I'd like to thank everyone for coming tonight. At this time, I'm gonna call for the meeting to order and ask mister Greg Hammond to do a roll call, please. Harvey Walden? Here. Jason Compton? Here. Andre Darnell? Here. Glenn Gough? Here. Shane Barnes? Here. Andrea Givens Moore? Present. Debbie Gough? James Johnson? Here. Marsha Moss. Thank you, sir. Will you all please stand, and have mister Greg in his use there? Please rise for the presentation of colors by the Liberty Technology High School junior Air Force ROTC.
Core cadets include Ariel Collins, Caitlin Payne, Jakaya Shorter, and Janiyah Thakson. These students are under the direction of their teacher, retired Air Force major, Tall. Present. Colors. Tall, present, colors. 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. Order. Color. Mark. Mark. Marta. Right? Marta. Mart. You may be seated. I'd like to ask miss Williams to open it up in a, in a hand vacation, please. I'm sorry. Will you please pray? That's about it. Yes. Heavenly father, we wanna thank you for allowing us to see another day. To have a blessed, safe day. The children are well. Our teachers and staff, administration, superintendent, all is well. We ask that you give us the knowledge, the patience, the mindset to make the right decisions for all concerned in our school system, Lord.
We ask that you pray for us to make sure that we say and do the things that we are needed to make the necessary decisions as well. I say this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Mister Johnson, please do our vision statement. Our mission statement, providing equitable options and opportunities on a safe, caring environment to maximize student potential. Our vision statement is best by any measure. Thank you, sir. At this time, I believe we have some special entertainment again this year on South Elementary. And mister Greg will introduce me and board. If you want if you wanna go down and sit in the audience, it's probably
great. Mister chairman, our entertainment this evening is provided by South Elementary School. These students provided a stellar Christmas performance during the fine arts winter showcase recently at Old Hickory Mall. Tonight, they're here to sing three numbers for us. The music teacher at South Elementary is Sheila Houston. Sheila is a twenty five year veteran of teaching and joined us about twelve years ago as a music specialist. During her career, she's taught in public and charter schools and she's trained countless students on piano techniques as a private piano instructor. Usually, when we've come before to, share our talents with the board, we brought large
groups. So tonight, we thought we would bring some specialized groups. This is Lawrence. He's my foster child and also he's taking TAP at VSS. And this is Payson. She also takes TAP at VSS. So we got together and thought, well hey, since you're taking tap, I took tap years ago so I could make up a dance. We can do jingle bell rock together so they're going to be our first talent and they're going to do a tap dance number to jingle Bell Rock.
Our next showcase will be two beautiful young ladies, Sailor and Mikaela. They're going to sing for us a gorgeous song called Happy Birthday Jesus. One, two. One, two. Okay. Now up until now, the students that have performed have been third, fourth, and fifth grade. Come on. But now we've been blessed this year at South to have a first grader who's going miss Mason who did tap dance, she's going to lead us in Jingle Bells.
Dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh. Over the fields we go, napping all the way. Bells have bobtails ring, making spirits bright. What fun it is to write and sing a slang song tonight. Oh, jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle all the way. Oh, I've got it and Hey.
Gashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh. Over the fields we go, laughing all the way. Bells have up tails ring, make Alright.
So we do have a Mariah Carey coming up. Yes. And lots of others, and look, some other famous singer, Celine Dion's over here. Thank you so much again for the invitation. We love you board members. Oh, thank you. We appreciate you all. Y'all need a great job. We we would like to ask we would like to ask, would the parents and families of these students please stand so we can see you be recognized? Yeah. Good job. Thank you all. Thank you. We also want to recognize the proud principal Yeah. Of the best school ever. That's what they'll tell you in South Jackson.
There you go. Get you in here. Come on, miss Williams. You get her hand in the middle. William Williams. William Williams. I'm slipping. Dang. Ready? +1, 23. +1, 23. Thank you. Great job. Great Christmas. Thank you. Thank you for thinking Great job, Chris. I'm gonna get to the brain of Alright.
