this meeting of Clarksville-Montgomery County Board of Education we now come to order we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. first item on the agenda is public conversation we did not have anyone
request to address the board tonight so the next item will be approval of consent agenda I have a motion from Mr Maberry second Ms Berry to approve consent
agenda please cast your vote everyone satisfied with their vote please close the vote it passes 5-0 next item is policy monitoring Dr Luna board please find in your board packet information on
Executive limitation 2 communication with the public this executive limitation has three compliance expectations to assure that the director of schools adequately informs the public about the condition and direction of the district a number of feedback opportunities have continued this year with stakeholder and advisory groups senior leadership team members lead these communication groups and provide information requested by the group's constituency also the
district website offers several ways in which feedback may be provided using the continuous improvement process in partnership with upbeat a robust survey was dispatched to all school-based employees with nearly a 90% response rate parents were surveyed in the fall and another will go out this spring as well as an all employee survey Additionally the district strategic work is presented to all stakeholder groups finally the financial state of the district is audited
annually and quarterly reported and quarterly reports are provided to the board and County Commission chairman Griffy this concludes my update for executive limitation two thank you is there a motion to accept the report have a motion to accept is there a second I have a second any discussion um please cast your
vote is everyone satisfied with your vote please close the vote it passes 5-0 next item is school year calendar Dr Luna board please find in your board packet information on Executive limitation 9 school year calendar this executive limitation has three compliance
expectations to ensure the director of schools prepares a district calendar and school calendar that best meet the instructional needs of students the school calendar for 26-27 reflects the requirements outlined in executive limitation 9 additionally the representative stakeholder group used the same guidelines as were reviewed and discussed by all focus groups last year to develop the 26-27 calendar adjustments to the 25-26 school year calendar
will be made and brought to the board should any legislative changes or need arise chairman Griffy this concludes my update for executive limitation nine have a motion to accept that report I have a motion for Ms Berry and she seconded the last one and Mr Nelson made that motion I did not recite that I hope you captured that okay is there a second a motion a second Mr Nelson this time any
discussion everyone please cast your vote is everyone satisfied with your vote please close the vote it passes 6-0 next item reports
behavioral resource presentation yes I'd like to welcome up uh Dr. Morgan Sherrill and Holly Jackson from our team um as well as Dr Doughty Who will give a little bit of intro this is in response to um our our board member Kacie Bryant requesting some additional information about some things at the school system is doing good afternoon board we're always excited to come and talk about the Innovation and the work that we're doing for our students um most of the time that we are here we are talking about academics go ahead and click if you don't mind most of the
time we're here we're talking about academics but we have the opportunity tonight to come and talk about the work that we're doing um centered around Behavior not only is it important that our CMCSS students graduate being academically College and Career ready we also want to instill in them the importance of appropriate behavior um throughout their 12 year school so that they can be productive citizens upon graduation I've invited tonight I know you're used to hearing from me but I've invited tonight the behavior experts to join me to share um the exciting
work that we've done so far I have Dr. Morgan Sherrill and Ms Holly Jackson Holly will start us tonight good evening building further off of um what Dr Doughty said um we we understand that it is very difficult for students to improve in their um it's very difficult for them to improve in their achievement when behavior is interfering or
impeding with their learning and so that being said we've been tasked with doing some very intentional work around behavior and we're excited to share that work with you tonight we're going to begin with the national poll um that is representative of some teacher opinions on behaviors in the school setting 82% of teachers Nationwide believe that covid-19 had a very negative or somewhat negative effect on student
behavior and 49% of teachers Nationwide rate behavior as fair or poor in the schools um so it's no secret that behavior is um in the schools has been on the rise in both frequency and intensity and in the school setting um but what this poll indicates is that this although this is um a a nationwide Trend it is not anything that is specific to just
CMCSS so with this behavioral shift in mind um we understand that in order to better support our teachers and our students we have to address behavioral supports in the same way that we address academic supports um just as our students um come to us from very diverse backgrounds and have very diverse academic needs so too are their behavioral needs
so we must meet students where they're at and so that's why we're systematically um looking to provide not only academic but behavior supports at all levels and you'll see on this slide um that our tier one supports um they include Universal instruction and best practices around Behavior our tier 2 supports our systematic group or individualized inter excuse me interventions and our tier three supports are intensive and individualized um targeted
interventions so I'm going to talk to you a little bit more about what that looks like at each tier and the support that we provide to to students and staff at every level so you're familiar with the tiered system of support because we we do the same with academics so for tier one with behavior that means all students and and basically what that means is that we're Implement practices at tier
one that the majority of our students are going to come in and benefit from but we realize that we have teachers coming in through unique pipelines and that not all of them have the classroom management and the tools necessary to be able to step into a classroom and know the procedures and the things that need to be in place before students are ready to learn and so at the tier one level we have classroom management training by our district Behavior team um but classroom management is kind of a vague word and so we've broken that down into the eight effective classroom practices and those classroom practices are our common vocabulary for the district so you'll see things
like um policies and procedures and making sure that we have active Supervision in the classroom making sure that our our friends that struggle the most are the closest to us in proximity those are all things that we're training teachers on as as we're in the classrooms and then we monitor our flagged indicators and our flagged indicators differ by building but what that uh typically entails is like in one building a certain amount of office visits may tell us hey we need to look
into this student a certain amount of um absences may be some grades and so each building has a set of flagged indicators that we look at and monitor to make sure we're ahead of the problem behaviors at tier two you're going to see that we have some of our students and these are the students that don't um respond quickly to those tier one practices and so tier two is where we would develop research-based Behavior interventions and this year we've adopted um several research-based Behavior interventions at the tier 2 level that we have created a database for called our Behavior
