay the other side's attorney's fees, but if you lose, um, you have a high ris have a good chance of having to pay the other side's attorney's fees. So there are some financial I guess considerations to think about in regards to all that. It's my understanding that some of the some of these arrangements have been made were because that uh
093it occurred with school boards that had a student as part of the school board. And because of that, that's one of the reasons that it was ruled that way. Um and you know with us not having a a student on our board and adults uh you know we could we could pray and give people the option. You know the kids are you know there's a lot of kids who want to pray with us and if they didn't want to they wouldn't have to. It's not a you know when you say let's pray that's an option. Uh, I mean, I'm like Mr. Tidwell. I, you know, it's a battle. I'm ready to fight cuz I mean, we've just I just don't believe in giving up our liberties that we've had. And uh, the structure of our
094country was based on it. And uh, I don't know. I just like to get it back myself, but I'm just one of seven. Mr. Title. Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that have changed. Um, certainly some differences between the cases. We went over some of those differences and these board members as well had um, uh, a lot of opportunity to ask questions regarding this particular subject. So, in my opinion, I certainly believed I wouldn't have brought it forward if I didn't think there was a path and I didn't think we was on great standing in this considering it has some historical precedent. So, with that, my motion is on the floor. Uh, we do have a second and I'd like to uh move forward with the vote. All right. I guess a roll
095call vote. Okay. So, the motion is to open with prayer rather than a moment of silence. Mr. V. Madam Chair, I'm sorry, Dr. Stark. Um, Caleb, can I amend your motion to state that we will have a Well, that's not how we've done it in the past, so we're a little all over the place sometimes. Um, I'd like to amend the motion to include a statement prior to the prayer to allow our audience members to be respectful to anybody that making it clear we are by no means asking anyone else to pray with us. They can if they so choose where they can step out if they feel more comfortable stepping out. Okay, I'll second. Okay, so we need to I have a question. Yes, Mr. All right. So here's my question. So when community
096members come and pray during the comments, they can if they choose a three minute to pray, they can do that. Will that be the same thing in during general discussions? If anyone wants to pray can pray. If we all if we instead of praying at the beginning, we decide to pray during general discussion or we can just because last time you just said I would like to pray and we prayed. So is there anything that will keep us from I guess praying because we have community members that can pray during comment section before the meeting. I mean you can always pray before the meeting if you choose to do it but during journal discussion or if someone were to bring up during journal discussion discussion I would like to pray. Is that something that can
097be done cannot be done? I didn't ask this before. I was just thinking about we need blessings before then. Okay, we don't need to wait till Jim's discussion be I was just asking I was trying to figure out if we could just do it without having to do a motion. That's all I was trying to get at. Mwell. Yes, Mr. Uh the historically how it's been done is at the the beginning of the meeting. So I was just trying to follow what it the practices of this board previously. But we did that last time without a motion. Can we just do it without the motion is what I'm trying to say. You can do a practice if that's the practice the board wants to adopt. You can that's is a practice that can be adopted
098without a motion. I would rather just do it as a practice without a motion. Why isn't Why not? We vote. I'll make one more offer. I'll meet every one of you right here at 529. We can pray right there, right then, before the meeting starts. You're asking for trouble. You're asking for the taxpayers of this county to bail us out over something that's being taken care of at this point in time. You said liberty, Mr. Vaughn. You're infringing on other people's liberty by doing this. I don't know if you're thinking about that or not, but we have to protect everybody's liberty. Right, wrong, black, white, pink, purple, polka dot, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu. There's 52 different languages spoken at Smyrna. I know there's 17 or 18 different religions in this county. So again, I would
099implore every one of you to look inside your heart right now and think about this that the moment of silence if for me trying to get guidance to run this 52,000 student, how does this make the students better? How does this make the 7,000 teachers better? I want everybody on our side. I want everybody uh asking for help, guidance, whatever. Not just one of us. You know, I would further say this, you know, just ask a philosophical question. Who's going to do the praying? Butch going to do it? You going to do it? Who you going to ask to do it? I I don't know. I'm just And I know where this is headed. And I'm okay with it, but I'm just I'm just trying to get you to think just a minute before you
100take a rash action. If you want to table this, talk about it further. You want to vote? I've heard you say that three times. I don't talk over you. Thank you. Mr. Sullivan has a plane to catch. You're fine. I'm good. If you all want to vote tonight or we can postpone this vote. Okay. Yes. Amendment. What was that? A motion amend or do you request to amend it? It was not clear to me. Was that a motion to amend? I amended the motion. She requested it. I second it. Okay. And Caleb second it. Okay. So this just clarification again. We prayed before our board meeting, you know, just said, you know, just as we get ready at 5:30, uh, say, you know, we'd like to pray and before the meeting starts, would that eliminate
101all this? So if you is a different if you if board members choose to to meet before the meeting is convened that's outside the scope of the public meeting. If you do that an hour, two hours or someone decides to pray outside the scope of a public meeting you're free to do that. U the issue here is talking about prayer within once a meeting has been convened. That's the difference. We did the 529, we'd be better off, right? You would be there's Yeah, you correct. Yes, that is correct. Mr. Maxwell. Yes, Mr. T. I don't think that anybody would distinguish if we all stood up here and prayed at 5:29 in front of the same people. They're going to be here at 5:30. Wouldn't make any kind of type of distinguishment between the difference. But
102regardless, I'd like to call it a question so we can vote. And the amendment is okay. We'll have to clarify this to make it better, but the basic thing is to make a statement before the prayer letting people know in the audience audience. I apologize. He called the question. We need a vote on the call to question and twothirds. Correct. That's correct. Okay. This is for the vote for call to question. He wants to end debate. to vote. Mr. Va, yes. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mrs. Darby, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Okay. End of discussion. And now the amendment. I apologize. Okay. All right. for the amendment. Um, and again, this is about the statement that we're going to write uh that basically tells people if you don't
103want to participate, there's no reason you do not have to. So, we'll come up with some prettier wording. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mr. Vault, Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mrs. Darby, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, yes. Passes. All right. Now, for the original motion. All right. Sorry, I flipped my page over and now I can't find it. Okay. Sorry. The original motion is to open with prayer rather than a moment of silence. Mrs. Darby, yes. Mr. Vault, no. Mrs. Rosales, yes. Mr. Vaughn, yes. Mr. Tidwell, yes. Miss Sharp, yes. Mrs. Maxwell, I'm sorry. No. The motion passes. M. Miss uh Miss Darby move to adjourn.