Thank y'all so much. That was definitely wonderful, and that's the reason why we are all here for our students. Moving on, our, did you have any question about the November minutes and the June board meeting? Anything in the super Hey. The superintendent's report, doctor King. Okay. Our superintendent's report, we have field trip request notice. We have about seven of these requests and a lot. Any notice in your packet, you'll see where they are attending. Are there any questions about the field trips? Excited to a little bit of anticipation. That's great. And on top of that, I'm Yeah.
Except I may have to spend some of my, spring break in in, Iowa, which I was not planning. But that that that's okay. Okay. We've we've got we've been blessed enough to be able to have the robotics team get invited to go to the US Open. So Oh, that's great. It's, it's awesome. Yeah. Alright. And and then on, letter b, our f y twenty seven budget calendar, I'll submit to the, county finance office for the commission so they can kinda see our calendar for the year.
And if you all have any other feedback, just let me know and I'll add to it when it's time to start budgeting again. I will send a separate, I think I did a a a a board member's kinda like budget request. I'll send those out at the end of, end of this month. Okay. And then the threat assessment, attorney Thomas, will you kindly give kinda the new law on the threat assessment, and then I'll tell them about this report. Is it okay? Just a brief Under the under the new statute, the, quarterly, the, administration has to
give a report to the board in a public meeting about the number of incidents. And so mister Tharpe prepared this report for us, for this first semester. And next, year, we'll have it in March. So we'll be on a quarterly rotation.
And so I just want to make the board aware of this, report. In the winter retreat, in the, committee meeting for long range planning, I wanted to push our winter retreat from January and move to, like, March, so that we can kind of really frame out the new strategic plan and how we're going to mesh the ABC report with our new strategic plan. But we just need to come up with a date. And I've already I had Ben Torres scheduled for the January, but I also have
him for the March as well. So I just need, for us to check out our calendar for March and see what is a good time. Spring break is the week of March 16 through the twentieth. Mister, on the twelfth, I got my calendar. Is it Casa in Alabama? Yes. That weekend. The the the twelfth? The eighteenth through the fifteenth. Okay. Mr. Chairman, just one question about this. As this pertains to budgeting, is March still okay as tying all this in?
Because I know you'll start having very strategic budgeting conversations with the internal team as early as late January, February. So, just throwing that in there as well on how all this ties because everything ties together. Right. If we think about the budget, I will probably move it further back than March. But the thing we run into with, April and May, you have testing. And then you have, you know, you have graduation. You have it start it's a snowball effect at that point.
And that's the reason I said March because that'll give us more time early. Not being a rush. But but but if we could do the if we could do this, if we could do the retreat in March, come back and finalize the strategic plan June, June, that gives us any time to clean up between March and June on the strategic plan. Is that okay? Alright. K. Is it the seventh or the twenty eighth? And I and you all need two days. Three. Yeah. We need two we we we need a two day retreat. We need a, an afternoon a half day and then a full day the next
day. So we So I think that's a two day. Friday afternoon, Saturday? Yep. Friday, Saturday would be perfect. Well, the sixth or seventh or seventh. Sixth and seventh. Sixth and seventh are fine. Come on. Where'd all the kids is, Lee. Six, 7. That was not the purpose. Jesus Christ. I'll say that on my end. Okay. Okay. I will pay the price. '6 and seventh. We good? Yeah. Okay. We good? But then we're hold on. Okay. And and I will I will share my, triple a message during the actual board
meeting when we move over. Is that if that's okay? That's all I have, mister chairman. Okay. The next is our, doctor, mister Thomas on the legislation network and legal reports? Yes. After our policy committee meeting, we learned that the, Department of Education made some regulatory changes, pertaining to the, end of, course testing. The, in prior regulations, it allowed a school board to, allow the EOC test to
count up to 25% of the final grade. Under the new regulation, it only allows you to count that up to 15%. So you'll see in, policy 4.7 and policy four point seven zero zero and four point six zero zero, they both sort of tie it together a little bit. But under 4.7 at page two, line seven, the proposal is to move the EOC score from 25 to 25 to 25 to 25 to 25 to 20 the proposal is to move the EOC score from 25% to 15% to be in compliance with that regulation.