toolbox and everything teachers need to be able to implement those Behavior interventions are right there for them and then we make uh decisions based on data so not only are we looking at those flagged indicators but we're also looking at behavioral data we're looking at suspension data and trying to determine who needs more support and where and then we have ongoing training and support for school staff at this level and then tier three you'll see that we have few students and that's because these are the students that are requiring the most support prior to needing
an IEP and so these students get individualized interventions um at this phase we often do high quality functional Behavior assessments and behavior intervention plans and so that's just a fancy way of saying that we're going to do this assessment to determine why the behavior is happening in the first place it's very difficult to intervene appropriately if we don't understand why the behavior is occurring so that's that assessment that helps us determine that and then we have personalized trainings for teachers and staff at this phase so one indicator that helps us
determine uh whether or not our work is is working is our Behavior incidents data and I would like to share that this year we have 772 fewer Behavior incidents at this point in the year compared to this point last year so we do feel like that that tiered system of support is working um but I want to dive into that a little bit further um although we're aligned to the National findings that Holly
discussed earlier in the presentation we do have learning occurring um our schools are structured we have high expectations uh the behavior incidents data supports that by showing that 83% of our students have zero Behavior incidents documented this year um and then of the 17% that do have documented incidents only 9% have more than one incident documented so when you look at this pie chart we're really talking about a very small population of students that are disrupting
instruction here you'll see a visual representation of our of the structure of our district Behavior team we have paid specific attention to the behavioral needs across our district and built this team in order to provide teachers and staff with very intentional behavior training and supports um our main focus in equipping this team is to provide school teams the support and the tools that they need in order to um address behavioral challenges specific to
each building on the next slide Morgan and I will Define the roles of the members of this Behavior team so you see all those positions but I want to make sure you understand what each of those positions do to support both staff and students so the first position that I have up here are the coordinators and that's Holly and myself uh we oversee and align districtwide Behavior initiatives and staff we analyze data to identify Trends and make sure that we're developing strategic supports and really the ultimate goal of our supports are to make sure that we're on the
preventative side and we're proactive and not just responding to behaviors over and over again um and then you'll see that we have board certified Behavior analysts commonly referred to as BCBAs they train and monitor staff in implementing research-based Behavior interventions and for those of you who aren't aware uh BCBA is the gold standard in the field of Behavior Uh there really isn't a higher certification that you can maintain in the field of behavior right now so
they really give us uh quality insight into determining why behaviors are occurring and how they might manifest in the school setting they also Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the support we're providing because it's one thing to say that we're providing support but we also need to know that it's research based and that it's actually making a difference and then we have 11 Behavior consultants in our district and these Behavior Consultants think of them as um train the trainer we train them and they train schools so they support school teams in determining
the need for Behavior interventions as well as provide ongoing behavior training and support to teachers next we have our newest members of our team and they are our itinerant um registered Behavior techs and our CMCSS Behavior technicians uh there are a total of 13 itinerants and this team is comprised of our most experienced educational assistants um eight of these itinerants are registered Behavior techs and the other five are CMCSS Behavior techs all 13 of
these um itinerants provide direct interventions to students that have the most significant needs and they have support direct support from our BCBAs and schools across the district they Model Behavior interventions for school teams under the direct supervision of BCBAs the registered Behavior Techs in particular must spend 5% of their time under that direct supervision of
our three BCBAs to maintain their licensure our Behavior techs while they don't have to maintain a licensure they do still receive specialized training and support from our BCBAs and again there's no licensure required this system allows us to provide not just direct support um and team training simultaneously when when students exhibit severe behaviors but it also allows
us to um kind of them to be the boots on the ground and really give some in-depth training to the the school teams um and this Innovative system of itinerate support training is now being replicated in other districts across the state We additionally we have Student Success coaches where our itinerants provide student specific support our Student Success coaches are able to provide tier one support in classrooms when teachers are receiving that individualized
training specific to those eight essential classroom practices that Morgan mentioned earlier so you may be wondering what a registered Behavior technician is so we did want to provide a little bit of clarification on that the registered Behavior technician credential is overseen by the behavior analyst certification board or the BACB and it's an international nonprofit organization established to meet professional credentialing needs in Behavior Analysis basically it just makes sure that we're trained and ethical um and that we have people
that are working with our neediest students that are qualified to do so so with this Behavior team now that you understand what each of them are designed to do we we want to make sure you're aware of our Focus um because we have to make our work intentional and we have to make sure that everybody's working towards the same goals and so we have three Focus areas as a behavior team and those are collaborative Behavior team meetings functional Behavior assessment and
behavior intervention plan support and building capacity in staff and I'm going to go a little bit deeper into each one of these Focus areas so you understand why that why that's on that Venn diagram the first area of focus is building capacity because just as I said um if we're saying that we have Behavior staff we have to make sure that our staff is in fact trained in behavior and and providing quality interventions in 2023 or last year Behavior was last year's top requested learning with 50.4% of respondents selecting it as a top priority
so in the survey that professional learning sent out 54 Point 50.4% of respondents selected it as the top priority it was the number one requested topic for all three levels elementary middle and high and this year although it's still um in the top 10 we've dropped down to six which I believe is due to the quantity and quality of the behavior trainings that we've been offering to the district this chart shows the frequency and the duration of the intentional trainings
