Board of Education Work Session - September 17, 2024

001to the September 19th Rutherford County school system work session uh first order of business is our Pledge of Allegiance led by Mr B pled 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 would you please bow your heads for a moment of silence thank you the first uh order of business is the approval of the mam chair Sant TR can you put the microphone next to you because so sorry that better I'm so sorry okay the approval of the agenda give you just a few minutes to look that over do you have any comments or questions cons okay how about the approval of the consent [Music] agenda any questions or comments there if not let's move

002on um we do not have any public comment we're going to do ruford proud on Thursday and uh number seven and then we move to number eight and our first order of business is um Mr James Evans our chief Communications officer is going to present to us good evening uh I'm also join by Milan Ragin hudgin who is one of our communication specialists in communication Department very valuable uh Milan and I both have a background in journalism and then we also work with Barton who also has a background of communications so one thing that Dr Sullivan has asked us to do is to once a month starting with the new board he wanted us to provide a update on just some of the communications analytics that we measure every month so Milan is going to

003talk to you a little bit about our social media channels and the kind of interaction that we're seeing from the public so you'll have them in on your table there are reports and you'll want to look at this side one that has like the five pictures of five and I want to give Communications credit because we met back in April I guess of last year and really talked about long-term and short-term plans and goals and the organization leadership and just the teamwork is definitely seen an increase in just the effectiveness of our Communications team so great job of your team thank you Dr Sullivan um so you'll see before you um you'll see some numbers from August 2023 which kind of serve as our Benchmark for when our Department became a three-person team um and

004then below that you'll see uh the numbers for last month and the over under uh for the month of July um I will tell you that we have worked very hard not only to tell meaningful stories um but to get them in front of the right people at the right time um as you may be familiar uh with social media each platform kind of has its own demographic um two of the things we're most proud of uh one of them is all of our Communications um all the numbers that you see are organic we don't pay to boost any post we don't pay for any ads so it's the work of um all of us um plus the teachers that submit content to us um and some of the people here in central office that

005just kind of make our jobs a little more easier um one of the numbers you'll see um is the growth in Instagram and YouTube um as far as um subscribers and both uh times time watched um Instagram we've grown about 900 or so um in the last what is this since uh March um and we're up to 7,000 that was a really big deal for us to celebrate um and also uh YouTube If you look back um to last August um we have already within the month of August this year uh more than doubled uh the number the number of hours watched um so Sunday message and any of those special things that you see I'm on YouTube or social media all that is done inhouse um most of that by Barton um but we're

006just so we're so proud of the work we do we're so proud of the district that we're in and we just thank you guys uh for investing in us and we appreciate it all right so on the report you'll see there uh we'll do this every month but we're not going to go over every number of course you can just see some of the growth one number that's a little bit down is actually Twitter and we we or X whatever you want to call it but but one thing we attribute to that is that platform is kind of going through a weird phase of its Evolution and so there are users falling off of that platform somewhat and so we think that's affecting our numbers too the five pictures at the bottom of the report

007show you the most popular uh items that we've had this month that parents and the community have been most popular uh the CL that first one is the graduation schedule of course the second one is Dr Sullivan's first Sunday message of the school year the third one is the turf dedication uh write up that we did from Rockville the fourth there is Miss Christina Penny the new principal of Browns Chapel uh Barton andl have been working on video profile of all the new principles and that was our first one it was extremely follow extremely well liked and followed and then the fifth one is the 100th anniversary celebration at Walter Hill Elementary School the back page will also show you our report from our website and again I'm not going to go over all of

008the information here but it shows you some comparisons between July to August but also shows you the most popular Pages which is valuable for us as a Communications team because we can see what it is that parents are interested in so the most popular page of course is the homepage bus routes and school zones were was the second um the academic calendar was the third registration and enrollment was the fourth the list of schools lunch menus and then available jobs that all coincides coincides with the beginning of a school year so it makes sense we and we'll be tracking that every month to see how they may change or which which Pages become more or less popular as we move through the school year and that kind of helps us drive some of our content

009what questions do you have for the Communications Department okay Mr VA looks like he has like a really mischievous grin on his face it looks like he has a really good question that's nor no I was going obviously this is kind of the business that I'm in with in the real estate and auction business I was looking at your numbers comparing them to ours and and watching it trying to figure out the demographics to each uh platform who's following who who's following what and those kinds of things we're we're still learning too but I very impressive very impressing Yeah so basically this is in general but uh in general Facebook skews a little towards your older parents um myself included um and grandparents are becoming that's the largest growing part of that demographic because they

010want to see grandkids that's what we're hearing uh interesting though when kids leave high school and go into college Facebook rebounds and that's kind of interesting because Facebook started as a college um social media really one of the first ones other than like Myspace um Instagram is still very popular with teenagers and younger adults but again that's all part of the same company which is meta Twitter is a mixed bag right now and YouTube it just depends on what type of content you put out depending on what you draw my kids love YouTube but they are watching very different things than I am they're watching kids play which is the weirdest trend on YouTube too they love to watch other kids play which I think is very weird but um I asked my son I

011said what was he doing he goes oh son's playing a game great I'm glad that you're learning through another kid that's great so but we try to hit all of those and then LinkedIn is also another another popular social media but of course it's geared towards those who are seeking jobs but in our County that's a very popular uh thing to be pursuing are jobs and so our HR department uses um LinkedIn quite a bit to help attract jobs and we seen a great deal of success this year CU we I think we're still fewer than like 20 open positions which is amazing for a district our size so there you go there's anything that you want us to cover every month that we don't cover uh we're happy to add those in Milan loves

012speaking in public so she I didn't tell her till today she was me doing part of this presentation and I thought she was going to use some bad words at me but that's it Barton will be here Thursday I will not be here uh he's not giving a presentation but if you want to pick on him too that's perfectly fine this is impressive because in just a year if you take Twitter out y'all have not only doubled but sometimes tripled your viewership and followers in these areas and you didn't boost it or do anything right this is all organic exactly uh no one tells your story better than you do that's our philosophy and so we love that the media covers covers Us and tells our story too but our teachers our principles our staff

013we know what's happening in our school is better than anyone else and so that's part of that marketing push that we've been doing part of the rebranding and all those things so just appreciate the board support I worked with Mr D for a long time and I think the job that he's done over the years and um the the way he's presented Ru County Schools is a reason that that we've done as well as we have about attracting people to ran I mean I don't know of any other system uh that has is good a uh media presentation program is James just brought in and um I'm just glad we got him so well we have a Statewide group it's always a team effort it's never just one person um that table over there they

014do so much to support what we do that we we couldn't do it without them our schools do as well um but I mean it's becoming more and more necessary to be marketing focused as we enter into an age of more competition within schools so that's what we to pull the wagon y Mr Rosales yes thank you um I just want to say I love this the colors look amazing so thank you so very much for continuously doing really good work and thank you for reporting on this and showing you the labor and the love that you put into this so thank you very much I just wanted to give you some Kudos thank you a shout out anyone else that like to comment okay so I'm going to tell him one more thing I've

015already told Miss Derby this but we have our first month of the SOS award which is the strong outstanding staff award that we've started this month we'll be naming the first four winners next week but we have more than 220 nominations so far excellent that's wonderful and a good variety and mixture and so we'll be picking those next week the leadership team will be picking those so wonderful thank you thank you so much mam chair yes is it possible to go back to the uh use facilities for just a second yes we can I have a I guess I have a real problem with u you know these uh clubs and everything use facilities but they don't get everything done and we pretty well allow them to go ahead and use facilities and play the