And then also, if you look at 4.6, the page three, the to be consistent across the board, administration thought that it would be best for the final exams in all courses to be treated the same as the ELC courses and change that to 15% instead of 25%. So that's the reason for that, change in 4.6. Chairman, just a question. So I I know this is a regulation coming from the state.
So we and we can't weight these tests any heavier than what the state allows us to. But with this change, this would go into effect for the current semester that we're in. So the EOCs that wrapped up today and finals that'll be taken starting on Wednesday will be changed to have no more than a 15% weight. That's that's correct. And that's part of the reason for the urgency to get this, to get this changed on, board urgency to get this, to get this changed on, board policy at this meeting. Any other questions? The, we have, some budget amendments.
Mister Thompson? Yes, mister chairman. So, there is a new handout that Doctor. King, handed out that was on top that's going to replace the cover sheets that were in the, original packet. We had caught a couple of things in committee by statute. If it's a the commission for approval.
Anything that moves across funds and or deals with salaries must be approved by this body as well as, the county commission. So we had a couple that were just simple line item transfers within funds, that only need our approval. And then there was one that crossed funds, so we had to fix that. So if you look at the first, cover sheet, the ones that only the line transfers only requiring board approval, we have 100,000 in transportation.
And this out and transfer to move funds between lines for better lines for better accounting. And you can see in the it's moving some money from moving $100,000 from diesel fuel to vehicle parts. So that is a line item transfer within the Transportation Fund and only requires, Board approval. The second line item transfer within fund is technology. And you can see in the breakdown, there's $128,200 that is coming from various lines
and moving to various lines within January 2,200 and '50 technology. But again, it's a line item transfer, just moving some funds that they're anticipated to be over in some lines and under in the other lines, and we're just moving it around to to fix that accounting wise right now. Then we have nine amendments that will take board approval and County Commission approval starting
with let's see. We've got $3,488 in athletics. This is to move, money that came from the meet the, team frenzy ticket sales, and taking it from, revenue line to actually put it in, a fund that can be expended. So that's new money that came in. We have $3,140 in Fine Arts. This was budget amendment to move the Arts in the Dark ticket proceeds to an expenditure line. So, again, that's new money that came into a revenue line, and then we're moving
it to a line that, can be expended in instructional instructional supplies and materials. The next one, we have $49,000 Health Services budget amendment is to move a donation, that came in to an expenditure line, that can be utilized to make a payroll correction. So there was a donation that came in and we are putting it in expenditure lines, where needed. We have, $3,500 other student support. Budget amendment is to move a donation to an expenditure line.
So again, it's a donation that came in for, other, for support and that's going into supplies and materials, for other student support. We've got $14,300 in regular instruction. Budget amendment is to move funds from one line and add to another so the purchases needed can be made. And it's moving some line from, moving some money from software, over to library books and media. $496,695.55, voluntary pre k grant. Voluntary pre k grant.
Budget amendment is aligned with ePlan. So this was, voluntary pre k money that came in, and we are putting those in the correct lines to be expended, so that that grant can be actually used to pay the expenses for our volunteer pre k. Then we have $2,034,263.60 physical services. This is the budget amendment to allocate the FY '25 teacher bonus fund funds from
the state. So this is we've already paid those teacher bonuses. This is, where the money actually was received from the state. So now we're putting that back in the lines where those bonuses were paid out too. So it's reimbursing the money that we paid for the bonuses, for the one time teacher bonus that came from, the, the state deal last year. And then finally, we have three questions. The money for the new for the bonuses, dollars 2,000,000, did it come from a
line item or for fund that fund balance? You you don't you do you remember? It would be it's it's coming it was made out of the $1.41 $7.01 $1.00. It was made out of bonus payments. We had a line that they were made out of, and now this is just reimbursing that line. Okay. Okay. I think we had enough money in there that covered it, but now we're reimbursing it. We never moved anything from fund balance. Alright. And then finally, 369,000, special education might add transfer to add funds for contracts to address staff shortages and other contracted services, for FY '26.