that we've provided this year and um those totals are based on hours uh the trainings are layered from the ground up and we have an ongoing training curriculum specific to the roles of our Behavior staff so prior to this year we provided much less training specific to behavior due to having less resources to do so the totals on the screen they um represent the pre-plan training that we have in place but additionally we also um
provides training specific to buildings upon request um Morgan is going to now strike through all of the trainings that we were not able to provide last year um and it's that's representative of the heavy Focus that we've had on behavior training so far this year so we've previously explained the role of our district Behavior team members in building capacity across the district here's some data that illustrates how our district team has
supported teachers so far this year as you can see our um Behavior Consultants have received 104 referrals and those come directly from teachers um as well as from administrators our board certified Behavior analysts provide a more intensive layer of support and have received 46 student specific referrals so far this year additionally uh they provide ongoing intensive
training and support to our teachers our RBTs our behavior techs and our Behavior Consultants um our district itinerants like I mentioned earlier are our boots on the ground and so far um those referrals have been initiated by our coordinators and our board certified Behavior analysts um they are able to then provide direct support to students with the most extensive behavioral needs they're currently assigned to students through the end of um January and will continue those assignments for the remainder of the year right now
they've served a total of 22 students directly this year for a total of 4,165 hours of direct support additionally they provide support in our Behavior programs when there has been some staffing shifts and they need to kind of supplement that support so our next area Focus um from the Venn diagram are the collaborative Behavior team meetings and so the collaborative Behavior team meetings are our opportunity to bring key
stakeholders from each building together to discuss those flagged indicators that I discussed earlier as well as teacher nominations of students that are impacting their ability to teach in the classroom um fortunately last year I got to lead a behavior pilot for the district where collaborative Behavior team meetings was a large component of that of laying the groundwork for holding those meetings what they look like and how they impact students being in and out of the classroom we had four elementary schools and eight middle schools participate in
the pilot and this year we now have 25 elementary schools eight middle schools and four high schools participating in collaborative Behavior team meetings and we do feel that that's making a difference in our preventive measure of being able to identify these students before they're to the point of behaviors that are impacting everybody's ability to learn our third and final area of focus is functional Behavior assessments and behavior intervention plans functional Behavior assessments are essential because they
allow us to understand why students are behaving the way that they are um behavior intervention plans are then put in place so that we can appropriately intervene to provide um the support students students need to address targeted behaviors understanding how to complete a functional Behavior assessment and then create that aligned behavior intervention plan is not something that comes naturally to our teachers and we understand that so that's why we've been very strategic and specific about putting some trainings in
place regarding um functional Behavior assessments and behavior intervention plans and that training looks like quite a few different layers um first and foremost we have a partnership with Vanderbilt Triad Triad for both leadership collaboration and uh as well as Behavior team training opportunities we also have um in-person training that's provided throughout the year during our engage sessions
additionally we have some online training modules that are housed in our CMCSS Behavior toolbox and we have virtual uh office hours for teachers and administrators that's facilitated directly by Morgan and myself um um we also have student specific disability trainings for teachers we have some additional extensive behavioral supports throughout the district and those include Behavior classrooms at all levels within CMCSS that also includes a partnership with a Day School
for students who exhibit our most significant um behavioral needs and that day school is in Nashville and we also have um contracted support through outside agencies so when everybody on our Behavior team is tasked out serving students in our buildings and we might need an additional layer of support I can reach out to some of those contracted Personnel to provide us another layer so we're aware that a lot of times what we hear about Behavior are the negative we hear
about behaviors impacting teachers ability to teach we hear from parents who are frustrated with students' behaviors but we wanted to take this opportunity to share with you some positive feedback we've received this year from the trainings and the support that we've been providing so I'm going to click through some of that feedback and allow you to read through it
so in addition to this feedback I also want to share the impact of our upbeat survey that we send out um last year when given the statement disciplinary practices are applied fairly to all students at my school we had 61% of students that agreed to that this year we've increased that by seven points and so we now have 68% of teachers that agree with that um last year with the statement rules for student Behavior are consistently enforced by teachers in this school even for students who are not in my class um 59% of teachers agreed to that
and this year 65% agreed to that we've had a heavy focus on training bus drivers and bus assistants this year uh and so I do want to share that our bus driver Staffing fill rate was at 60% for the 2022-23 School year and this year we're at 83% and in addition to that bus driver resignation due to student Behavior has gone from 15% of the resignations to just one employee this year so
we believe that the right work is proactive we believe that these three Focus areas help us guide our teams and help us to guide that support and that's collaborative Behavior team meetings support with teams and uh the functional Behavior assessments and the behavior intervention plans for our needier students and continuing to build capacity and staff so that they feel more confident supporting students who come in with diverse needs and now we have questions Mr Nelson good evening and thank you for that presentation outstanding job
and I'm glad that you guys are working for our district and uh making the difference and um you know I I think it's shown in the reduction in the number of incidents from this year um over 700 that's that's amazing um my question is is at what point uh if any do you have that uh parental uh interjection where the family is actually brought in brought in and what's been the
support from the parents and that level of their buy into to the program and does that matter to you yes so last year we actually provided many parent trainings um from tier one to special education uh we began writing actually parent support into some of our behavior plans to where we had Parents actually come to the building and we modeled interventions for them and helped them understand how that could be replicated at home and then moving forward this year we actually on Cinco de Mayo we are having a parent engagement session about behavior and that information