016and I would really like to say uh so come down and just make that you know if you don't have it you don't you don't use the facilities cuz I'm afraid we're going to be exposed from a liability standpoint you know if somebody was get seriously hurt and they didn't have the insurance they should have and you know and I see you know six or seven of them so have we had any instances no but if that's something the board's interested in my suggestion would be to put it on on the October 1st board meeting agenda for us to discuss and vote on make a not of that Don going back uh we're moving on to number nine instruction instruction tab two under the supervision of the special education coordinator and assist of Technology educational

017assistant is requested to assist students and teachers with assist of Technology needs including but not limited to post training followup observations Fidelity checks and data collection this position will be funded through idea Part B funds and that's fund 142 our federal funds excellent part two academic calendar request Madam chair yes I'm sorry sorry I just wanted to clarify those are recurring funds that we get every year correct so this isn't one that's going to fall off and then go into the general our allocations change a little bit every year um but that'll be up to the special education department how they budget what positions they need versus what they don't need but not like the Sesser funds that are dropping off they're there year after year okay anything else sorry didn't mean to move on

018without your question okay number two academic calendar request so this is a little bit strange we will have the official academic calendar for the board to vote on at our next board meeting um the committee met last Monday so was past our deadline to already have this submitted however twaa if you've seen the news last couple years they really struggle finding qualified and the number of officials right now and so they require you to pick which week you want fall break so that they don't have to pick officials for that week and if you play during the week that you picked his fall break they are not guaranteeing you officials and so I know that may be strange but our schools are two years out already in scheduling um especially being a big County we

019have a lot of schools who struggle to find matchups and so this was their request to have all districts by October 1st have to them what their next 2 years fall break is going to be so they can guarantee fall break this follows what we have done for as many years as I can remember and it's the first full week of October and so again and I'll have the full calendar for everybody to vote on that has spring break winter break all the ins service days all that at the next board meeting but this is just so I can submit to T Suba okay any questions can we uh is it possible we could maybe work with the city and sort of coordinate yeah they usually take cars and then go from okay excellent number

02010 Human Resources yeah so a couple you guys all have an insurance committee recommendation John will you hand me the I'm not a member of the insurance committee um but I did want to thank our team so we have um Brian Sears Dr Anthony Brian runan Jennifer Schmidt is new to us um but not new to us so she Jennifer was with the county and now um is on our team so it's nice to on our team and thank you for your work and the expertise you will bring to this position so your official title is benefits coordinator and so she was one of our new budgeted position to be able to to use so just to give a little bit of background the we moved to the State Insurance two years ago so open

021enrollment actually started in August or September of 2022 so under the state plan you don't necessarily get to to choose what options you were going to provide they decide that for you with that we have two providers we have Blue Cross Blue Shield and sigma so those are the two providers with partners for health is what they call it Partners T in for health with that you have four tiers and so if you think about you got two providers and then within that you have four tiers you have your Premier tier standard limited and then local um cdhp or HSA so premier standard limited and local and within each one of those you have your different options that you're used to seeing with an insurance broker is you can choose just to have an employee

022employee and child employee and a spouse or an entire family and so that's kind of how it works within those four tiers though you then have two options so you can choose what is called Network s under Blue Cross Blue Shield or local under Sigma or you can choose the option for Blue Cross Blue Shield which is Network P or open access the topof the line far right quadrant that you were looking at would be your network p and Open Access in that Premiere plan so that is the most expensive if you guys will and I'll kind of scroll through some of this um on the second page our committee had some recommendations and also some rationale that we looked at and some parameters first one being overall there was a 5.9% increase communicated by

023the state for 2025 the state gives you the premiums this is how much the premiums cost and it's up to each district to determine how they then want to structure the level of benefit they provided uh we of course we've talked about for over a year we do have cost limitations bu on based on our budget constraints we are just at about 10% % of our entire operating budget is health insurance alone that does not include salary does not include Social Security Medicare any of the things that come along with Benefits 10% is health insurance right at it so the last couple years uh we have done salary increases we did a 4% 5% last year to and a half% and we did split the last year with the employees we covered half and they

024covered half of the salary or the benefit increase this year however we're just not in that that boat and so what I charged the committee with and I didn't like this because it definitely limits what options they had but basically it was we can look to afford about $700,000 additional um because what decisions we're making don't just impact this budget year they impact next budget year as well because this is for a calendar year starting January 1st covers two budget Cycles so the other thing the board currently does it's the way we have operated um for many years is that we basically if you take the more expensive plan we pay more for the more expensive plan and so it's not going to be shocking when you look at the numbers here that you going

025to see most people choose the most expensive plan because that's what the county or the school system provides most funding for it's also important to note that when we went from the county to the state we saved quite a bit of money for our employees and we're just about now getting back to where we were probably just a little bit above based on what we do this year but where most of the market most of the countries had substantial increases we are just now getting back to asking employees to fund what they needed to fund two years ago so I think that's an important factor the other thing that is important and we will have a message to employees about is to truly look to see which plan do you need if we for whichever

026option both of them increase cost truly looking to see are your doctors under which plan and we're going to discuss some positives and negatives um with that as well the next page shows you how many people are choosing each plan you're going to see again what we talk about is that open access and local plus this is for siga um but you can see just how much people are choosing that higher plan which is the network P or for that open access we have more people choosing that than we do people choosing the cheaper plan again we pay more for that so that makes sense of why they're choosing you flip over to the next page here were the two we went through multiple iterations of what we were looking for but the middle of

027the page there's a couple things I I want to talk about you will see that in column one we have two scenarios here for the board to consider one is a proportional so that employees who are paying more to have that premium Network are going to start paying more for that premium Network so if you need the premium Network you need to pay for that that does come with a negative caveat and that Stone Crest TriStar is the only one that is under that premium Network and so that limits somewhat of the North End however we could also have Stone Crest not Stone Crest sorry um St Thomas rord at any time move in and out of all these we don't control who they choose MMC is in conversations to pull out of Signa I

028mean there's that's a moving Target as far as which net which groups are covered by which network the next couple you will see the insurance cost is 67 million this is employee and employer combined the middle is what I wanted to highlight you'll see employee portion overall as a county is 12 million and the employer portion is 55 million so we budgeted right at about 55 million last year and and working on our budget I look to see that we should have about $700,000 with fast growth funding and with direct outcome funding that we can cover and so that's what they were working with was about $700,000 you'll see we are still overall that third to the last column we're still as a district covering 81% of all plans so we have always tried to

029be above 8020 we at about 8 8515 then it was 8416 this takes about 2% difference and that second to last column shows you what we have budgeted as far as how much of an increase that'll be so option one $699 option 2 77 again it's a little bit of a shot in the darkk based on what options the employee actually chooses we have both scenarios down there uh scenario one 2025 increase is passed along proportionally for for the plans so employees can then buy up or if you want that Premier plan then you have to pay extra for the premier plan and when we look at premiums in just a minute it is it's pretty substantial if you want to pay up for that premium access scenario2 it doesn't matter which plan you choose

030the county is going to absorb 20% of the increase just to all employees so that does not help us longterm um it does help us kind of bite a little bit more time to see if there's any changes as far as what plans cover which one whether or not the local would start to cover TriStar but again it's it's going to pretty much continue increas in cost as time goes on you will see that I'm very proud of the insurance committee we had teachers EAS a member pretty much from every group you could imagine retiree somebody that had a high cost um and then somebody that was single with a low cost to try to cover everyone we asked them to look at it from a business perspective and they chose option one based on

031that um but again I see pros and cons to both of them there there's not a great scenario there you'll see the next one talks again about just some summaries and what we will communicate to employees there was a 5.9% stating increase what employees always struggle with I me this is my third year doing it so it's something that's always there and it's shared is that we got a two and half% raise but my insurance went up 5.9% so I'm losing money that 5.9% is on a lot less money than your overall salary so you get a 2 and a half% raise on your entire salary to where the 5.9% increase is just on premiums so those are not comparing Apples to Apples the state only requires you to fund 45% of your insurance plans