So as you can see, there was money, that was moved from speech pathologist line item to go and cover the contracts with private agencies to cover those shortfalls. And again, that was a line item but none of these amendments had any pool on fund balance whatsoever this month. Mr. Chairman? Yes, sir. The technology, this is goes back to the line items transfers requiring only board approval,
dollars 104,200. The cover sheet and the explanation sheet actual budget amendment request is $128,200 Yes.
The so it was the second one we looked at. It's from the line item transfers only requiring the board. So on Doctor. King's handout, it's number two, technology. Math the math isn't mathing. That's for sure. Because on the, on the narrative sheet, it it's the it comes up to your $104.02, But the actual budget amendment yeah.
Let's just we'll pull we'll we'll pull that one out. We'll find out what's going on because it it's gonna be a simple accounting error was gonna be. Now the other one there is one other that was on the original, line item transfer, but it's been moved to the Education Foundation, to the requiring Board approval and County Commission approval. And it's the $46,950 Education Foundation grant. That amendment is to move funds from one line to another to allow for accurate
accounting. So it's probably in your it's moving from other supplies and materials, from $72.230 to $72,210 just across funds moving the $49 $46,950 And that's other supplies and materials for the Teaching and Learning Department for the literacy program and instructional incentives or initiatives, and that was funded by the foundation. Any questions?
We're good? Okay. The next is, on our policy. Miss Moore, please. Sure. In our policy, we had policy 2.4, and, that was the only change that we had. Attorney Thomas, can you testify that for us, please? Yeah. 2.4 was revenues. You'll recall we had some extensive discussion of policy committee about that. Policy committee asked me to get with the controller's office and get clarification on that.
I've done that, and I'm gonna present 2.4 at the next policy committee meeting. And then from there, we have some others. Right. Do you cover those or or you're gonna cover those? The board also needs to decide, there were some other things that are coming now, as well. The board needs to decide if we want to allow funds to be collected electronically. And those are just for school funds, not for, special funds like athletics or, band boosters, not any of those that are directly dealing with the schools itself.
They're gonna have to be be filed with the controller's office as well. And we will have to choose only one. So, Dale is going to, to check on that as well to to see how that would even be formulated because, there are different ways to, to, get monies through vendors. So it's almost like we we that's something that we probably it's either you do it or you don't do it. So it's not looking like that's something that's possibly can happen because there are different ways to collect monies for school.
So, mister chairman. Yes, sir. So what you're saying is that we would have so school support organizations worse. Not school organizations. That would only be direct schools if they were doing something themselves. And they would have we as a district, we would have to say we're using Venmo or we're using That would be correct. Act could I intervene there? Sure. I have spoken to the controller's office, and we can choose more than one. There that was one of the questions that the policy committee asked me to verify.
But this only deals school funds. Your school support organizations are not school funds, and that only deals with funds that are collected directly by the school. So a question came up about about Go Fans. So Go Fans, the way that works is Go Fans is collected not by the school but by Go Fans who then sends us a check. So this doesn't apply to that. That this only applies to electronic funds that are collected directly by the school, not
by a third party vendor, like Go Fans. Or another another example was, someone asked, you know, you might have some kind of, fundraiser in the school where you I'm gonna use that as an example. You sell cookies, but the vendor itself has a site that you go pay the vendor, and then the vendor pays the school. Well, that's not considered school funds. Mister chairman. Yes, sir. Dale, is this the same if if the school was to have their own, it's
like a Stripe account and they're basically that merchant account to be able to take card or digital payments. Yeah. Credit card payments, digital payment. It would take it would be any digital electronic payment that goes directly to the school. To school. Right. But not to a third party vendor or not to a, for for instance, the school support organizations because those are not considered internal school funds. You recall back November, October, I forget. We we had the audit for the internal school funds.