will be going out to the community soon and and you've had uh great support from parents I take it unfortunately with our parent Outreach groups so far where we've invited parents in it has been difficult to get them to show and so we're working on incentivizing that and making it more appealing um by providing child care free food um trying to do all the things but I have found um more participation whenever we do that through the behavior intervention plan process where we
say this is what the work that we're doing in the school setting here's how you can help I'm willing to meet you at the building once a week if you're willing to come up here and let me show you these strategies okay and are you seeing more success with parenting with the parents that do participate versus those that do not definitely okay thank you and thank you for what you do Ms Bryant how to do it that go okay thank you um just you guys there's a big significant in after covid
at the beginning of your presentation thank you by the way for coming um was were there any other policy changes or any significant things that happened besides obviously Covid during that time you think that impacted the behavior issues I can't speak to that right off but I can get that information to you okay thank you and what is your plan moving forward do you guys have you discussed about what this looks like long term are you going to continue doing this program do you have other other ideas yes we're definitely continuing and I think it's
all about analyzing our data and it's some of that data we shared with you tonight but we have a ton of data that supports the work that we're doing and um and it also comes back to teacher efficacy and how the teachers feel about the work and so there's been many surveys that go out but also us uh participating in these collaborative Behavior team meetings and being very boots on the ground that helps us know that we have to continue in this direction sorry just one more thing so just to clarify the the team meetings the teachers volunteer to be a part of these
meetings or they have to all of them have to no actually every building uh has a team that they've identified as their behavior support team and so they go through training to be able to participate in these meetings and for the very first meeting of the collaborative Behavior team meetings the teachers make the referral uh but the Behavior team uh it's not a meeting that the teachers have to participate in until we determine this might be a student that needs a behavior intervention plan and from there we come up with training that that teacher might require to implement the behavior intervention gotcha thank you Mr Maberry thank you all for
coming today appreciate you all very much um you mentioned there are 772 less this year um what is the total number I I don't have that number right off but I can get that to you okay great that'd be great to know out of what absolutely so um so Ms Bryant had a question about Covid and if anything changed about that same time frame I believe if if I'm not mistaken um that we
went from point system to tier system around that time frame um so if that's correct I'm now looking at Mr Slight um you may know that question I think it was about three years ago when that happened so I am curious this could be a thing you get back to me on um that what does the data say in regards to that system and it's its data on Behavior to this tier system that we're in now and is data on
its behavior um which one is benefit the most because we had a couple years into this and a couple years on the other side of that so I'd be curious to get that data back from you guys yeah I can't speak quantifiably about that with actual numbers but I can speak to the preventive measures that are in place due to the tiered system it as a behavior analyst myself if you call me into a room of escalated children that are already displaying the problem behaviors I'm going to be like uh you know we have a lot to work a lot of work to do but if you call me in ahead of time and I can help you implement strategies on the front end to prevent the problem behaviors from happening
in the first place that's our wheelhouse and so the tiered system allows us to make sure that we're in that that wheelhouse that makes sense I appreciate that um you gave us some teacher survey data by the way the Bus driver retention data is incredible so we've had fun training bus drivers great job all you guys get kudos for that um the upbeat survey I'm reading here uh the certain type of questions so I guess um I have a question is um do we have any survey data from teachers
that talks about just overall how they feel about the overall behavior in the schools do we have any dat data that looks like that I'll have to get you specifics but I do know we've been working with Elizabeth Vincent on some data for our schools to help understand how they feel about the behavior supports um from self-efficacy to how how they feel they've been able to provide instruction okay that that'd be great and then you have in here under additional extensive
behavior supports partnership with a day school in Nashville I don't know what that is so could you explain that a little more in depth sure we have a partnership with a day school that is in Nashville and they spec they provide specific supports around really ex more extreme behaviors so some of our students have have been all through the tiers um they're identified as having special needs and and we've determined that they need needs be they have needs beyond what we can provide the support for here and so there's just a few of our students that receive that support
from that day school in Nashville all right I appreciate that last question for for you um this kind of goes to this upbeat survey disciplinary practices are applied fairly to all my students um rules of students behavior are consistently enforced um you're in the 60s um high 60s on the first one I I've I've gotten feedback from administrators teachers that they feel like it
isn't necessarily always applied evenly across the entire student body um for instance in particular with students that could potentially have IEPs that have Behavior built into it um if it's a manifestation of their behavior then they're going to get put back in school so one student that doesn't have that built into their their um IEP or behavior plan they could be expelled and another student that does well they're let back in um it's been expressed to me that hey I understand
that they going to be let back in you know when a quicker measure or not being expelled because it's a manifestation but I forget the exact amount of days but there's amount of days that the law says you can keep them out and I think that's fair to make a point for those parents to be involved for the students to understand what had happened um do do you have any thoughts on how we could better measure that in the schools where it's been consistently done with all the
students well Morgan's going to speak more to the collaborative Behavior team process and how we can kind of combat some of those behavioral concerns a ahead of of it getting getting to that point but as far as manifestation determinations I mean we're F we're we're kind of Tied by within the parameters of the law and so we understand that that may feel unfair um but we do follow the law and there there is um there are legal parameters that that guide us in that yeah I I wanted to
bring it back to the collaborative Behavior team meetings because I think that you know I've worked in in the district and in another District where collaborative Behavior team meetings weren't in place and when we got to that point of manifestation meetings we weren't able to say that we had everything in place to support this student to to get to Warrant the discipline but with collaborative Behavior team meetings a lot of times we're able to get ahead of that behavior so if you do get to the point of manifestation meetings you're much more likely to be able to say you know we've provided quality support to this student we've had the right interventions in
