all righty we'll call this meeting to order um first item on agenda is the 25-26 strategic work Dr Luna-Vedder board members in your packet is um a detailed strategic work for the 25-26 school year um we wanted to make sure that everyone had that publicly as we look at what the focus areas will be next year okay no comments okay uh item two fiscal year
26 consolidated entitlement grant application first read Lorri Russell good evening board members and Dr Luna-Vedder i'm Lorri Russell the director of federal programs tonight I'm sharing a brief overview of federal funds that support our schools through the consolidated funding entitlement grant these funds are aligned with specific program purposes but collectively they allow us to
strengthen instruction improve equity and meet the needs of diverse student groups this grant includes seven funding sources all of which are shown on the slide and included in your packet the table provides a brief description of each funding source the number of participating schools and the initial allocations for the 2025-2026 school year are there any questions
all right Mr Maberry uh thank you i uh so Oak Plains Academy is Ashland City here i'm just kind of curious about that i know about the Oak Plains Academy but um explain a little bit about what they grant theirs for and yes Oak Plains Academy it is their address is Ashland City but it's right inside the border of Montgomery County so it is part of Montgomery County they are a residential treatment facility serving students with emotional and behavioral needs is what's our involvement with with them our involvement is managing the money so their
allocation that you see they are they have those funds to spend but they don't get them they remain here with the school system and we facilitate the purchases and use of the money okay thank you any others okay thank you thank you all right item 3 25-26 student code of conduct updates first read Matt Slight like that brief uh but I am happy to share with you tonight that in this being my
fourth year to share information on student code of conduct this is probably one of our shortest uh presentations uh so I'd like to start tonight just as a reminder that this is access this as first slide shows access to the student code of conduct for the 24-25 school year this is an annual event uh each year we review the student code of conduct uh that that review is conducted by all major department chairs our legal council school administrators and surveys are sent out across our district for all stakeholders teachers students parents uh any stakeholder within CMCSS
has the opportunity to contribute to the student code of conduct and make recommendations and references and express either support or concerns for our student code of conduct this year uh this slide uh reflects the uh process in which we go through every year the timeline for the student code of conduct uh would bring to your attention that as early as October of 2024 we're already talking with students about the code of conduct and getting feedback about things that they they like or don't like or possible things that they would change so uh Mr Feldman
especially at the high school level gets an earful probably every meeting that he attends in reference to the code of conduct but in December of of 2024 uh district-wide survey is deployed it was deployed twice this year again in January of 20 uh January 24 of 2025 it was deployed the second time to district-wide stakeholders uh in January 1st review and revision of the survey was deployed again January 31st review and revision survey was closed uh at that time so we could
collect the data from those surveys in on February 6 2025 survey responses were shared with the level directors uh February 25th middle school and high school teacher communication groups were uh presented with the opportunity to share uh other things that may not have been uh for those who did not respond to the survey they could contribute information at that time and you can see through the rest of that list classified representatives in March level directors reviewed recommendations with principals and assistant principals March 19th to 25 on March 20th we had
the elementary teacher communication group and the information was shared questions uh and answers u were given during that time in terms of the code of conduct senior leadership reviewed on April 28th and that brings us to tonight uh where we are sharing those recommendations with you the board this year uh of the data the data was mostly consistent with the last two years which we believe indicates changes made in the last few years continues to be received uh well by our stakeholders this is particularly true in the area of setting clear expectations and
students' understanding of the code of conduct we continue to receive feedback that consequences in the code of conduct don't always deter behavior but as we shared in the February uh board meeting with uh the district is making significant investments in behavior management with the supports being implemented by the behavior team we're beginning to see positive early outcomes including encouraging trends in upbeat teacher data while progress will take time these efforts are aimed at addressing the root cause of student behavior and improving outcomes over time
Mr Garland did you have a question sir all right Mr Garland i have a question for either you or Dr Luna is there any reason why board members are not mentioned as far as when you send out the survey concerning student misconduct no sir board board members do um have access to that as well so Yes all the whole community has access to it yes okay i didn't know that okay thank you this slide here is an example of the refinement of the code of conduct that's taken place over
the last few years um we've worked diligently to make this document easier for all stakeholders uh to read and understand based upon the feedback that we received this year we believe that the current format has made it easier for students parents teachers and administrators to follow as you know in the 2020 uh and 2021 school year CMCSS transitioned from a pointsbased disciplinary system to a category offense system this slide highlights a category of offenses so we have four categories actually five if you consider the zero tolerance category category one
offenses are handled by classroom teachers these are low-level offenses that teachers record uh and usually are able to handle in the classroom with a a prompting of a student or classroom or a seating uh change but it's handled at the classroom level category 2 offenses are slightly more serious offenses that discipline referral is submitted and is addressed by a school administrator or their designee category 3 offenses are is a discipline referral is submitted and is addressed by the school administrator or designee parent and guardian contact by administrator or
designee is required and this will often uh category three offenses will often result in in school suspension or out of school suspension in terms of consequences your category 4 uh offenses which are your more severe offenses is a discipline referral submitted and is addressed by the school administrator or designee and this is where you'll see the introduction of remandment to alternative school placements for students for consequences for category 4 offenses then we have our zero tolerance offenses these are offenses required by uh Tennessee law and