This is going to those internal school fund collections. And and the plan is to, at the next policy committee meeting, I'm gonna, send a couple potential proposals to bring back to the board. Yes. And what we did discuss was to, for instance, to give you another example was, JCT had the, printers that they're paying back. So it would be an example of that because that's inside the school. Not a separate entity like the athletics department or band.
So that's a school that's they they have to pay those funds back. So it would be money that's going in that form. It's going in that. They are we had a few more. K. You want me to cover those? Yes. You May I ask a question for someone? Is that is that in our policy? I mean, I couldn't find it in our It's not. It is not in it? It's gonna come back to the policy committee. I got you. Okay. Okay. I got you. Okay. Good. Good. Good. I'm sorry. Go ahead. There were so many questions. Right. And he had to research it in power company. Gotcha. Understood. Yeah. That's the reason that was not in there.
But we just tell you what we discussed in there. So, Dale, you wanna finish telling them about those other In The rest of them that we had at the policy committee meeting. First, we had our annual review of section four, which is is instructional program. There were no changes to that other than the four point six zero zero and four point seven zero zero that I discussed earlier. Then we have 1.106. And and what the thought was is we reviewed, ethics, all the ethics policies that
we had in the, district, which covered the ethics policy that applies to the board and administration, the ethics policy that applies to employees, and the ethics policy for a code of conduct, whichever way you want to refer to it, that applies to students. So, we looked at all three of those ethics or code of conduct type policies. The first one is 1.106. This is the code of ethics that applies to, board members administration.
And the change, if you'll look at page two, we added a section, section five under duties of board members. So what we've done is we've added as a, potential ethics issue is any violation of, any, duty that the board has as defined by state law or board policy, including, the application of the boardsmanship code of conduct, which is in our board policy
at 1.2021. So that's the add on that is to add section five. The if you'll look at the employee sections, if you'll look at five point six zero zero and five point six one one, I'm gonna talk about those together because those deal with the Let's wait a second. On this on this on the first, do we have any comments, any questions while we're on it with the board? You all good? Yes. Thank you, mister Depp. Alright. 56 and 5 0.611 is the is what applies to our, teachers and our other employees.
5.6 was a pretty simple change. I whenever I was going back over it, I found that the, citation, the legal reference to the teacher code of ethics was incorrect. So if you'll just look, I just corrected the legal reference, to the teacher code of ethics. But then if you look at 5.611, what we did was we, we, instead of just talking about and referring to the teacher code of ethics, we basically have regurgitated the teacher code of ethics, that's the
statutory teacher code of ethics. And and so we put that all in the policy just straight out of the statute, which some other districts across the state do that. So it's, sort of in line with some other districts. It's different than the TSBA policy. The TSBA policy policy just refers to it, but this actually outlines it so everybody can look at the policy and see exactly what the statute calls for. Any questions on the teacher and employee code of ethics? Alright.
Then we'll turn to the code of conduct, which applies to students at six point three zero zero. And administration, mentioned that, that they were having some difficulty because in the code of conduct, there is a separate code of conduct that deals with bus riders, bus code of conduct. And but if you'll look, our code of conduct as it's currently drafted on page one at lines, 10 through 12, it already says that our code of conduct applies
to, conduct that occurs on buses. So what the administration said, instead of having a separate code of conduct that applies to buses, let's just use the code of conduct that applies in the classroom or on school property to the, bus riders so that you only have one set of rules that you're applying. So what we've done is you'll look at pages, six through eight. Six through eight of the current code of conduct.