032you will see we are well above that we're above 81 this does provide the option to level up and pay if you want to employees have the choice to go down to narrow plans if they want to not pay that extra we did have to look at budget considerations uh we've talked a little bit about the past salary increases and we know this year that we will probably not get much of any additional local revenue and we still have an additional 2% raise that we have to do to be able to get to 50,000 which is our state minimum we already talked about MMC May withdraw from siga that could create out of network charges for employees as well and then that last one trar the impact for broad plans p and Open Access since

033it's not covered for the narrow PLS then you get to the rate charts so let me kind of go over what you will see on these rate charts the first one is your local access and so this is if we you'll see beside Rutherford County Schools 10 months Blue Cross Blue Shield and Signa s local plus so this is your more narrow this is the one that would not include TriStar you'll see you have your four tiers and Premiere standard limited and then let me through to that one and then your local cdhp and HSA you'll see the 2024 is the current contribution the employee I'm going to look at Premier Po and employee only it goes from 17112 to if we do the buy up it goes to 18120 so it is not that

034big of a difference because we are covering 20% overall increase I'm looking at the second column on scenario one if you go to the second column under scenario 2 that number goes from 17112 to 21144 so it's a bigger increase but again that's because we are doing a 20% increase overall and still continuing to pay more for people that choose that higher plan caveat again being the higher plan is the only one that includes the North in Tri Store and Stone Crest if you go to the next one page this is where you'll see big jumps because this is where in scenario 2 people are basically having to pay up sorry scenario one they're having to pay up so this is for somebody that's on Open Access right now so they chose the top of

035the line they're on it's 18912 for an employee only Premier the second number 18912 under scenario one to where you now have to pay up whoops went too far you would then be at 25646 per month so it is an increase because you're paying for that more Premier coverage if we cover 20% of everybody you'll see it decreases to 22944 so it's still a bigger increase but it is not as big of an increase because you're not asking people to pay up for the plan that they need where it start to if you look at like a I'll just use myself as an example employee spouse and children 48046 is current and then it'll on the going to the I'm on that premere PO the very bottom one 48048 and then the employee will go

036to 626 96 if you have to pay up if you don't pay up you'll go to 58512 where it's 20% of the overall increase what I still want to point out though is how much RCS is paid being someone who has been in a different district from on the state plans there are some districts who truly say we are paying 75648 for every plan and it doesn't matter if you're a family individual or not you are paying the difference um and that happens in a lot of rural districts and even in some not rural districts so we definitely are paying substantially for medical insurance which helps us get employees but that's kind of kind of where we are now the has those really two options of do we want to cover 20% for everybody or

037do we want to have the people pay up that need the premier plan but understanding that does hurt the TriStar one happy to answer questions or Mr vaugh you said on the committee anything you wanted to add or staff I tell you i' just like to say Mr s the committee it was just uh I mean those those folks really do Dr do you know when we pay roughly the 81% of however much they're spending like over the whole over the whole plan and you'll see those percentages a little bit different um if you look at like we will pay less of a percentage I'm on the very last page for people that are going to buy up if you're on that high Premiere and Open Access we're only paying 75% but if you look

038down at some of the local cdhp it's 8785 883 and on the one before that you'll see it's 8020 there's one that's 919 it's just the 81% overall so I know I think I had asked the gentleman that was here at our meeting about the insurance about potentially and maybe not for this one but maybe going forward as you know budget things come up um kind of a flat fee thing and I'm wondering if it would be beneficial to look at trying to keep our 81% of our employees and maybe lessening the percentage for the dependents if we get to a place where we have to kind of adjust I'm I'm happy to see that we were able to find some money to contribute towards it this year um I just I am still a

039little concerned about the whole North End issue just because if their only option for their closest hospital is on that Premier plan that that's almost like punishing the people that live and work on the North End which is a little frustrating um I just don't know if there's any way around that Miss Maxwell all right so just to kind of reiterate to make sure understanding well here if we go with scenario one then um it requires the employee to to pay up for the premium and then we go with scenario two but that scenario one is going to have uh the long-term effects fit are not as severe on the district as scenario two whereas scenario two kind of continues what we've already been doing uh but we'll increase the cost moving forward because a

040reoccurring cost and how much of the cost did you say our budget it eats up of our budget the just under 10% and so it's 55 million our budget this year was 549 and so it is 9.9 one roughly toping about somewhere around there it's for me I'm just looking at it from a uh couple different scenarios but typically I I find that you'll get a base plan with an employer and then you have the option they'll offer you other options that you can choose to pay up for I think that's more similar to what we have been offering uh and just considering the budgetary needs that's kind of where I lend I I I do concur with Mr Arby about the frustrations of what's in network and out of network but as you mentioned

041about MMC I mean that could be a whole another thing that's that's going on unfortunately we don't get to choose that that's sad part I think the biggest thing just for those that don't know about the north end is that Stone Crest is our only option for a hospital versus Murphy's bro has a couple options um so we're going into this knowing that Stone Crest is not part of the other plan and knowing that that is their their only option on the North End so that's just a little concerning to me for those families and employees that live out that way I had heard rumor that vanderbelt was going to try to put in a hospital off of 840 and I know it it got denied okay multiple times would have been great God denied

042I was hoping that might be is back on in the plan correct I thought they were last year they weren't but they came back in right not sure or where that is in litigation right now okay okay the other point I would like to bring up is last year we talked as a board we heard about 83% salary and benefits we're probably closer to 85 or 86% now um like this coming year insurance is an issue we know transportation is going to be an issue um we have already cut our textbook line down to $2 million hours that we only did growth we don't have anything budgeted for the next textbook adoption we've moved High School to being the only ones that are one to one with computer so that only has $400,000 that we

043there's people are the next thing to cut and so that's that's truly where we are thank you any other questions thank you for explaining that next we go to Legal all right legal Tab four at a County transfer student the board's been requested to Adit a transfer for a student from another school system under discipline the student was expelled for possession or use of drugs you have the entire file with you or you can talk to Miss Ridley as well I think she's emailed everybody according to policy 6318 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 next we have engineering and construction two first we have requests for Seagull middle softball

044batting cages principal Kim Stoker's requesting to install a 45x 65t batting cage area for the softball team the estimated cost for this project is 48,000 it'll be at no cost for the school or School Board all materials and labor being donated by a local business this area has been known to flood periodically in the past and Engineering does not believe it will make the problem worse it could however be underwater at some time engineering construction has reviewed the request and has no objection would this require a permit from the city as well yes probably maybe we don't have to answer that never mind it's on the edge okay okay next we have uh number two request for home Pitter campus School GaGa ball pit they've requested a GaGa ball pit so kind of like dodgeball

045and a little hexagon so principal Sher King is requesting to install a GaGa ball pit on their playground the estimated cost for this project is 4,000 will be a no cost to the school board all materials already in hand and paid for the labor is being donated by local business and funded through the PTA engineering instructions review the request and has no objection if MTSU approves the addition as well thank you Dr King for being here um it's just one G ball it's just one of those things that continues to we we do have mtsu's approval okay same thing okay wonderful again ignorance what is when I G up I didn't have GaGa ball what is it it is a best way it's like a I was a hexagon or an octagon I don't remember

046what how many sides it has on it it's it's got six yeah we got our um new Olympic sport over though a God got specialist James that's what I just said six I wasn't trying to be whatever I so it's like dodgeball kind of but underhanded and then you it's it's yes okay much more intense in a much smaller space okay it's a shame do Mr is not going to be here thur no he can demonstrate it of what B is I don't think that's a great idea it's the it's the new thing because you're going to get one again on October the 1 so you're going to get more of these requests for this for this sport okay Mr VA did y'all ever play go ball out there last heard of it before I