CMCSS policy a student found to be in violation of a zero tolerance offense shall be expelled for a period of not less than one calendar year from the time of the incident now I'd like to share the proposed changes for your consideration in the 2025 25-26 excuse me 2026 school year these proposed changes are based upon stakeholder feedback that has been gathered throughout the 24-25 school year i'd like to start with proposed changes to the cell phone
and electronic devices before I share proposed changes I'd like to thank Vice Chairman Lanier for his time and collaboration on this topic at this time I'd like to turn it over to Mr Lanier okay um so personal communication devices can be a distraction in the learning environment during instructional time personal communication devices can be defined as cell phones headphones earbuds gaming systems smart devices including watches tablets glasses etc and audio video recording
devices i requested to view as this policy within our district in the student code of conduct the these devices can be a distraction during the instructional time through numerous avenues including but not limited to communication with students in in other classrooms cheating social media bullying alerting other students as locker and book pack or backpack searches are carried out creating a dependency turned to addiction not dissimilar from a drug filming and sharing videos of other students without their consent arranging of illegal transactions and other
other vast array of nefarious acts in May of 2023 CMCSS was the first Tennessee district to file suit against social media companies to include Meta Facebook Instagram Tik Tok Snapchat Google WhatsApp YouTube and the boards of 33 school systems in the Tennessee social media litigation voted to join in this lawsuit in a previous article from Clarksville Now Superintendent Dr Luna-Vedder was quoted as saying "Over the years the school system has observed a rise in mental
health issues throughout the district." She cited examples as threats in school violence cyber bullying inappropriate conduct other challenges that are linked to the lack of protections and controls throughout social media platforms according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data between July 21 and 23 over half of our teenagers 12 to 17 reported four or more hours of daily screen time in one of our own schools Kenwood High School Dr Anderson
has implemented a no cell phone policy doc Anthony Johnson um CMCSS's chief communication officer and I visited with Dr Anderson about how these changes were affecting Kenwood High School he shared with us a large change in the instructional learning atmosphere staff surveys were carried out through the district and in spring of 24 72 of Kenwood faculty filled out the survey related to numerous aspects of the educational process there was an 18% increase in parent teacher communication a 28%
increase in instructional leadership and a six a 16% increase in in school safety and order a 23% increase in teacher voice and leadership and a 10% increase in future commitment Dr Anderson shared with us that it's all about the instructional benefits that the students have the ability to concentrate and absorb the knowledge from the educators we as a CMCSS school board are tasked with the implementation of policies within our district i received feedback from
teachers educators parents students and after I explained the benefits they were really on board i've also spoken with other districts and students and they were saying that people actually talk to each other at lunch now it was freeing and they actually hang out together i'm proposing a change to the CMCSS student code of conduct and our and our policy SAFA 009 that student use of cell phones and other personal electronic devices during the instructional day would be prohibited
students would be expected to turn their phones off or put them on silent and out of the site during instruct during the entire instructional day students are prohibited from having their phones or personal devices out in the class or in the hallways during passing periods electronic devices include the list I said before of all the techn emerging technologies that can take photographs record or play audio or video input text upload download media connect
or receive information from the internet and transmit or receive messages telephone calls or images examples include but are not limited to smartphones watches glasses etc headphones earbuds gaming systems audio visual recording devices etc in this we made a note uh school administration may search and review electronic devices including calls contacts text internet access etc if there's a reason suspicion um that a search would reveal a violation of school rules students
have no expectation of privacy for cell phone use um we would see the interrogations and search section for additional information students assume all responsibility for lost or stolen devices the building principal may approve of the cell phones or personal devices for instructional purposes on a case-by-case basis in the building the principal may designate a specific time such as lunch when students use the phones or specific personal electronic devices students may be may
be permitted uh to use certain devices when there is a documented need for an accommodation as in medical you know some people have a diabetic pump accommodations are included for all the health reasons there's an exception for those that are enduring uh an emergency need so that way if anything were to happen their phones are still there they can grab them and take them out of the building um with them so we're not always taking their phones away we're just empowering teachers
to um be able to control their classrooms yes and protecting instructional time is is absolutely um on on all of our minds uh in terms of this particular uh offense the recommendation uh recommended changes or proposed changes uh one would be to move the cell phone electronic device from the current category one to a category 2 offense escalating consequences repeated category 2 offenses can become category 3 offenses which means there's an option now for out of school
suspension for students who continually violate that particular uh offense uh another recommended change was to line with the range of consequences for category 2 and category 3 for repeated offenses recommended change to update the language to indicate that teachers may confiscate and not just administrators so teachers may confiscate the cell phone and a recommended change to update the language with reference to the new state law which Mr Lanier um we are currently based on uh what you've read that would be in alignment with the state law um at this point our next proposed
change uh actually involves three different uh categories but all relatively the same type of offense uh around language and the use of language for students category one obscene or inappropriate language with a peer not derogatory uh profane language category two profane language use remarks to an adult derogatory uh category three vulgar profane language directed towards an adult or student uh we had the recommendation that these three categories are very similar and
as you can see the offenses have not derogatory derogatory that descriptor isn't needed those those that wording stands on its own as far as obscene or inappropriate so we're just making the recommendation that those terms be removed from uh those three offenses the next proposed change is to include unapproved use of artificial intelligence in the existing offense of cheating plagiarism and forgery um what we are proposing is that unapproved use of artificial intelligence is added uh to this category 2 offense an explanation which would read includes cheating