place and we're still displaying these behaviors what's next and so the collaborative Behavior team meetings and our intentionality around that really help alleviate some of the concern you're hearing from teachers yeah yeah that's a huge concern for I hear I appreciate your your time today and I look forward to getting that feedback back thank you thank you thank you very much thank you next item for discussion and consideration is
EL14 Administrative policy review believe Mr Maberry asked for that to be on the agenda yes board um this is something that we've been talking about now for several months uh I put together uh with the team with the help of Mr Nolan the legal language here uh that we're calling EL executive limitation 14 I going to read it just for the sake of those watching and those in the audience so that they know that what we're looking at um administrative policy review
by the school board uh and then while I do is I'll I'll explain it briefly I'm gonna ask Mr Anthony Johnson to make a comment as I'm doing that and then any qu questions or comments from the board um could follow that if that's okay uh in accordance with B/SL2 the board retains The Authority for final approval of District policies and regulations because the board governs through a model that defines and delegates rather than reacts and ratifies formulates policies by
determining the broadest values before progressing to more narrow ones and carefully monitors what is delegates to ensure that CMCSS achieves the results intended the director of schools shall assure that the board is regularly informed of any proposed changes to administrative policies accordingly the director of schools shall be uh shall provide board members with proposed new policies or proposed revisions to existing policies no longer no later than 10 days before
the policy is reviewed by the director of schools and the senior leadership team any board member may request to the director of schools and or the board chair that a specific policy or policies up for review shall be added to the next scheduled work study session for discussion by the board furthermore in accordance to GP16 any board member may request to the board chair that any District policy or regulation whether the director of schools propose the changes or not be placed
on a work study session agenda and the board chair will have the policy placed on the next feasible agenda at the study session the board may discuss the policy or policies and any member may present a motion to be voted on at a formal formal uh following the formal session to add or amend its governance policies to define the latitude of choice given to the director of schools as such the director of schools shall not Implement any policies reviewed by the board until after
the board has formally completed its review by either providing feedback or formally voting in accordance to B/SL14 officially passed motions of the board are binding on the director of schools therefore the board may add amend or make obsolete any District policies or regulations through officially pass officially passed motions um so my commentary on this is uh I didn't want
to rush this uh we've been talking about this I think since November of last year um in fact there was a version uh that was put in front of me that um I feel like was getting it was taking away too much from the district so that's what last month was about um but what this does is allows the board um it keeps us within the governance policy it just amends it um through an executive limitation that if something is brought before the board you have 10 days to say hey I
want to be able to vote on that particular issue if you don't it'll continue to go through like it does right now so any policy anything if um as we were talking about it in in a meeting if we're talking about temperatures it's something about a temperature a building gets put up none of us are most likely going to have a problem with that and it would just go right through so most things are just going to sail right through because a lot of these things are more procedural but if it's a policy that is something that you care about or want to vote on it any one of us then could say hey I want us to have that as a discussion in a board meeting and then consequently after that
we would be voting on that particular thing it allows the district to have its um autonomy to go forward and um run the district but it also gives the board the power to make sure we're voting on individual um policies also it does allow the board members to bring up our own policies write our own policies if we Choose so to to deem to do so and then put that on the agenda to then vote on it as well I thought it was important that we as individual board members could go forth
with policies ourselves um but this also would maintain uh that CMCSS would continue to write the policies and that we would um those by and large will be the policies that we are looking at and voting on so those are the main things I have had concern on um we worked on this for a while I worked on this with the directors of school and Anthony Johnson um Can com comment on this but um I believe we have full support of the district yeah I you know the presentation back in October
when I was talking about kind of the history of policy governance how our current through our ISO uh certification how our current policies and procedures are document control um and and I support this this because it essentially crystallizes what we talked about before crystallizes that Authority while still retaining um your your structure I don't have concerns about us losing our ISO certification it's still just like we talked about at the October training um
you know you have the opportunity as the board to make policy governance what you want it to be but it still retains where you're delegating um the the Authority for those day-to-day you're not micromanaging in Essence uh but still being invested in what's going on in the district and I think that's a good thing and and ultimately you know Dr Luna-Vedder since she's come on board has been sending uh you all policies for you to review I don't I can't speak to if that's always been done but what I like about this is that it cements that so of course we hope Dr Luna-Vedder uh is with us for another 20 years or Plus or whenever she decides to retire um but
with that said it cements it moving forward that no matter who the director of schools is whoever is in the board that you're staying engaged in in what's going on so I think it's it's a good thing I I support it and so um I don't have any concerns about it it changing uh major structural you know anything from our the way that we operate now I I appreciate that um and and that that's why I put up to so for any questions my way or comments um I'm releasing
time Ms Bryant I don't have to push a button after you call my name right I'm sorry I cannot figure out this microphone okay okay got it um all right I I just want to say this has been we've been discussing this for probably over a year now and I love the solution that you guys came up with I
think that it's amazing um I'm really excited I I I believe this brings a lot of clarity to some confusion that was with our current governance policy so thank you for all your hard work Ms Berry I'm going on my seventh year on this board there's never been a moment that I didn't feel like I could go to the director and modify policies as needed and but I do like the effort that Mr Maberry and many of our members have worked on to Crystal as Anthony
said make this crystal clear but it you read I guess if you understand what board policy is and Dr Vedder and her staff and the directors we've had in the past have been more than qualified to write board policies and I think as I said I've never felt like I could not uh talk with