047thought pickle ball would be next thank y'all and next we we move to number 13 library book review so the final decisions due by by September 19th 2024 so that's Thursday for the titles below um Mr Reed I I don't know the best way to go about doing this on Thursday this will be our first time kind of going through this as a reminder these were challenged under the obscenity law um not challenged through the age appropriate materials act and so that is a little bit different of a process you have any suggestions [Music] criteria to library book materials and under that new statute the board was required to adopt the policy and procedures to evaluate library books and um and basically under that new procedure your required by state law to determine whether or

048not the library books are age appropriate for the students who have access to those books so that is the procedure that established under the new chapter 782 aside of that you have other laws that affect books in the library one of which is the Old obscenity Law which we've had on books for a long time that says if books are obscene then they should be removed from school libraries and um and I think that's really initially issue the board I respect to these these books coming before you now determ whether or not books are are seen or whether you determine their age appropriate or not whatever kind of restricted access you want to put on the book um with respect to determining whether something obscene we have a statutory definition of that Tennessee so there's

049a law that gives you that criteria for what something is obene or not and that is 3917 901 and there's basically three requirements for something we have seen in Tennessee and those three requirements are the average person applying contemporary Community standards would find that the work taken as a whole appeals to a prent interest um secondly the average person applying contemporary Community standards would find that the work depicts or describes in a patently offensive way such ual conduct and the work taken as a whole lacks serious literary artistic political and scientific value so for a book to be determined to be obene and under the Tennessee statute all three of those criteria must be met so that would be a decision of the board evaluating these books whether the books that issue meet those three

050criteria aside for that you also have to whether or not you know determine it's not obene but maybe not age appropriate for everyone at I'm sorry so if you determine it's not age appropriate for everyone um who has access to the book at school you may have to put some age some restrictions on the book If You by Statute if you determine it's obscene you have to remove the book so this group determines that a book is obscene and meets those definitions of absity you have to remove the book under the current statutes if determine a book is not necessarily obscene but may not be age appropriate for everyone who has access to it then in that case you have to take action to either remove the book so that people kids who are not

051U of appropriate age do not have access to it or impose some other restrictions on it the way the law reads if you take no action on these books within 60 days when the complaint came in then at that point it gets referred on to the state um textbook commission for them to take action on it if they deem it to be appropriate so so so really um the decision of the board this that will be coming up is whether you determine the book the books to be obscene or not that would be one determination of someone wants to make a motion to that effect and if they are determined to be obscene they would have to be removed from all the libraries in in the county if you the other option is you if

052you determine they're not age appropriate then you have to pay Place age appropriate restrictions on those books and restrict the access um as you determine appropriate so both those all those options are on the table you also have the option of doing nothing with it and if you do nothing it goes onto the state so those are kind of your your your options with respect to the books any questions comments I think there's the state textbook commission whatever their official name is has some disagreements on how it gets to them um I believe there are some disagreement under challenges under the incin law whether or not that actually makes it to them or not so that's just something that we have heard that they don't view it's only the official complaintant that can challenge it

053to them can you I could I couldn't hear you yeah so the I guess two years ago the textbook commission whatever their official title is was charged with reviewing appeals that got to them uh we have some conversation around how does a book actually get to them and it's not through a just the board chose not to do anything it was more of the original complaintant would have to send it to them and so that brings this one into a unique situation based on the complaint yes Mr tidal uh I I would like to address a few things one I know that we all received a letter from the ACLU and U that was just a threat letter I'd like to go over a few things that they mentioned here and kind of give some

054clarification to that uh one they obviously made some references to First Amendment rights for students uh two they talked about the Pico decision um and that we can't remove books because you don't like the idea so if you're making a decision based on political ideologies um or discrimination or something like that you don't like the topic you can't remove the book uh can't remove for merely just mentioning um you know what before I say this next word I personally don't think this is a conversation I don't know how much of this content is going to get brought out in public so I just like to disclose anybody watching that if content does to get brought out to the public I don't think this is discussion in my opinion for minors so that's a heads up

055on that um but can't can't remove from merely mentioning sex and they also said that we should return all the previously considered books back to the library so I would just like to address a few of those things uh one we'll start off with uh the First Amendment violations so it's it's not a First Amendment violation according to Supreme Court case law Pico versus Board of Education uh said the selection of content in K through 12 schools is not a suppression not a suppression of First Amendment freedom of expression there exists no right to have certain materials available in K through 12 schools the selection of certain materials over other materials is not a First Amendment suppression of free speech K through 12 schools make many decisions to limit content which courses to teach and

056not teach which books to purchase or not Etc there is no suggestion that K through 12 schools have to purchase any particular book to go a little bit further with the peak over versus Board of Education in 1982 though not all justices agreed all members all the justices of the court and Pico versus Board of Education did acknowledge that the school board has the authority to remove books that are vulgar as an interpreted as interpreted in the bethl school district versus Frasier case in 1986 which they referred back to Pico Tinker versus de Mo the Supreme Court acknowledged that dis non-disruptive students is protected due to the ruling in Tinker but the court made an exception to the rule that allows schools to prohibit speech that is sexually vulgar or lewd the mere mention of

057sex is not what we're talking about today the content will show that the sexual content in these books is sexually explicit therefore violating state law consistent with Supreme Court cases cited above the US court of appeals upheld a school district's right to remove content that is lewed or sexually explicit it and that was in 20111 R versus itha City School District they defined LW as inciting to sensual desire or imagination so your threat letter that you got from the ACLU they obviously left a lot of context out because I feel like they're trying to push uh a certain direction however you're not violating first amendment's uh rights you are doing what it was set up for you to do and if you'll read any of these cases what you'll find out is that the Supreme

058Court has decided that the people closest to what those Community Values are and what those Community Values should look like is the elected officials and they have said that the school board out of the elected officials possible are the closest to that Community because they were elected by the community so the buck stops here that is the conclusion there are two things that are as and I I'll make one quick mention uh there's there's uh he made a referral to Mr Reed sorry made a referral to the nor test and that of course that is part of it but I'd like to turn your attention as well to TCA 496 3803 this is the collection review policy adoption evaluation and removal effective July 1st 2024 I'm going to read you subset one in whole or

059in part all right for the purposes of this section we'll start at B for the purposes of this section A material that one in whole or in part contains nudity or descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement sexual conduct ex excess violence or abuse as those times are as those terms are defined in 39 17901 is not appropriate for the age or maturity level of a student in any of the grades K through 12 and must not be maintained in a School's library collection all that to say that there have been lots of opinions on this particular subject and I understand that I understand that there is some subjectiveness however there is a line and our job is to find out where that line is I think that in the discussions that I've had with those

060that have been opposed to removing the books or and certainly those that have been forward removing the books The Difference Maker is almost always the content not the topic not the surrounding story but for the argument of sexually explicit material it is the content and so since I don't know that everybody has availability to that content there was a website that was created book review rc.com all that does is that just shows you the content of the books that we're reviewing and how we arrived at this position so that everybody can be made aware of what that looks like I don't know how much of that content is going to get read in this board meeting or at this work session or at the upcoming board meeting but I at least encourage all the board

061members to review that content and I wanted to make the board aware that your decision today based on not today sorry at the board meeting on Thursday your decision on this particular Topic in my opinion as to why it was brought to the board is on the basis of sexually explicit content not age appropriateness that's separate there's a line that's crossed I believe that line was crossed in all seven of these books and I'm willing to make that case once the line's crossed as I just read you to the law uh the letter of the law we should remove the books if it if the line wasn't crossed then now you're talking about age appropriate and then you're dealing with a lot of different things the focus of how these books at least arrive to