by using unauthorized help plagiarism by copying without credit forgery by falsifying information and unapproved AI use by using AI without the permission permission from the teacher these actions violate academic integrity and have consequences and those offenses would be addressed through a referral and through um consequences we'd also like to make the recommendation for our advanced placement and dual enrollment classes that the consequences for the offense of uh plagiarism at that level would be more aligned with the university and college
uh practices uh this would include uh to maintain alignment with college university standards a zero for first offense a zero will be assigned for the plagiarized assignment and will be referred to administration and the incident will be documented a second offense of zero will be issued for the assignment a second referral to administration will occur the student may be dismissed from the AP or dual enrollment course and will be ineligible to enroll in any AP or dual enrollment course for the remainder of that academic year what this gives us the ability to do is those
students that are in your AP and dual enrollment classes need to understand that at the college and university level that those consequences will result in a zero for the assignment and could be um put on probation at that college level or could be removed from a college program proposed changes uh for category 4 recommendation to specify the number of remandment days in range of consequences to read 30 days or 90 days there was some confusion and just again as we continue
to refine the student code of conduct making it more clear for uh our stakeholders to be able to read there was a line in there that said up to 90 days there's only two levels of remand uh within CMCSS and that's for a 30-day remandment or a 90-day remandment so we're just clarifying that as well and our final our final uh proposed change actually comes around clarifying uh for bus offenses when it comes to fighting on the bus last year we introduced that there should be uh a building level discipline for fighting like there would be in the building as well as supporting
transportation with removal from the bus so what we're asking under fighting on a school bus is to clarify building level disciplinary consequences and transportation consequences the proposed change would read a bus suspension of five to 15 days will be issued an out of school suspension will also be assigned by the at the discretion of the principal and so that student can also be referred to counseling like most of our other offenses as well if that student needs additional support like I said this is uh this is one of our our shortest proposed changes for the student
code of conduct any questions Mr Maberry yeah Mr Maberry thank you um to the cell phones i I just want to applaud Mr Lanier your efforts on this issue there's a book called Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt and it's an incredible book and incredible insight to how the author argues the brain is being rewired in in regards to these devices and how they are literally anxious just having them on them um and it's a huge distraction within the classrooms um so I applaud your efforts
on this i do uh um have two thoughts two questions one I am curious why we're leaving the option for lunch for them to have their phones i personally would say that from this start of the bell to the end of the bell no phones so I'm kind of curious about the lunch um exemption i don't know who to ask that to i don't know i would almost I would almost if you're asking me I would almost say take it away all day but you're gonna I mean it was it was more of one of those give and
take scenarios as we go back and forth between the district um that some some schools they take them away all day some day some of them they have them during their lunch then kind of get it out of their system check their phone you know text messages whatever you know but then they go back I would I would almost argue that if you give it to them during lunch it's you're kind of just stirring it up and I know that a lot of fights are coordinated through text messages and lot you know a lot of things happen on those cell phones and so I would personally like to see a blackout from
this moment we start school till the moment school ends and that's my uh opinion on this subject and that is just my opinion there are seven of us um so I do want to put that out there um I would it I I love it but would love to see that one change um also I have uh talking to teachers uh one frustration I've heard is uh for instance there's a teacher that I know that uh in his classroom he's very strict on cell phones and uh he the kids know that you come in you put your cell phone away you don't get it out but he says his frustration is maybe another teacher is the opposite and they
don't care and and they say it's kind of like whiplash within the classroom so I'm curious um what is in place or what is going to be in place to make sure teachers are universally across the entire board of every school going to enforce this the way we want to i think that I mean that's a that's an excellent question and that can be asked of any rule within the student code of conduct um and again you have those you know that building level administrator who needs to be able to pull their teams together and have their make sure that everybody is on the same page and on board and
that that level of accountability but that's going to come through a checks and balances each of the at each of the schools across the district uh I know consistency as a former high school principal was was hugely important and we would have those non-negotiables and those ways that we do it and we'd follow up as administration to make sure that we are being consistent with the enforcement of those policies again it's just like anything else the student takes the hat off when I point to the hat and turns the corner and immediately puts the hat on and walk may walk by the next teacher and not get caught right uh so I think we continue to do that but I think we also continue to look at
that the process of change uh as we do this that while cell phones do interrupt instructional time sometimes the enforcement of the rules can also become that major disruption to the instructional time so as we find that balance and continue to refine our student code of conduct not just cell phones but every one of these we continue to work towards guarding our instructional time as much as possible gotcha i I appreciate that um I would uh I would definitely just encourage us as we're going forward if we're going to summer uh teacher trainings and all that to to express
uh the what I believe is going to be the majority of the board's um um heart to that we want to get this under wraps you know we want to be able to see our kids perform better in schools on on the school and their grades we want to see their behavior get better and we believe a lot of this is tied to this one issue and so I just love to see that express um throughout the out the summer thank you all righty Ms Bryant i also want to give Chris props for uh working on this
i know this is one of the things that you ran on we went to a TSBA conference and there was a school there that implemented this way before um it even became a law and they said that the progress that they saw within their school was was amazing so I think this is going to be a good step forward uh my question I have a couple questions the first one regarding this is do we have any progress tracking that we're going to try to do on this as far as say a year goes by we implement this cell phone policy are we going to keep stats on on the progress that we're seeing