them and look at modifications that were needed and I am so grateful that we have our staff and director write policies because we've saved over 175,000 dollars by them doing by them writing the policies and implementing them and then other districts also uh refer to our policies when writing their policies and all due respect the TSBA they're wonderful but if we can save money
and use that money to educate our students and to support our staff I'm grateful for that thank you Mr Maberry so yeah just Clarity um again this will maintain CMCSS for writing board policies um other than that if um any one of us want to say you see a policy in another district
and you're like I want that policy I'm going to take it bring it over run it by legal and you know you can just bring it up yourselves um in a meeting so other than that uh we the CMCSS will continue to write policies it was not a major for me for another me in particular speaking for myself for another entity to come in and write the policies I feel like CMCSS as you just said Ms Berry um has done a great job and um going back to what Mr Johnson said uh this is not in
particular about right now's leadership team right now director of schools it seem it's it for the future um because I also agree we have an incredible director of schools I appreciate her any other comments Mr Nolan let me just say just to clarify make sure everybody understands the proposal by Mr Maberry is to make an additional EL14 there's no EL14 now so it would be if if the board
passes it will add an additional executive limitation to your policy governance policy governance as you know has been reviewed and modified in the past I expect it'll be reviewed and modified in the future but this is a specific addition a new executive limitation so that's what you're being asked to consider assuming we have a motion Mr Maberry yeah I move that we adopt EL14 as a new executive limitation okay I have a motion for Mr
Maberry to adopt EL14 administrative policy is there a second a second Chris further discussion Mr Nelson yes just to ensure that I'm understanding this completely um we're saying that we'll we will still continue with the ELs as we have them and it's just a matter
of board members being able to bring forth new ideas or new policies to the board and that's not actually going to an outside entity and uh costing us any additional funding yes Mr Nelson we are not going to be bringing in TSBA or another organization CMCSS will continue to write our policies as we currently have have happen um the the uh director of schools Dr Luna-Vedder right in our case right now will continue to pass exactly how how we do right now unless one of us
have that hey we wanted to vote on this I want to bring this up so none of us flag it in that 10 day period it will pass through like it currently does right now um but if one of us do uh flag it then we will be able to bring it up for discussion and a vote um also this does provide that you as individual board member can bring forth your own policy um information I would recommend passing it by legal and then be able to vote on it uh in another meeting in the future from
that any other comments I certainly support this idea I stand with policy governance but making adjustments to the EL so that the board does have the ability to write and improve policies for the system and um I'm proud this was came up with that being said I will call for the
vote please cast your vote is everyone satisfied with their vote please close the vote it passes 6-0 next item is proposed resolution sponsored Ms Kacie Bryant Ms Bryant thank you um so I'm proposing a resolution I'll go ahead and read it read through it really
quick a resolution of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Board of Education revoking the prior resolution opposing education vouchers and establishing a neutral position whereas the Clarksville-Montgomery County Board of Education recognizes that education policy including matters related to school choice and funding mechanisms is a subject of ongoing debate among policy
makers Educators and the public and whereas the board acknowledges that parents students and taxpayers hold diverse opinions on this issue of Education scholarships and it's not within the purview of the board to advocate for or against such measures at the state level and whereas the board affirms its primary responsibility to focus on the effective governance and oversight of Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools ensuring that all students received a quality
education regardless of legislative decisions regarding school funding models and whereas the resolution previously passed opposing education vouchers expressed a partisan stance that does not reflect the full range of perspectives within our community and should therefore be rescinded to maintain neutrality on this matter now therefore be it resolved that the Clarksville-Montgomery
County Board of Education hereby revokes the resolution previously adopted opposing education scholarships and be it further resolved that the board remains neutral on matters related to education Freedom Act of 2025 and will continue to focus on its mission of supporting students Educators and schools within the district and be it finally resolved that copies of this resolution shall be provided to the Montgomery County delegation to the Tennessee General Assembly
to notify them of the board's decision to resend its previous petition and remain neutral on this issue so just a quick comment um I understand that school choice and vouchers are a complex topic I believe the resolution that was passed last year stating that the Clarksville-Montgomery County Board of Education opposes education vouchers no longer represents the majority of our board nor does it represent the majority of our citizens I want to be very clear
though that this new resolution I'm proposing simply revokes the prior resolution opposing the vouchers establishing a neutral position it does not state that our board is taking a stance for vouchers I move that we vote on this resolution you have a motion to bring us to a vote is there a second is there discussion oh we will after a second yeah have a second Mr
Maberry any discussion Ms Berry I oppose resending our position on vouchers for the mere fact that we know that vouchers is going to take millions of dollars from public school budget and funds let us not be deceived to think that vouchers are going to be good for public schools because they're
not they're going to take those Public School funds and they're going to use them for private schools and I want to say I'm just appalled because we know that vouchers are another way to segregate our schools I'm a product of a segregated School in Alabama in 1973 and I get very emotional because you don't understand
the magnitude of what you're trying to do it segregates our society takes our funds and teach you know I I spoke with a child in the store down in Alabama last year and I said so you go to the chambers Academy that's a white school that's how it's identified he said I do
and those kids over there in that public school is so bad I said really I said I finished school there the children are just like you they're human they're just like you they breathe they eat they get educated but that's a mindset that just because a child goes to public school he's not as good as that private school child and parents who want to send your children to
private schools or homeschool them do that but don't take the public school money to fund your private educations you know I think about it mama raised eight kids after daddy left by herself and if we had not had public school we would not have gotten an education however
this turns back the hands of times go down to LaFayette and visit the white school cuz that's what you're saying you want to do you're just going through the legislators to do it this community is a diverse Community like it or not we have everybody in the salad it's Mosaic we must not be narrow-minded and think that vouchers are our friend because they are