062the channels in which they have arrived to this meeting today in my opinion has been specifically and completely on the topic of sexually explicit content and violation of the law and I'd be happy to carry on further but I feel like I've talk to them ask question Mr Reed so of course part of my jobs director is whatever the board decides is what we of course will do but I also have to look out for risk and discuss those things um one of the question questions that we get stuck a lot with is the TCA 49 you referenced references the definitions in TCA 391 1791 and ntca 391 1791 the Miller test that Mr Reed described as listed so I get stuck in the which part do I follow the law is referencing TCA says

063remove it says remove based on the definitions in 901 and then the Miller test is listed in 901 and so I I have no idea which direction you go Mr to read well that's board decision so the board's going to have you have to give you Direction and what interpreting what the laws are and what the board's will is with respect to these books so so ultimately um the school system's role will be fulfilling the the the decision of the board with respect to the books that's great thank you I got one comment about that you know uh everybody that's I guess watching tonight and everything everybody gets been out of shape about these books the thing about it is these books uh most I'd say everybody that every student that I know of in

064middle and high school have their own cell phones and the access they have to the uh what they have access to is tremendously great greater than anything in these books and you know the uh if you really if if parents are really concerned about this and hey I agree but I say also too you better you better take your cell phones and take them down to the junkyard and get your money back if you can cuz those kids I'm telling you the access they have and you may think your darling is a is the sweetest kindest uh purest child in the world but kids are inquisitive uh and if they don't know they going to try to find out if you don't tell them somebody else will so and another thing too I've talked to

065uh lot of the Librarians in the county Mr Vault and I have talked to quite a few and I've called the ones that have I've worked with over the years and uh you know these books are not checked out I mean you know we're making a big deal out of books that gosh kids not interested in they don't check them out I mean you look and talk to them beloved is is required for an AP course uh so really you know uh because of that you know we don't design AP courses but if we're going to give a kid credit for that we got to go by their guidelines and that means that you got to let them already beloved so that's just my two cents anyone else M Maxwell yes uh just I appreciate

066that uh uh from Mr Butch couple things there that was mentioned was uh yes kids do have access that's why removing School library books is not book Banning in any form of the sense of the word the books are available for free at your free public libraries through Publishers or they can purchase online or other retailers so they have access to these books that's just not that if if a parent lets their child go see an R-rated movie that's a deal for the parent we're not on already movies here at the school district so there is a difference as far as beloved being on the AP list there are I don't know 50 to 100 books on the AP list that they get to choose from the teachers get to choose from it's an interesting

067discussion as to whether a book uh if it violates sexually explicit material whether that should be overlooked even though there are lots of other options and tons of other books and even covering the same topics um whether that should be overlooked just simply because they would made it to an an AP list I I disagree it's not required unless the the teacher the AP chooses that book to make it a requirement but it is there's tons of options for them to choose from so I don't think that's enough the fact that they are or are not getting checked out with when I was looking through uh a lot of these books that have been they have been checked out but to say that they're not getting checked out would just further the argument that there

068again is no need for them to take up space especially under the the ideal that they have sexually explicit content in them anything else I do believe that this is an important thing for us to do on Thursday and I want to be fair to everyone we will have a roll call vote and we will vote on each of one of the individually and all I ask is that regardless of what happens that we as a board come back together and we can move past this and we get on to other things we've got because we've got a lot of things on our plate right now this books hopefully we can come to an agreement that works for everyone on Thursday but I just ask that everybody come Thursday and vote with their conscience vote

069with their heart but we're going to be fair and everyone that wants to get heard will be heard on Thursday as well any other comments yes Mr V well since I'm a new kid on the blog please indulge me just a second if you can um you mentioned that there have been other books that have been removed how many books have been removed give me just a second no it's just not technical I mean is are we talking five or 500 I mean just get me in the ballpark Nei Dr Chastain I can pull it up on the website it's on the library Services page and somewhere between 15 and 20 I believe around public that's public knowledge the books that have been removed over what period of time I think it's closer to 30

070last year since what February 21st of this year that's when the book removal started okay and it's based off of state law the previous law Tennessee code annotated the the Schoolboard law or the decency law that's the TCA law the basis for those getting removed yes so you'll notice on if you go to our website we had four official challenges through the age appropriate materials um act and we had one of those retained at the middle school level um one retained at the high school level only one retained overall and then one was placed in high school only so those were the four that we had challenged through that and then we had 30 challenge through obscenity which was a different avenue that I don't know is happening everywhere else right so it puts us

071in a in a weird position normally a director of schools can call and ask how's your District dealing with this and I I don't have that option right now I don't know of anyone else that's dealing that is facing it through that Avenue all right I I'm going back up a step further how how are books how are books chosen in our libraries there a magic list somewhere or or just I mean now we go somebody somebody has made a DEC I guess what I'm trying to get somebody to tell me and I apologize cuz I haven't quite read our entire policy manual yet I assume and I get in trouble when I assume things Dr s um that there is a policy that governs our libraries and the overall review of Library materials we

072have put a procedure in place in the last year that goes with the selection of Library materials okay um before that you had you know the question always came up how did some of this content that some of this content honestly didn't need to be in our libraries and our media specialist when we notified them about removed some of that material um some of it was just blatantly not for high school age students you had under about a decade ago you had the whole purchase under a a different umbrella and sexual content got added that way okay all right so I guess when I'm you go back to the new schools that are opened up I'm sure there's X number of dollars appropriated somebody makes a suggestion either they copy what Oakland and Riverdale had

073when they opened seagull or whatever right I mean somebody has been through these processes over the last 50 years that that's what I'm trying to get to so there are choices Made Who the are the library special I mean the media Specialists are they the ones that do it or is that curriculum based is central office helping with that how is this done I I guess what I'm getting back to the the concern I would have that I think a parent would have do you have a renegade person in the system that decides they want to put something out there that maybe doesn't align with the Community Values as as Caleb is referring to I think that's the thing we're trying that I would be concerned about right wrong y'all are having a discussion go

074ahead go ahead because a plane view because I've researched this when plane view opened I went out to plane view and they get x amount of money per student x amount of dollars per student when they go to look at the books there's a box that says $20,000 $25,000 or something like that whatever money they have to spend that's the box that they get now what goes into the box depends on from what I understand depends on who they're getting the the books from the book sales the book salesman right and so but there there there books that they put in there you know the standards the the classics and things like that but there's also books that are thrown in there for free that may have been on the New York Times bestseller list

075some some way they get thrown in there so it look our Librarians don't have time to read all of the books that come in if they're uh well seasoned Librarians they've probably read most of the books but if you have someone who's new on the job um I I don't think any of us up here think that there's any there's a renegade that's that's in there pulling books it's just it's simply um kind of anymore you know there's not a lot of there's not a lot of you go in and pick all your books out it's a box literally with books in it and they fill up the library so um if one of the books that we got that maybe made it to the list it may have been one of the books that

076was free that no one chose it it was just it was just thrown in the books and so then every year after that there's another stip them for each child um and a lot of the library owns will go to you know the special needs Department and ask if they need a certain book for their special needs or they'll ask you know for history or something like that if they have more money they'll go to certain teachers and say do you need a book so uh I I don't think there's any of us up here that think that we have a renade person so that's kind of it in a in a nutshell I do want to correct just a few things that we've put into place so on that same Library Services page there

077is an entire procedure that dictates how we choose books is and we take that very seriously would you agree um and we have put into place in the last 12 months a very detailed procedure in how we annually review those books uh this process is part of that obviously we will continue to hear from our community but that is something that we as a curriculum and instruction Department do take extremely seriously and when concerns arise from the community that is our job to hear those and we do uh but please take a look at the procedures that are in place in terms of how those books are chosen uh it is not flippant at all and we it we do we do not to my knowledge take entire boxes and just put put them on