I will just say in this district we keep data on everything so the teachers are laughing um truly so any discipline it is all tracked through power school so we will have data yes okay awesome And then um the other question I have is about the points based system i know we this kind of came up a while ago and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it but um what year did you say that we went from points base to the category 20 I believe it was 2020-2021 okay so it was around
COVID that that happened um was there feedback in that when you guys got your results and you might not know this but if you could get back to me that would be amazing um that from any of the teachers or parents regarding that change specifically i can go back and look and see if there's data from prior surveys that may have indicate that and if we can if we can find that I'd be happy to provide that information to you i'm just thank you i'm just really curious as because I know there was a lot happening at that time and I know that I've spoken with several teachers when that
came into place and they're just I'm wondering if we can compare the quality of the results that we were getting from behavioral issues prior to that with the points based system versus the category offenses yes I'd be happy to to look into that for you thank you that's it okay thank you Mr Garland I have a couple of questions I want to ask and I the first one uh to the attorney uh do you
see anything any legal ramification of any of the stuff that we recommended as of right now i mean do I have any concerns about any of the proposed changes yes ma'am yes sir i'm sorry yes sir i've been called worse no in fact like even referencing the cell phone the legislature just passed a law that every district is going to have to adopt a cell phone policy we we already have one we're going to modify it but the legislature itself said you're going to have one so that's a large part of what this is based on even if we didn't want to do it the legislature
said you're going to okay i really don't care about that but what one what one of my concerns is that one of the reason why uh parents uh give kids phones to bring to school is because right now we have legislators at the state and the federal level that won't address weapons guns uh so that they can actually alert um you know and I I don't know whether I'm for it or against it i might be for it if it was if it if it made sense i don't see where it makes sense uh and the last
thing is uh Dr Luna can we get this information by demographics uh when they start uh taking kids' phones uh can we get that information by demographics i would like to know who is being penalized for having phones in school yes we we can break down um any incidents and behavior by demographics and we can categorize by the type of offense yeah I thank Chris will actually get getting involved and working working through this but I really do believe that somebody
somewhere is going to probably bring this uh up uh probably from that from right where you standing uh is going to chastise the board for them giving that child a tool to to pro protect them and we are as a board is going to take that tool away from them by saying that you can't have it at all during the day no way no form uh I think that that will turn out to turn to be a problem somewhere
down the road Anthony Johnson uh yes Mr Garland and I and I just want to clarify a couple things uh specific to your point there is actually a provision in the state law that requires us to have language in our policy that states that students could have access to their phones in an emergency situation and to clarify I don't know if you mentioned that Mr Lanier but that is in this policy as well well so when you read the full verbiage of the drafted policy it states that students would have access to their phones in an emergency situation that
was actually in the law so that is there i also just want to revisit something really quickly um so when Mr Lanier had reached out and I was assisting with researching the reason why we went to Kenwood High School is because at the beginning of this year I started getting media uh inquiries about Kenwood High School's new cell phone policy and to be quite honest with everyone I don't always pay attention to exactly what every school's doing and so after digging into it I was very interested um and if you've been out to Kenwood High School for a visit you will see signs
on the front door that say no cell phones this is no cell phone area and in talking with Dr Anderson um there's a reality like you said there's there's hundreds thousands of students at a school it can be challenging and he has said it's challenging for every day every minute to try to to police that if you will but at the end of the day it has uh it has put on notice for families and for students at schools about instruction and you should have your phones turned off and put away so I should also revisit that our very first and Dr Causey can mention our very first parent advisory
meeting that we had this year which I believe was in September it's always opened up for just general feedback from everybody the first piece of feedback we got was from a parent at Kenwood High School who raved about the new policy the positive feedback that she was hearing from other parents uh in the school environment and that kind of also you know opened our ears to to what was going on and the specific provision about lunch was and again the the word the verbiage is the administrator may make that accommodation they don't have to they're not required to but
actually was it was Dr Anderson saying that it was helpful as actually being a tool in the cafeteria for students to cause they didn't get to use their phone all day now they're kind of checking catching up it was quieter that parent actually commented the exact same thing when she was there to volunteer and visit she's like "Oh my goodness the cafeteria is actually at a audible level where I can hear what's with my thoughts in my head." So all that to say that's kind of where that came from understand completely if that's something the board didn't want to move but it was modeled a little bit after Kenwood the other piece of data that we saw is that overall and I'm going
to forget these exact numbers overall there was a decrease in uh behavior challenges at Kenwood High School after implementation we looked at a six-month period there was an increase in cell phone but there wasn't a necessarily a drastic increase in repeated cell phone offenses so it was kind of that first time warning second time there might have been some sort of discipline um but other offenses especially the the ones around fighting encouraging furthering promoting fighting cell phones that sort of thing we did see a pretty significant decrease there within the first six
months so just wanted to add that context and more kudos to Dr Anderson and the Kenwood team for for really coming out and and implementing this before we even knew that uh we would have a law on it Mr Maberry thank you i actually want to go back to Kacie's comment there about points versus levels i actually had it written down at the top and I missed it so I'm glad you're able to bring it back up um I would wonder if we could maybe skip the COVID years there because that's going to be flawed um but maybe three years from the end of the point system to maybe the last three years
do a comparison of discipline issues just so we can kind of see a comparison between the two if you do some type of report like that that'd be great yes we'll absolutely take a look at that okay anybody else all right thank you all righty item four resolution of fiscal year 25 June budget amendments first read Jeff Taylor good evening board um this is just one of our year-end um resolutions we'll have one in June