We've deleted the bus bus conduct disciplinary procedures from the code of conduct. Any questions on the, student code of conduct at six point three zero zero? Mister chairman? Yes, sir. I'm sorry, Dale. Where did you say the languages was omitted from? If you'll look at pages six through eight, it's in the red. Oh, our our with our black and blue. Yours is not it's alright. Under both bus code, conduct discipline procedures beginning at page six until the rest of
the policy that deletes that section. That should all be read? It should all be read. Understood. Gotcha. Okay. Any other questions on this on this one? That and that's all the policies that we had at the policy committee. Any question about any policy changes, mister? Well, not on policy, but I was just we we skipped over the TISA accountability report, in the last section, and I was just I was before we moved on, I was gonna see if doctor King could just from a 10,000 foot view on
what what the TISA accountability report is and why we do it. I have, also a budget amendment for the $104,000. So I will print it so we can go ahead and approve it in the, in the general meeting after this. Gotcha. Okay. The TISA report is an annual report that we have to submit to the State Department. You know, when we went from BEP to TISA, they put a lot of, where they put more safeguards, around, the funding. So, this report really outlines a few things. If you look at page, three of if you look at page three of 13,
every, every system in the state that's receiving TISA dollars, has a third grade retention or third grade ELA proficiency report. These numbers that you see, the state gives you that number. So by 2036, the state expects Jackson Madison County School System to be 70% proficient at the third grade level in English proficiency. If you turn to page four of 13, you'll see the actual third grade ELA proficiency. After that page, you're gonna have a narrative of what we are doing as it
relates to third grade ELA proficiency. On page six of 13, it goes to goal statement number two, and that is the grades three through eight on math for TCAP by 2028. If you look at the current kind of trend from year one of 2023 on page six of 13, kind of in the middle of the page, you'll see our proficiency with annual outcome targets. And so year one, we were 25.2,
year two, twenty six point eight, and year three, the projection or the expected outcome is 27.9. Many of these numbers are populated by, the State Department. For page for the goal statement three is on page eight of 13, which is the EOA proficiency for three through eight. And goal four is around our ACT college readiness benchmark by 2028, and that is
on page 10 of 10 of 13. Annually, we have to submit a TISA accountability report. And so this is, the TISA accountability report that the board will need to approve, and it's perfectly fine to approve it in, in the consent agenda. According to the state department, they just need to have a documentation that the board has seen this report. Are there any questions about the TISA accountability report? And and much of this, you all, we will look at it as we build out our strategic plan this year and incorporate, some of these goals or strategies within
the strategic plan. So we're not dipping in one area saying we need to have this strategy here. And then over here, we have strategic plan to say in this. So we're gonna kinda align everything together so it makes a seamless process, for implementation and execution. Mister chairman? Yes, sir. Doctor King, I'm looking at page 10 Mhmm. Of 13. And maybe this is because '25, 26 isn't finalized, but those associated metrics all have blank percentages. Just wanna make sure that wasn't a typo or something. So for that one, for ACT, increase for do do you see the the increase
by 1%? Yes, sir. So no. That's not. So we'll go up in 2026. 2526, we are expected to be at 20.5. It just didn't put the actual And then increase. And and so what happens is if we don't get, say, for instance, the '20 point '5 and then we get 15.2, that means the following year, we need to be about 2%, which would be 17%. I was just wondering because that associated metrics to the right of what you're referring to, it reads much differently than the rest. On getting I'll be on page 10.
Yes, ma'am. Is that right column? Yeah. Associated metrics. If you look to the very far category, so you have three categories, year, annual outcome targets, and then you have associated metrics slash data. And so he's referring to those blank percent of students. And that varies because the number of twelfth graders, we won't know. And so, we can't actually give a definitive number because we have three hundred twelfth graders this year. We might have 500.
And so, the numbers should change. Change. So we we're we're leaving that blank, but we know moving forward, we know that we wanna increase by these percentage percentages. And those percentages are in the annual outcome targeted? Yeah. Yeah. In the middle column. Yes, ma'am. Alright. Any other questions? Alright. Any Alright. Any question or anything we went over so far? I guess just to clarify one more time. So the technology budget amendment I'm gonna print it right now. Is but it's for the 100 it's it's what was on the cover sheet. It was a 104,000 It's what's on the cover sheet. She said it is $1.00
$4,200. Yeah. I'll print it right quick. Okay. So that's one zero four two hundred. So just, we're on the same page coming out of work session going into the, board meeting of what's on the consent agenda. The consent agenda will have the corrected budget amendment for technology of 01/4200. Okay. Great. Alright. We're gonna take about a five minute recess, then come back and do the board meeting. Trying to keep all this. Everybody's good? Alright. Let's bring the meeting back to order.