078the shelves uh so there is a very detailed process in which our Librarians have been asked at least within the last 12 months to review those books and it is our job to know what on the shelves so we so there is a process we do have processes in place that we continue to revisit um based on making sure that the students in our schools both have uh materials that are age appropriate but also give them views to the world so that something again we take extremely seriously uh that process is on that Library Services page I highly recommend everybody looking at that that is what is guiding our development of the collections within our schools so there is a process in place that if a parent uh had a concern about a book and

079and brought it to the librarian for and um it it walks up the chain absolutely and our Librarians as our administrators as is our entire Department are consistently and always open to hearing from parents if there is a if there is a concern for their particular child or as a at at large uh that reconsideration and materials request link has been on our website since its creation before that informal processes also existed so it is our job to listen to our community and we certainly do that which is reflected in the process that our Librarians follow every single day Mr on reference he and I have made a commitment I guess to ourselves to again being the new members of the board uh to visit each school um hopefully we'll catch all of them between

080now and Christmas that's our goal but we have chosen to start with the the the the high schools uh just because they're bigger and there's a lot more going on and that kind of stuff and it's been an interesting conversation I think we we have specifically talked to every librarian at every school we visited so far and it's interesting dialogue with with with the EMP employees or the the these people take this stuff serious it it it was kind of a not amazing to me but very very comforting to me that um each one of them had a love for books had a love for literature love to talk about literature different facets of literature and and uh it it was like I said very refreshing very eye opening I think hey I'd hire every

081one of them again Dr s they they a okay in my book but um which leads me back to this question then so we have these processes in place explain to me how so these books got to us why through the decency is that what it is cuz somebody somebody brought them up somebody yes through the obscenity law through the obscenity law okay um I don't know I just I I have a concern I guess I have a concern that we have these processes in place and these books didn't go through these this process U if I'm understanding am I understanding that correctly that this has come from somebody I think there's a vagueness to how something can be challenged we are across the state all that I've heard of are challenges using the official

082consideration of Library materials okay how how are these in every Library we have which libraries are they in each book's a little bit different okay so this is not a standard the every book I mean U what is it um Wicked is not in every school high school library right now if you give me just a second I can look I'm picking I know but I'm just curious y'all are I had a feeling that would come up so I asked so right um Wicked is in it looks like it's in all of them Eagleville Holloway Riverdale um Rocky Fork Middle Smyrna High Stewart's Creek High seagull High Blackman High Rockville High Smyrna West lever High Oakland High I I was just curious reason I'm asking which libraries and I this I'm sorry to bore everybody

083with this question but I'm trying to figure out at what time were these books you know like if they had been in like Oakland and Riverdale they'd been around for for 40 years I understand it if they were recent orders or something like that you you know if there is a problem let's kind of address what the problem is was time an issue was it a book salesman what where how do we get to where we are right I was wrong I read you the wrong group Wicked is um Riverdale seagull high and Stewart's Creek it has been out since 2009 so you're looking 15 years those three schools okay um Caleb was it you that brought him to the board who was it brought him to the board you brought him to the board

084yes sir all right then and I'm going let ask let me ask you a question this going to sound like I'm attacking you and I'm not I don't mean it this way but how is this not suppression I I can tell you exactly how it's not suppression okay that's that help me with that well I covered that earlier but I'll say it again that uh it's not suppression because these books are readily available at other places and other sources so they're not being taken out because you don't like the content at least not my perspective I sure I would hope nobody here would do the same um but it's not because they don't like the content or anything like that it's strictly because of the sexually explicit content so that's why I always push people

085to the content there were some inid prior board members that disagreed with me on this particular topic however when we shared the content with them those or some of the those board members were in agreeance with the removal process so the issue is they're still completely available at your Public Library they're available online they're available for you to purchase however whether or not they are sexually explicit is what we're discussing now so there's no violation of Rights but I'd like to I'd like to tap on one more thing if I can so okay um the the review process you're asking a lot of questions about the review process and I had some questions about that too so I went and met with some of our Librarians over the past two weeks and had them kind

086of walk me through the review process so what that looked like on the I only did the high school level so I can't speak to anything else but on the high school level what that looked like is most of the book purchases come from Ingram fallet and I think the junior libraries Guild is that right am I saying that right okay Junior libraries Guild and so they'll pull up a book and you know have different sources for how they come up to a book or whatever and this these are people like you mentioned that are taking this pretty seriously I would I'm assuming um and they'll look into it and what they'll do of course they're not reading the whole book what they're doing is they're scrolling down they're seeing okay well what does the

087publisher recommend like what age should they recommend they may say 15 and up or 16 and up or and they may have little tags in there that say this deals with uh some kind of historical context or this deals with this particular item over here C certain topics uh to kind of give them an idea right so if they're because they may be aiming to fill fantasy novels or something like that they may be aiming to fill that Gap and so they're starting with that tag and they're kind of scrolling through um and then what they'll just the ones that showed me some just based off that information what they'll do they'll scroll down to the bottom at the bottom of some of these page uh I think it was either Ingram that we looked

088at Med B it but anyways we'll scroll down to the bottom of it and there's usually three or four reviews from different Library journals librarian journals um articles uh surrounding that based on this book and so that's kind of the review process but and I want to make this clear I'm not blaming our Librarians for this stuff being in here there's no possible way they could read all the content and they read a lot of books but there's just no possible way uh we we did the math on one particular school and and I'm not going to mention any any names cuz um I don't know if they want me to mention them or not but we did the math in W tier school and they ordered four 4 450 books for their for their

089high school and as we scrolled through it in the time frame they have the order in the time frame they would have to read them on top of the stuff they're already doing including Tech now they do Tech as well you know take care of our laptops which is kind of a that's a different discussion but on top of that there's no way for them to come through it and so I let these Librarians know I'm not blaming the Librarians for bringing in the content like Miss sharp mentioned I don't know that there are rogue Librarians just trying to sneak against I don't think that's the case but they're making these decisions based off these other librarian journals or other reviews and some of that stuff has slipped in so what we're catching or parents

090are catching or other individuals are catching on the back end is that this is in our libraries and there's plenty of examples of that I I still think the best the best way to show you what has been in our libraries before it get removed is to go to that website and look at the it's it just gives you excerpts of uh some of the books have been removed and you can kind of judge from yourself whether that was appropriate and whether it met I'm not whether it was appropriate whether it met the definition of sexually explicit so that's kind of how the process plays out I don't I the reason okay so it it comes back to sexually explicit this this discussion yes this discussion does so do do do do we not so

091this is high school right these are all of these I think are primarily High School these are 14 to 18y old young people correct so we're trying to avoid the subject of sex with them is is that what I mean help me understand the why it's not there I I just why would you not I I get having the the the section where you got to have parental consent I would agree with that 100% kind of like R-rated movie you brought that up earlier sure that there's a rating system in these books and from a literary standpoint yes I think making a statement to this community yes if if I as a parent want to allow my child to check that book out then that's fine fine but if you don't then that's fine too

092why would you not do it that way as opposed to just removing the book that that's where I'm trying to I I I'm not sure it's it's like you cannot legislate morality nor decency I've learned that in my 62 years now you know there's a lot of things you and I we find disgusting to our communities I do I know you do too but us trying to relase everything and everybody that's that's inconceivable and and so avoiding a subject a lot of times brings attention to that subject and so I'm looking at it as an opportunity for families to have a discussion if they need to have that discussion but again I'm not telling them to have the discussion I'm not telling them to check the book out but why would I want to take

093that opportunity away from somebody to have that dialogue with their child that's great if they have want to have that dialogue with their child they can certainly have it at home which is where it is suitable for them to have that dialogue the question is and what you're drawing attention to is where is the line and until you read the content you can't make a decision on where that line is so once you see the content then you make a a justification for it being in our libraries whether it's sexually explicit content or not I mean my first reply would be do you think sexually explicit content not the mention of the word sex not the portrayal of a rape scene but actually sexually explicit cont romance novel type stuff maybe smut considered to some