for the federal projects um starting out just an overview revenues uh we've got an increase of $7.3 million for that of course the largest two are local revenues of almost 1,950,000 and then just a true up reconciliation for the TISA funding of 4,435,000 on the expenditure side um a total amount of 2,567,000 472 of that was just payroll reconciliation 328 with benefits and then
um the next biggest one is just operating transfers where we be moving money over to the extended school summer school just to make sure we have for cash flow purposes on the GP fund um you'll see the first group there local revenues the local option sales tax we're increasing that by an additional half a million dollars wheel tax by 200,000 business tax by 575,000 and the mixed drink tax of 310,000 under tuition uh for the St B peer-to-peer revenue that's an additional
$37,000 and under school-based um health program just higher than anticipated revenues of and adding $60,000 there um under interest earned and lease rentals that's just an increase based on the current projected revenues for the remainder of the year um the E-Rate funding that one we removed it's no longer we're no longer receiving funding for that one um miscellaneous revenues other uh just a change in our um contract for giving us additional revenues and then
$500,000 just based on sales of computer laptops and gov deals uh moving on to state revenues the once again the TISA funding increase of 4.4 million and estimate excuse me estimated uh revenues for the Tennessee paid parental leave of $775,000 and then under federal um revenues under other government citizen groups uh an increase of $96,557 for settlement funds
under non-revenue sources just insurance payments for vehicles and tornado claims that gives us an additional available funds of 7.3 million as you see at the bottom of this page moving on to the expenditures under regular instruction um we've got um added a $20,000 that was taken from another function we'll see that here in a few seconds for uh subs needed for teachers related to the lead teacher training additional 20,000 um additional costs and benefits of
$119,780 116,750 was due to medical projected premium increases and then insurance life insurance of 1,500 under contracted services um just had an increase needed to pay for some of the contracted services that we have for students of $20,000 under special education this is in regard to the ESY summer learning budget this will cover the additional cost for teachers ed assistants and just increase in the medical projected premiums under vocational
education this is just an adjustment to the ISM uh innovative school model grant moving funds um to match the school's needs you'll see a decrease in in salaries and supplies and materials and in equipment moving on to other student support um once again adjustment for payroll and benefit projections under that for salary and benefits another amendment decrease of $39,779 for the innovative school models grant um as I mentioned earlier for the $20,000 increase under instruction
we move those funds from regular instruction support of 15,000 to help cover that need for the substitutes for the lead teacher training and then $116,000 $118,000 excuse me increase uh for benefit projections and for air grant stipend and then lastly moving funds to pay for the air grant stipend we moved $5,701 out of staff development moving on to vocational education support once again adjustments to the ISM grant and we also had
an adjustment uh for payroll projections mainly for medical insurance under technology we just basically moved these funds around $312,480 was moved out of contracted services into supplies and materials that's just to help to pay for data pro processing supplies for uh technology purchase purchases under the board of education increase of $30,000 just for uh legal costs based on the March invoices that we've received and then um increase of $543,376 for
uh write off of accounts receivables and just some increases in insurance and liability costs and then under uh director of schools an increase just based on projected uh medical premiums under business affairs um we mentioned the half a million dollars increase with the laptops for gov deals it's about a 7.5% charge for the sales we have so we had to increase this line item by $40,000 to cover the cost associated with those sales under human resources um this is
just an estimate the $200,000 at the end of the school year for those that have personal leave just to ensure in case they want that buyback we have enough funding to cover that we increased that by 200,000 and then the employee benefits we had to increase that by a little bit as well under operation of plant just adjustments uh for salary and benefits for uh payroll projections then an increase of 34,000 this is uh for an analysis that they just conducted regarding the transportation routes and zoning i think that was done last month or the month before or getting
ready to be done excuse me um under maintenance of plant just adjustments to payroll and benefits as well and then we moved 175,000 out of contracted services that's to cover the increased cost of parts and materials um and we moved that over to supplies and materials add an additional 206,000 and then under early childhood education just an adjustment under benefits for employee and payroll and benefits mainly medical premiums and then at the bottom of the page you'll see
the interfund transfer where we're moving a million dollars over to the extended school fund so that gives us an increase um total expendure end expenditures of 2,567,000 and at the bottom you'll also see we have an adjustment to the ending fund balance of $4,736,691 and then of course we have some smaller adjustments here as well for moving out of the educ assigned for education ESSER and then assigned for
technology under child nutrition um decrease um in adult lunch charges of 31,763 um ala carte sales we increased that by 68,671 and then my predecessor worked with the insurance with the trustees office and got some uh our how the interest was calculated from the county side updated so we were able to update that interest earned budget uh by $647,177 that will be coming in this year uh projected and then an increase
under school food service for accrual received per the state office and then 69,506 for anticipated reimbursements under the section 4 lunch funds as well as the breakfast reimbursements an increase there of $335,508 um moving on to the expenditures just one increase 8,200 just to cover um additional vehicle repair costs for their vehicles within that department um so it's an increase to the ending fund balance of 1,094,044 under transportation um our property taxes we're
going to are projected to come in higher so we're adjusting that by $193,000 under the expenditures just adjustments in payroll and benefit projection for payroll and benefit projections of $1,000 and then for the medical premiums of 25,475 and then lastly for well not lastly but if for extended school you'll see the million dollar entry in there from the general fund and then under expenditures we're just moving money out of regular instruction and salaries 50,136 and moving that over to contracted services under
transportation and then for capital projects this of course is in relation to Freedom Elementary just appropriating those funds um $39,562,029 from contributions from the county and then on the expenditures side just appropriating the same amount of money for freedom y'all have any questions thank you okay thank you all right item five student school oh you have