not I'm not saying anyone's IQ but we have to get this and I'm not trying to do anything but get you to understand what you're doing no one's better than anyone if you want your kids homeschooled you want your kids in private schools put them there but you pay and you you
know so often you talk about the parents rights what about the child's right you take the money from public school they're not going to have the funds to be educated like they should be I oppose accepting this recension of the decision that we made just last year all of us were of sound minds and had children in mind Educators
in mind I don't mean to take a lot of time but oh my goodness and it's a violation of the First Amendment separation of church and state yes it is just read it and I want to say I'm not ashamed to stand for what's right even if I have to stand
alone but I like for us to table this because Jimmie is not here and he's very uh dedicated to vouchers and stopping them because they're they're not in the best interest of this community we don't need vouchers because we're making the grades We're the number five district those vouchers are needed for districts that are not making the
grade I say we should not vote on this to resend our previous decision against vouchers thank you Mr Maberry yeah I think Ms Bryant for bringing this up it's timely if we table it then it'll not be timely because we're doing a special session therefore now would be the time to do this if
we're going to do it um I understand Ms Berry's position she's the one that brought the resolution last time I was on the opposing end of that resolution I did not vote for it um solely because I didn't believe we needed to be commenting on it um that's why I support this I obviously support uh school choice I believe parents should be in the driver seat of their kids' education um that they should be able to use their tax dollars to do so I think it's very unfortunate and I'm
very disappointed that uh topics from Ms Berry today uh went racial um but you know I someone watching sent me uh a message saying the power and Grace Prep Academy predominantly black Christian private school here in Clarksville owned by black husband and wife would greatly benefit from this ultimately what she was saying about it taking public education funds is not true within the um this is not the same bill as last year let me start that off this is not the same bill as it was
last year there's a hold harmless provision the hold harmless provision states that if a district has a certain number of students that they'll be hold harmless at that number and they will continue to provide funding at that number for instance CMCSS we're around 40 something thousand at the beginning this year were 39 thou something thousand we would behold harmless at the highest amount of um student enrollment that we have for the entire year and then if we went down enrollment because of this or any other reason or or a uh District over West Tennessee or East
Tennessee that's declining for some other reason other than uh school choice they're going to be held harmless in perpetuity in the future therefore our Public Schools would actually get higher per people funding not lower it's in perpetuity I had a group asked me about this and I double checked it is in perpetuity that is what it is do got to say that the First Amendment does not
say the word separation of church and state in it whatsoever uh that is not in the First Amendment uh that was spoken between Thomas Jefferson in the Danberry Baptist College in a letter that they wrote and it did not mean that they wanted to remove God from the state it meant that they didn't want the church controlling the state that is not what that means I digress um we I believe should pass this resolution to become neutral on this matter as a school district uh I I support
this um and I will say this we already have Public Funding to private education in the state right now it's called The Hope Scholarship it goes to pay for private colleges that are not public some being Christian happens right now there's no no reason in my mind that we wouldn't allow parents
the same opportunity one other point actually you mentioned we want to want kids if you want your kids in private schools then put them there then what you're saying is only the most wealthy can do so I've talked to so many people that feel like $7,000 can make it attainable to them I've talked to every single private school in our city well let me rephrase I talked to the top three in our
city the three biggest ones and every one of them said that they have a scholarship opportunity for lower income families that they can make it where there is no tuition with the $7,000 this is a good thing for Montgomery County but this is a good resolution to make ourselves neutral I agree with it Ms Bryant I just reiterate the fact that we're not taking a stance for um vouchers with
this we're just simply saying that we're staying neutral I I've been on as a parent on both sides of this right now I have two children in public school but I've done private school and I've done home school and as a parent I am I will say personally for being able to do those options um and have my tax dollars go towards that but that is not what this resolution is for um it's to say that we're staying neutral as a school board Mr Nelson um as a public school board member I
don't see how we can actually stay neutral on the issue such as this um I'm the I'm the uh product of a New York City teacher and a New York City police officer and I started off my school in in parochial school and I finished in public school and my parents they worked hard and they paid for me to go to that parochial school and if I feel that you know they made the sacrifice if you want
to go to that extra yard for your for a child to go to a public school then you need to make that sacrifice I don't think that these public dollars should go to a private school um as board members I mean we represent the Clarksville-Montgomery School Board um we need to represent the school board and we need to represent the public education and taking money away from that
eventually what's is going to happen there have been uh stories in others in other states where they've actually did the vouchers and the vouchers wound up taking money from the public schools where the public schools actually failed so I don't uh support is whatsoever thank you Mr Maberry just one point of clarity this is not a voucher the word voucher says that
public education funds would go to um from the public education system pull of money this is a scholarship from a separate set of money and as I've established before through the hold harmless provision it will not affect our Public Schools in fact it'll better them cost per people any other comments um you're you're out of order sir you're out of
order um my uh my comments would be that it's obvious the board is divided on this issue so I think a resolution for neutrality is the right thing to do um we're not saying we're for it and we're not saying we're against it and I applaud Ms Bryant for coming up with
that neutral position for us to take a stance on because we are divided there are many board members here that totally against this there are some that are totally for it there are some on the fence so I do think that neutrality is the right way to go if we're going to make a statement uh a statement has been made as Ms Bryant pointed out does not reflect the view of the board currently so I'm I'm going to support this simply because it says we are
neutral as a board we don't have a vote in the state legislation except for Aron's and um he's going to vote his convictions not where this board stands so I don't see the reason not to support this is everyone ready to cast your vote I do have a microphone for more discussion