094if if that if is that appropriate for schools are you asking me I'm saying I don't know everybody who each his own right here that's I guess that's this is the OWN though yeah this is that's what I'm saying this is the where the buck stops well the bu stops but I would rather eror to the side of free speech and free expression than I would to mandate how somebody reads books or what books they have read so if I mean I can go so far the other argument with it and say why do we even have books you made articulate discussion earlier that any of these books you can get them online you can buy them anywhere uh Mr V pointed out there's a lot worse stuff on our telephones that kids have right

095now so why do we even have any books why do we even have a library so if something exists I'm sounding like a smart elic there when I say that yeah but but you know let's go back why do we have a library to discuss the topics that are for Education right so I mean AR isn't that the primary focus of Education yes and is not maturity part part of that education certainly is but would you agree that we should possibly have say Playboys on our shelves and you're I would you like to hear your thoughts on that first in schools why not the boys have got him discussion right there the boys have got them in the barn I mean you might as well you know you you know so there's a line and

096so we're trying to figure out that line and I think the content helps determine that line okay does the state have does the state have a list of acceptable library books no and they never will provide one because they don't want to get involved in the litigation Miss Darby has your hand up I just want to say I don't think um anyone on the board is taking these decisions lightly um there is from what I've perceived from some people a a misperception as to the content in which is being discussed a lot of times including my own father at one point who I had to share some content with to get him to understand what was being discussed um I think it's important as a board whose primary focus is for the education of our

097children and minors to make sure that we are looking at the task at hand this isn't about if they have access to worse things then this is fine well they have access to lots of things in the world it doesn't mean that the school system is responsible for providing those things um and I obviously want our kids to have things that they can relate to things that um they're interested in and their Hobbies we don't just strictly want books on you know math and science only but I do think it's important that we make sure that what we are providing does have an appropriate content there's no judgment involved at least not on my end as far as parents are concerned those are your children if you would like to provide them with different things

098to read that have certain types of content that is certainly your right and I would never challenge anybody on that I think the question is when it comes down to what our role is as a school system where do we draw the line on what we are using taxpayer funds and what we are willing to provide to those miners we're talking about children most of whom cannot vote cannot join the military can't buy cigarettes can't buy alcohol so society and general has a line somewhere for certain things um and I would I would recommend to anybody if you have not looked at some of the content that has been removed or some the content that is in question please go look at it because we are not talking about talking two people laying in a

099bed making love it doesn't end there it goes well beyond that and some of it into quite graphic depiction that our school system would never show a movie about would never read aloud to these children and in some cases some people would question the legality of giving that information to a minor so I just think it's important that we stay on what the topic is which is is our job as a school system when we look at the law do these books should these be provided by the school system with taxpayer money and do they meet that definition of obscenity that that is what we are being asked currently about these particular seven books and I think it's important that we remember that that that is what we're being asked does this meet the state

100standard under obscenity law does it need to be removed does it not and I I think that's a personal we were given some definition this year which I think definitely helps um and it's still there's still going to be some room in there as to what people think go under those definitions but if you haven't looked at the content then you can't even make that decision whether something falls under those definitions or not so I would encourage anybody that is interested in this topic to go look at the content anyone else yes Mr you know gosh you know if we continue on with this discussion sooner or later you know if you hadn't looked at a Biology book lately I mean it's it's a lot of this same stuff it it's explicit in biology classes

101and you know the we've got the best Librarians anywhere I mean I the ones I worked with know there are none any better and Mr Bon I've talked to them and I'm telling you they they have spent a tremendous amount of time going over the list books and the books that they have and again you know there's certain books and if they feel like it it each one of them if they feel like it's inappropriate they take that book off the shelf or they may put it in a isolated place where kids without parent permission couldn't read it and so you know to to I have a problem with Banning books cuz I'm like Mr VA that you know the uh Freedom you know all that the freedom of speech and stuff and the uh

102I don't know I I don't want to go down this Rabbit Hole of banning books because I'm telling you what's going to happen sooner or later uh we're going have to come up and the Bible's going to be challenged because of the the V some of the things in in the Bible you know people there's people out there that will challenge it and personally I I just I just don't want to get in the book Banning business I mean I trust our Librarians with everything I've got because I know their integrity and and everything about them and again they they don't put them on the Shelf they take them off the shelf and isolate them and uh I think it do a great job with that and uh you know I just uh we spent

103we spent more time on these seven books and we've got so many bigger fish to fry in this school system system I want to be able to get this thing over with and move on because uh we got a bunch of bunch of decisions ahead of us we do Mr TI yes I certainly don't think there's any comparison between a Biology book and the sexually explicit content in these books uh it sounds as though that hasn't been as thoroughly reviewed and I think that that would make a a definite change in the determination of your decision which not your decision but the board's decision as a whole uh as to whether or not we're going to allow sexually explicit material which is different than a Biology book uh into our schools and be okay with

104it because that decision of course is going to be recorded and it reflects the community and it reflects what we have here so there's certainly a difference there as I've already mentioned I mean I covered a lot of this in the opening but there this is not book Banning I mean this not book Banning so unless you are getting rid of all the books in all the county and all access it's it is not they still have access to it the focus here is education and whether or not these books are sexually explicit if they are they should be removed according to the law which has been gone over as well so we to have as much discussion as you guys would like to have on it um but I know we have a vote

105coming up Thursday and I know sure there will be much more discussion then anyone else like to add anything if not we'll go on to insurance but you already took I can do another ribboning rendition of the insurance review if anybody would like it was quite riveting oh what a shame and financial report would be thirsty correct director's update uh we'll do most of it on Thursday we did a school safety video today so just as most of the country is facing the amount of threats that have not been substantiated we are disappointing students as they are credible threats that's kind of The Stance we've taken I don't feel like it is my position or any of our staff's position to determine whether or not threat is credible or not unless it just seems truly

106ridiculous um if somebody posts something reposts it those are things that we have to take as credible threats and so that is how we are dealing with it um I want to thank our team um because it has been absolute nonstop um with Patty I don't think she's in here but our partnership with the sro's um the sheriff's department with K James legal just about everybody it is non-stop usually going till 11:30 or 12: at night and it starts back usually at 2:30 or 3: in the morning and so if we look tired we are tired because every one of these threats we deal with and it is almost two full weeks we have on our whiteboard where we're just in our conference room where we're tracking all of them just so that we can

107keep up with all of them and we are disciplining them to the full extent possible to make sure that kids know that this is serious and that the only way we can protect our students is when we investigate all of them and it's it's terrifying to think that you don't want to get to that boy who cried wolf scenario to where we continue to worry and then we just lose our this isn't real and then something terrible happens um but it's it is that is our number one goal to tell you that we've been focused on instruction the last week as a central office it hasn't been we've been focused on Hope Dr Chastain and her team have the rest of leadership team has been chasing down all East Mr VA you had your hand

108up um Dr Suman what is the extent of discipline what what can you do expel up to a year and if somebody makes a credible threat so up until a law change in July and I understand where this came from I believe there was someone in a rural County who did a gun signal to somebody and got expelled for a year that that's not what we're going to do but that changed the state law to where now it is has to be a credible threat for me to do a zero tolerance okay outside of that outside of you yes if it's not Zero Tolerance then it still can be a level four violation which still includes expulsion as discipline I'm carrying it a step further I'm talking about the DA they can yes they absolutely