a question oh all right Mr Nelson just a quick question um on Freedom Elementary as you're going forward to construction have you noticed an increase on prices for materials and do you anticipate having to uh readjust for that you no sir we've already gotten the bid for that project so those prices should be locked in okay thank you okay item five student school board member presentation first read Dr. Schanda Doughty
good evening board we are very excited about the opportunity to collaborate with each of you on a student non- voting member of the board um we as an instructional team believe that this is a great opportunity for a student in CMCSS because it fosters in them civic um and educational engagement um it provides them valuable insights to the decisions that this board makes just like the conversations that you were just having in regards to the cell phone and other code of conduct issues and additionally it provides leadership skills for
kids which we know we hear a lot today um about some of those skills that our kids are lacking and this is a great way to fill that in our recommendation to the board would be that to be eligible to be the non- voting student member they would be a current junior or senior in CMCSS we believe that this should be selected from among a CMCSS um high school student advisory committee member and obviously that this student should have a good discipline record with no significant discipline issues um the selection process every high school nominates four students to serve on
the CMCSS high school student advisory committee and they're typically appointed in August um by the high school so we would like for those students from each of the high schools the four students from each four high schools so 8* 4 is 32 if my math is good um to select somebody from among their peers to be a member of the the non- voting student member of the board um we think that those students should have the opportunity to vote for that selection um and we believe that
the selected student and an alternate would be presented to this board um for final selection to be that non- voting student member the student would serve one year we have starting in October because we know they're not selected till August that way we could lead the students through some activities in August and September before they we came to you with the recommendation um where they would start in October um and that a student would only be allowed to serve one term so that we could rotate a variety of students through this opportunity the roles and responsibilities that
we would like to recommend are that this non- voting student member would attend all formal public meetings of the school board um that they would meet with the director of high schools or the designee prior to each meeting to review the agenda and discuss relevant topics to make sure they have an understanding um of what's happening before they come into the meeting um com and that that they would be able to communicate student concerns and perspectives to the school board um during the comment section of the agenda also those that student or students would go back to
the high school advisory committee and provide updates from the board um so that there's that constant two-way communication opportunity um we believe that the students should be in a non- voting capacity um and that they must adhere to the policies regarding confidentiality and conduct um during all board meetings the director of high schools and myself um will serve as the liaison between the student representative and the school board um the liaison will provide guidance support and oversight to ensure that the students um are can effectively participate and
have a clear understanding of what's happening in the board meetings um in honor of teacher appreciation week if you'll oblige me um we have a video the student advisory members have the opportunity to go back to their home high schools and um select a teacher for a ceremony that we call the high school teacher of honor this ceremony is unique compared to other ceremonies in CMCSS because students select the teacher that gets to participate our communications department
every year does a really great job of putting together a video of the student advisory members um along with their teacher of honor sometimes the kids are talking about teachers that are not their teacher and you'll see that in the video um so I will take questions at the end but in honor of the work of all of our teachers and so you can get a snippet of how amazingly talented these students are I'd like to play that video for you guys now if that's okay all right okay okay do my clothes look weird you look beautiful okay great thanks great
thanks this is Ms Burleson she teaches pre-calc stats ACT prep and algebra 2 this is Ms Foley she teaches AP Lang she also teaches English 2 and honors English and I'm pretty sure she teaches the acade academy English as well academy this is Dr Pontious she teaches um DE pre-calc statistics geometry and credit recovery Northwest High School this is Master Sergeant Clarence Johnson he teaches JROTC at Kirkwood High School this is Mr Alston he teaches English 4 at West Creek High
School english 4 english 4 yep okay um this is Ms Njaway at Early Technical College and she teaches English lit this is Ms Taylor she teaches computer science at Kenwood High School she's my mother this is Ms B she teaches biology at Rossview High School this is Mr White he teaches world history at CMCSS K-12 virtual school Ms Hazen teaches at Montgomery Central as our AP literature teacher
the best part about having a teacher like Ms B is that she is going to tell you how it is she has that wit and that sharpness about her that is truly invaluable at times sometimes you need to hear it even if you don't want to hear it um and she will definitely hold you accountable in your personal life and your academic life my favorite part about being in Ms Foley's class is like sometimes I get a lot of like really self-conscious when it comes to like grades or assignments so I reached out to Ms Foley and I emailed her and she sent me like a really good long encouraging email about how I was good enough and I should stay in the honors and AP courses
um I had her class freshman year and easily my most favorite thing was when we got to make kites as part of our curriculum like you can't get that anywhere else what I love most about being in his class is how comfortable he makes everybody feels and how many jokes he makes in his class like he'll be talking to you and he'll sneak in a little joke there but everybody knows it's there and it's great i've heard a lot about Mr Alston in the classroom setting a lot of students say that
he creates a welcoming space and environment for them you know to want to learn and be a part um of the school system and their education process he makes it very easy what I like being about what I like about her class is that um she tries to do more hands-on like activities because we do a lot of our lessons on PLP um so she tries to get all of us to like engage instead of just sitting
there like looking at a screen all day she tries to get us to like actually engage with her and then comprehend what we're learning a lot of her students have said uh that she's really reliable giving them advice on not just her class but other classes and like their life you see nature that is her class right there she takes elements of the nature like say a wasp nest there's a wasp a old wasp nest in her classroom and let's see some foliage and around the classroom and whatnot and all the oh fishes she has fishing she has a couple fishes in there they like Mr White's class