Mr Maberry no I'm just going to call the question okay everyone please cast your vote is everyone satisfied with your vote please close the vote passes 4-2 next
item comments by Fort Campbell school liaison officer CMCEA PET representative of one at a time CMCEA representative I'm sorry is it on it's oh good you're not the only one all right I hope I hope everyone enjoyed
their holiday season I certainly did I spent a lot of time with family and spoiling grandkids with way too many gifts I also reflected on the year ending and the New Year waiting and spent some time with this thought there's a difference between a gift and a right the Tennessee Constitution declares that our state values education and requires the general assembly to maintain and support a free public education system Tennessee's children have a
constitutional right to a public education I have spoken about vouchers for the past few months and I'll speak about them again today because the 114th Tennessee General Assembly has convened and will begin considering bills directly impacting public education in Tennessee and here in Clarksville-Montgomery County the very first bill filed for the upcoming legislative session was governor Lee's Statewide voucher plan as we all know a plan that diverts Public Funding to private schools and undermines public education in our local communities instead of creating new
costs for Tennessee taxpayers the general assembly should reject Universal voucher programs and instead invest in our Public Schools the schools the schools that 90% of Tennessee students attend they should consider laws that create more time to teach and less time spent on standardized testing they should Implement initiatives to address educator shortages and ensure diverse and effective Educators in every classroom for every student CMCEA encourages the CMCSS school board to
join us in calling on Tennessee on the Tennessee General Assembly to fulfill their constitutional obligation to provide a system of public education for our children and to do right by all Tennessee students by rejecting the governor's proposal for a Statewide voucher program I would hope that you all would join us in contacting legislators and letting them know that our students deserve and
have a right to a public education in a public school system vouchers are not a partisan issue they shouldn't be I've heard from folks on both sides of the aisle who are against vouchers I talked to them every day they're they're not a partisan issue they're trying to be made that way hold the hold harmless provision is not a guarantee for future General assemblies it's not guaranteed The Hope Scholarship is not taxpayer funded let us together work to fulfill the promise
of public education for our children and to make Tennessee and the Clarksville-Montgomery County School District the best place in which to live teach and learn thank you PET representative good evening board members and Dr Luna-Vedder thank you for delaying our school
start tomorrow if I could have figured out a way to wear my quilt and my bed cover this morning I would have for car rider line so thank you very much I appreciate that just a couple of bills and talking with legislators over the last few few days the first one that comes to mind is HB 0085 and that's extending recess to 60 minutes and I would like to thank the board because uh last August we were scrambling to figure out how to build in 30 minutes of our recess time so we found
a way to do that so I'm hoping that legislators we can talk to them and get that back down to 30 minutes I didn't realize that other districts across the state were still only doing 15 so kudos to our school district for getting that 30 minutes on the board there just some thoughts about the hb1 education Freedom Act just wanted to throw some numbers out at you uh information I've received from legislators indicates that only 80% of our District's 39,500 students will benefit from this bill if passed as is but 100% of our taxpayers will get an increase as with any
new legislation that's rolled out there may be several additions and changes before the actual verbiage of the bill is solidified here are some points to consider 54% of Tennessee counties 51 do not have any private schools so my question is are the taxpayers from these counties expected to subsidize the private school tuition of students in other areas of the state of the 300 private schools eligible for the Recently proposed voucher plan nearly half 48% that includes Davidson
Hamilton or Shelby County Each of which already have a voucher type plan in place the average cost of private school tuition in Tennessee is over just over 11,000 according to a report by the Education data initiative this means that students accepting a voucher would still need an additional 4,000 to cover the full cost of tuition at the average Tennessee school private schools should not have to provide transportation services this could be a challenge to those families needing those Services how do we compare test scores private schools are allowed to choose other
nationally normed test Public Schools do not have this option so therefore we're comparing different test scores with different test and finally the cost of implementing this plan just to throw out some numbers teacher bonuses $2,000 bonuses for 86,000 teachers and amount to about 172 million not that I'm opposed to a teacher bonus I'm all about that but that's money scholarships 20,000
scholarships at 7,000 each totals 141,500,000 deductions and administrative fees 1,500,000 adding 5,000 Scholarships in year two will incur an additional 35,375,000 by year five the total for scholarships alone will reach 318,375,000 considering all the related implications and I
haven't even listed all of them this could evolve into a into a $1 billion budgetary challenge for our state so just some numbers to throw out at you to think about as our legislators contemplate this upcoming bill at the end of the day professional educators of Tennessee our goal is to work with our legislators we want to remind them that we need to benefit all students not just a few a few years ago we came up with our motto from I think Dr Worthington was here and he said all
means all so we want to take care of all of our students provide a quality education for all thank you comments by County Commissioners why comments by board members Mr Maberry I just want to thank the board for um voting for EL14 uh I appreciate you guys'
confidence and we worked long and hard on that I also want to publicly um admonish our city council that has a big change to think about doing the same thing we just did and resend their resolution that they did last year against school choice into more of a neutral stance thank you Ms
Bryant I just want to acknowledge also that Mr Jimmie Garland is not here um due to a death in the family and just our prayers go out to him Ms Berry I just want to throw out a kindness nugget you know if nothing else we can be kind it costs us nothing it is a way that we can improve our society our community our families and our
schools and the way we do that is working together to help one another and not be like crabs in a basket pulling each other down just because we can because what goes around does come around and I believe in treating everyone the way that I want to be treated thank
you seeing no other comments by board members come as my director good evening board members I hope everyone is staying warm as our temperatures have dipped a bit lower than normal this week thank you to our bus drivers who are arriving early to ensure that the buses are warmed up and our HVAC technicians who ensure that all buildings are adequately heated on these cold days I also want to recognize that next week is School Board appreciation week I'm thankful
and appreciative to have seven board members who are always actively engaged thank you for what you do every day Mr Griffy this concludes my report thank you this meeting is adjourned