109can and they have been charging students so they've charged they've charged two so far and I'm sure they're probably more to come what is the extent of the punishment there do you know anybody know the law I don't know that we have that due to privacy laws we probably don't know that it is a Class E felony it's a Class E felony um and so you know I don't know the punishment in juvenile court but it definitely is a serious crime more than a misdemeanor they choose to um file charges but if it is if it is serious enough and enough of a of a school disruption I can file charges as well I'd much rather not but if we need to I don't mind doing that as well but each one usually if it's

110a serious enough offense or Sheriff's Department goes ahead and takes care of it too I guess I've realized after two weeks here three weeks now um that and I hate to laugh about this because it's it's just so ludicrous you know School Board education we're going to if if the parents don't feel if the students don't feel safe they're not going to learn the parents don't feel like they're safe they're not going to learn and then you got these yahoos that's taking advantage of that manipulation of our society for kicks absolutely and and and I you know I I get it being a kid in high school you know you're trying to get attention but this is serious stuff very serious stuff and it's a disruption of 50 Something thousand people because it disrupts it

111disrupts well probably more than that there's 380,000 people in our County now and if you got 50,000 in the school system and their parents it's disrupting over half our population it is and I just wonder how serious these kids know it and if you I hate to say this somebody may have to be made an example out of it we disappointed I I spoke I'm sorry I spoke to a gentleman from Hamlin County who's on a school board there and it's a much smaller County and he basically said said I know y'all didn't want to do it but I'm glad you did about the two rest of juvenal that we had today and maybe that'll make a difference because this is not just a Rutherford County thing it's a Statewide thing and Hamlin County is

112Tiny compared to us and they're having the same issues and at some point I don't know what we're going to do if this doesn't work because we can't have school disruptions in parents being scared and kids being scared and teachers being scared for for nothing I'm glad I'm glad you brought that up and we've it's gone as far as this is we've expelled for well over a year probably two years um I got subed last year to juvenile court to ask what do you do when a kid gets expelled I'm like it's up to the parent they've been kicked out they can come back next year and so that's what we do um it's unfortunate it's not anything you want to do I don't want to brag about doing that but if you're disrupting school

113and the other part if parents come then to to pick kids up at school because they're concerned for safety when we have a threat that takes a very long time and a lot of Manpower understand if we had a true emergency that we had to evacuate we have all kinds of protocols in place to evacuate large scale different centers for people to check people out but during a regular school day we have to still check IDs one at a time go get the kids to make sure the right people are showing up so I get the parents get frustrated when they come to pick their kid up and they have to wait 20 minutes but we're going to make sure they all go home with the right person Miss sharp thank you um I spoke

114with Ben Torres with tsba and um he said that you know we need to go ahead and start charging these students and leave it up to the DA let us go ahead and start charging them because I don't know it's so much of um they want the attention I think it's the disruption I think they want to get out of school and they know this is the one thing that triggers everybody it traumatizes our teachers um so I I think that we are going to have to to really put the law down and have have a couple of people arrested and and per walked um also I did speak with representative Stevens and say you know we still have children even if we did charge them and they didn't find it we still need to

115have something in there I know last year they did put in uh they'll lose their driver's license for at least a year uh or they won't get them for a year after they're eligible to get them but we need to start calling our Representatives cuz we have to have some more teeth in these law to put these children either in our virtual school or they need to they need to go they need to be out because this is this is worse than anything than anybody can imagine with the with everyone dealing with it on a daily basis do we need to take do do we as a board need to issue a letter to the DA or anything I mean not that I don't trust you Dr suvan I know you will pursue this but

116I I just I think this needs a little teeth in it resolution perhaps resolution from that's what I'm saying that that I mean this is I mean this is ridiculous really course you're talking about taking their license away from if you took their cell phone away from them it'd probably be worse yeah well they're not supposed to have that either but I understand that that's not I'm talking about permanently taking yeah I don't see a reason why we couldn't do a resolution um Mr Reed you still here s prepare a resolution that fact please do even driver's licenses if lose driver's licenses that's well okay I think we need to have a field trip some of these kids get in trouble put them on the school bus St them to the State Penitentiary and put

117them in that sale and let them hear that jail door shut scared and I know they did sh today I don't think he was I know they did when I scown up man I tell you what I had nightmares boy Mr tid uh yes me and Dr Sol actually we just talking about this very subject right before the meeting it is spreading and it's continuing so we do need to have some tough consequences to come down like like Mr a had said not to make an example out but also to let others know that there are consequences for this type of action it just feels like it's probably gone on without much in the past and that's why they feel so free to do it now cuz it does for whatever reasons they're being motivated

118to do that but it it holds up a lot of different resources um and it is uh it's definitely not good for our learning environment so if we want if we can move toward a resolution I would certainly support that got to consequences y that all okay move on to uh Mr VA do you have anything regarding the Tennessee legislative Network I and federal okay wish I did okay General discussion yes Miss sharp um I'd like to have a shout out to the rord county uh Virtual School uh principal um superon and vice principal Parker thank you for the tour Mr vaugh and Mr Vault and I went out last week and had a great tour uh thank you Mr Lee for that area over there it's absolutely um incredible um the work that they're

119doing and that it's kind of a small location but it's really not for all the work that they're doing with all the students so just a shout out to them I was very impressed with the teachers that were there and how they were addressing our students y'all they have a PE class online a PE class so thankfully you can't see the other students cuz I I'd be they wouldn't want to see me doing or something like that but shout out to the virtual school and thank y'all for everything that you do they went to the zoo a couple weeks ago and like 30 of the parents went with them so um it's it's growing in our community and they're doing a fantastic job oh that's wonderful and I love field trips you know that about

120you I just want to mention real quick um on September the 26th at Stewarts Creek Middle School at 6 PM they will have a r County schools in conjunction with the Jason foundation will have a suicide awareness and prevention night and uh I would encourage parents to go there and uh if they even have an inkling of one to know uh strategies and different things to look for with their child I I encourage you to go uh the Jason Foundation does a wonderful job Jason Foundation is phenomenal they are and really it's worth the time it could save your child's life absolutely you know on a lighter note I just don't want to say um I didn't get to make it out to rockville's dedication of their new turf field but uh because I was

121out of town but Riverdale will be having theirs next Friday uh 6:00 before the game and I encourage anyone if you ever went to Riverdale High School go out there and take a look at it it looks pretty sharp they play in Oakland who they play you know I can't remember I think it's Coffee County I think I believe you're right yeah Coffee County yeah just real quick I forgot to mention during the safety discussion um we met with Sheriff Fitz Hugh and his leadership team today and discussed quite a few things around safety um to make sure we're on the same page and good hour long meeting along a lot of different topics so I appreciate their partnership yes Miss sure uh just in light of what could be a lot of discussion on

122Thursday uh just a friendly reminder that um board members we do have policy and procedure to follow we do have to seek chair recognition before we speak so if we can just try to keep it orderly on Thursday that would be fantastic thank you for that anything else yes Mr the this kind of off subject but Mr V and I were talking about this after one of our visits how how can we be brought up to speed with the building program the the maintenance program the the cuz I I feel like you know after the first of the year we're going to be heading toward the budget and to be able to rationally make decisions during that budget budgetary time I'd love somehow and I don't want to bore the rest of the board with

123it it October 18th at our fall Bard treat okay I didn't know I was you know coming from PBA I mean that's all we dealt with was I knew something every month every and I didn't know if it'd be appropriate for Mr Val to visit with Mr Lee or something that would work as well if you want to get caught up to what we've covered that'd be absolutely perfect before we walked off into it and not know anything at all so ask for $3 billion okay not really but it seems anything thing to ask for yeah why not um anyway so all right good deal is there any anything ex well I look forward to seeing you all Thursday and I'm going to say some prayer that we just this goes well Thursday night and

124uh yeah oh pictures also don't forget pictures are prior to so move to a journ thank you oh