because of his unique teaching style he makes his classes fun by including little activities in his slideshows or he might have a game at the end which makes it really fun my favorite thing about being in Ms Hazen's class is how fun she makes reading and literature a lot of people especially teens think that reading is very boring but she makes it a very fun experience and we're really able to engage with what we're doing my favorite thing about being a teacher is
uh it is a period of constant learning it's never acceptable to be stale or uh passive uh the students inspire me to learn more about the world about being a human about uh kindness and and ultimately it makes me a better person honestly it has to be the kids we have such a special group at Middle College they're driven at 16 years old to start getting college credits um even if their math skills are not on point they have this desire already at such a young age to
better themselves and it's awesome to foster that to be a mentor to that and to just give them that push what I love most about teaching is helping students make connections and get things when they're struggling a lot of students don't come in loving math so it's a little bit of work to get them to at least not dislike math by the end of the year but I think when you see that light bulb and they they get it and they start to build some self-confidence it's a great thing
my favorite thing about teaching is helping students to prep for the future uh I've been I thank almighty God for this opportunity to be here and to be that servant leader to show them uh what opportunities look like i like to teach from my failures uh so that way they can see I'm actually human uh and to say that despite the obstacles or the shortcomings or the failures uh or the non-successes there's still opportunities there to still be successful i try to tell them
we would never be perfect but we can still operate at excellence my favorite thing about teaching is being able to leave an impact on students i told myself um right before I started teaching that even if I didn't influence 150 kids as long as it was one in each classroom that I left an impact on that I would feel like I was successful honestly the students like their growth they're fun um I started with elementary and I've moved like I've started elementary went to middle school then to
high school so every time I progress up like in grades I'm like Oh you're more fun than the other grades you're So I definitely like high school the most but the students are a lot of fun. I love the relationships and getting to see the maturity in our students and getting to see that personal growth i am um dedicated to try to get them to make their beds up it's probably the hardest part about my job but I think that it's going to be the most successful part and they're like "You're on that again?" Yes I am because it just shows that you put yourself first when you take care of your
needs you know something as simple as making your bed getting to teach kids to be curious that's literally what I tell them i like we want life skills but ultimately I want them to look at something and to think about it and typically that happens i have kids who see a lichen on a tree and then they're like "Ms B I saw this." And it's very exciting them to think about what they're doing um in life and it's not just warming a chair that they have a purpose it's the big picture i guess the thing I enjoy the most about being a teacher is the relationships you're able to form with the
students and their families it's an opportunity for them to bless you and for you to bless them i love being able to show my young people um the broader world and how to um grow their empathy and their understanding of people and places uh that they may never see and that are very different from them um through stories and storytelling and seeing them really care about what this fictional
character is going through because they know that that fictional character is probably living someone's life and so I feel like literature does that in a way that maybe other subjects you know just don't or do differently perfect is that okay that was it beautiful that was easy see it was easy easy y'all to come over this way that was it that was it oh okay see how easy that was now you get to go get your picture taken good to go yeah that was it y'all were pros that was wonderful
that's easy right easy peasy now we'll just have High five brother we did it get your picture thank you for allowing me to play that in its entirety especially this week teacher appreciation week because we have some amazing educators in CMCSS so any questions for me about the proposal for collaboration uh Mr Griffy oh the one section where you were talking about um comments if I remember correctly the comments were
to come out during board member comments from the student board members and they would have that i see it as them having that opportunity but I also see them would like to see them be able to engage in discussion we're having on issues because if they are held silent until board comments they may not be able to pass their message on on discussion that we're having about a subject that particular night so I I would like to see that added so they also can involve themselves in our discussion
as we're talking about a topic yes sir i'll be happy to go back thank you reward that Ms Bryant the uh just a couple questions i saw on there that it was just formal meetings so is there a reason that we're doing just the formal meetings and not the other ones what you'll find is a lot of these students are engaged in multiple things additionally a lot of them rely on parents to provide their transportation to get them here and we didn't want requiring them to
attend two meetings to be a hindrance to the students um and who they were able to nominate and select from among their peers we felt like one meeting was realistic for families and for these students okay i mean that opportunity can definitely be there for them but we didn't want it to be a limiting factor so they could come if they wanted to and participate because I feel like a lot of it kind of rolls over from meeting to meeting i can imagine it'd be hard for them to keep up if it's they're only getting half of the conversation agreed yes we're not opposed to that at all but just we didn't want it to be a limiting factor if somebody was need to
drive from one side of town to the other twice a month right and then the other question is I know when we had originally talked about it we had talked about having a second um student representative to shadow will that happen at all we're not opposed to that however these kids could potentially change every year so let's say having been a high school principal for five years a student that I selected as a freshman that committed to it by the end of their freshman year they were involved in a variety of different activities and said "Thank you for the
opportunity but they weren't going to do it as a sophomore." So we're we're not opposed to to bringing forth two students but as far as it being like a shadowing you know with the idea that they would come on board full-time the next year it's not necessarily going to be that those kids are on on it for four years does that make sense it does a little bit i think that we went to one we had a lot of conversation about this as a board we went to one was it Dickson board meeting and they had two representatives and I believe their model was they had one that was a main one and
then the other one was kind of bringing them on to what was to happen next year because it is a it is a lot of learning so just something else to consider that seemed to be working really well for them that's great not opposed to that at all Mr Nelson all right thank you for taking this on as you know that was one of the things I saw from a school district in in Georgia and they they seem to have a lot of success with it um just a quick question as far as the uh the student board member interacting with his peers for feedback how's that scheduled those um
advis the high school advisory committees are once a month and so we have not pushed that calendar out for next year yet because we were kind of waiting to see where this landed and we would plan those in such a way to make sure that the students had the opportunity to do just that okay thank you yes sir Mr Maberry thank you just an idea for the shadow uh maybe at the end of the year we vote on who or the students would vote on who the next year would be and then there could be a period
of time they could shadow so just an idea but I do understand what you're saying as well because kids sometimes get engaged in a variety of different things from one year to the next and that's what we want we want them learning growing and trying new things in high school so you talked about in there how you had a um alternate how do you see the alternate playing into this i think this would work well with what y'all are calling kind of the shadow the shadow the alternate i think we could use those terms almost interchangeably um and work together on on that that definition
i think that's more than fair just making sure again because sometimes kids are kids and they do overcommit themselves that we would always have somebody here to be that voice and then to report back to the student advisory committee right okay anybody else all right thank you thank you guys appreciate it all right we're going to push item six to next um next study session so we can figure out how we want to attack that one um but this time um item seven county commissioner comments
yes thank you i just have a a brief comment um I wanted to comment on the uh the um devices policy that y'all are looking at updating i really appreciate you all looking at that i know you know there'll be some controversy I'm sure from from certain folks on that but I think it's common sense i think it's long overdue um I mean I'm a parent i have a a teenager who just got their first cell phone and so I understand you know knowing where your child is at knowing that they're safe but at the same time he's certainly not using that
phone during during his classroom hours and so I I love the compromise with them being able to have the phone if there's an emergency but absolutely not using it not having it on i just think that's that's just common sense i think that's a great idea so I highly uh applaud that um also as far as the uh the student non- voting member um if he's going to participate in the entire board meeting then I would ask that maybe uh the county commissioners would have an expanded discussion time as well for the for the board meeting just a just a thought but thank you
okay item other business dr Luna-Vedder good evening board members today I had the pleasure of attending the middle school career expo at the Wilmer Rudolph Event Center and the STEM expo at Austin Peay State University a day filled with interacting with students and community members who showed up to invest in our students was heartwarming we had numerous industry and community partners who shared their careers with our middle schoolers and volunteers who evaluated STEM projects Norm Brumblay and I even got to hear a pitch from third
graders on how they use the engineering design process to potentially solve our parking issues at their elementary school i'm hoping we can make their plan come true in the near future with some capital project dollars yes that was a shameless plug for our county commissioners in honor of teacher appreciation week I would like to take a moment to recognize all of our educators in CMCSS who give to our students every day research has shown that teachers in the classroom matter more to student achievement than any other aspect of schooling i would
encourage everyone to reach out to teachers this week to thank them for their dedication to our students Mr Lanier this concludes my report for the evening okay any other board comments Aron first off it's the probably the third graders probably figured out how to fix all the issues on all of our schools so that's awesome um I just want to say I'm sorry I couldn't be here last week or two weeks ago um I shared ahead of time with several people that I wasn't going to be able to be here uh I think it's the only time the entire time I've been elected as state
representative that wasn't here because of uh being up there um and it was because it was the last day of the session and so I uh I just wanted to say that to you guys i do want on record that I would have voted for the budget as well um and I appreciate you guys filling the gap when I was gone thank you Mr Garland yeah quick comment i would like to remind all of us that next week is the most important week of our school year uh I think next week is we have graduations
two weeks two weeks well week after next whatever but the bottom line is that is the most important week of our school year i won't be able to talk to you before then and as many as possible to come and watch those kids walk across the stage uh for the 20 plus years that I've been sitting on this board I have never missed I don't think I missed but one graduation and I do that because graduation is a very important part of a child's life and if we are not involved enough or we are
not dedicated enough to set aside time to come out and watch them and and salute them that it make them think that it's just another day but it's not another day it's a great day for the parents it's a great day for the students and it's an excellent day for the teachers and the staff that provide the education that we provide annually to all of almost 40,000 of our students and thank you Dr Luna and staff Ms Berry I just want to thank our teachers for all you do for the children
you know without you they probably wouldn't get a quality education but you are trained and you are committed and you do what's best for children you make your best effort in every situation exposing those children to new concepts and getting them ready to take on life and what you do is very
important don't take it light because it's you know I had a parent call me earlier today and she was just saying her child attended one of our community schools and that child is so equipped and she's going on to UT and she just said pup uh CMCSS schools are wonderful and I just want us to brag a little bit because we are and if I always say if a frog doesn't croak at his own
pun no one else is so CMCSS teachers thank you for what you do for our students because you're helping them to reach their potential and be prepared to be successful in life thank you Mr Nelson yes also I'd like to go ahead and thank the teachers as well um there's a special thing when you talk to teachers you can tell that there's this thing I call the
heart of a teacher and not everybody has that and when you talk to teachers you can tell that uh that special individual has that heart for students and and teaching and and just imparting knowledge to our students and I thank for each I'm grateful for each and every teacher that uh lends that to the students and I think we do a very good job here within CMCSS i think there's some great teachers here thank you all right anyone else all righty with that we stand adjourned