The first I'd like to say is, tonight, if we come together in a season of gratitude, you know, we look back over the year on all the things that's been accomplished and how grateful we are for so many people. And it it you know, you hear the term it takes a tribe. Well, to do what Doctor. King does to his staff and his board, it takes a really big tribe. And you have to look back to I reflect back to 2022 compared to 2025. And with data numbers, we are growing, we're doing better.
Are we where we need to be? Absolutely not. And we're going in the right direction. And for that, I am so grateful for Doctor. King and his leadership and his team that, works so hard. And, it takes so many people, and for that, I'm very grateful. And I I thank you, sir. Do you wanna go ahead and do what we skipped on yours now? Okay. Do you want to approve the agenda? With it yes. First, I'd like a motion to approve the agenda. Mister Chairman, I make a motion to approve the agenda. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor, say aye. All against motion, no.
Motion carries. The second will be the consent agenda. I need a motion to to, approve it. Mister chairman, I move we can approve the consent agenda. Second? Second. All in favor say yes. Yes. All again say no. Motion approved. The next will be public comments. I don't think we have any tonight. Yeah. Oh, yes. Also, to be I'll need a motion to approve the November general board minutes. I have a motion. I make a motion we approve November. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any again, say no.
Motion approved. There's no public comments tonight. The next would be the, we're gonna vote on the on the approval of 2425 superintendent bonus. I'm gonna ask mister Dale Thomas to run through that, please. Okay. I believe you have in your packet. I'll go print it. Okay. I'll I'll be here. Okay. While we're waiting on that, I'll go ahead and do a little background. You're under the superintendent's contract, the superintendent, each year is eligible for a bonus of
up to $50,000 And, you'll remember in the, and it's based on a metric that the board adopts each year. You'll remember in 2324, his bonus total was $32,000 bonus total was $32,000 that was approved, by by the board based on the metrics in 2324. And then earlier this year, the board approved a metric for the 2425 school year. And then later, a few months after that, we did a metric for the 2526
school year. So what what we've got tonight is the metric for the 2425 school year. Fortunately, you know, in 2324, we did that in two pieces because we didn't have all the data when we approved the first piece. We now have all the data for the, 2425 metric. So there will be there will be one approval for this, for this school year, the twenty four-twenty five, school year.
And what I did was the administration and miss, miss Korth, sent some data. Course, the metric is already established. So it's all, the data is pretty objective data. So once the data is in, what I did was I took the data that was presented to me and I compared it to the metric and, put that data together to see where, the 2425 bonus prepared a letter to Michelle Sellers at the
county finance that outlined it subject to the board's approval. So I was gonna go through the the, metric. Keep in mind, in twenty three-twenty four, his bonus total was $32,000 According to the metric, for the twenty four-twenty five school year, the bonus total will be 25,500. And what I did is if you'll look at the, indented part in the middle of the letter, I went through the, bonus metrics that he qualified for a bonus.
And I put in the bracket right behind it, the what the data showed. For instance, pre k through to Ames Webb achievement, it showed a 7% increase. So then I went back to the metric and I looked at the metric and according to the metric, that qualifies for a $2,500 bonus. So I did that for each one of the areas that he qualified for. Grade four promotion, 3.6% increase, which is a 2,500 bonus. Grades nine through 12 achievement, 3.6%
increase under the metrics, 2,500. Ready graduates, 68.9%. That's a $5,000 bonus. District composite reading level three. That's a $3,000 bonus. Graduation rate, 93.1. That's $5,000 Certified employee retention, there was a 6% increase that qualifies for a $3,000 bonus. And non certified employee retention, retention, there was a 2% increase over the prior year, which qualifies for a $2,000 bonus.
So what I did was I added those that he qualified for together, and that comes to 25,500. I punched it into my calculator twice just to make sure I was adding them correctly. It into my calculator twice just to make sure I was adding correctly. So hopefully, I didn't punch an arrow in two times. It's very likely it would happen once, but hopefully not twice. Under the contract, that amount gets grossed up. So, that's the next paragraph of my letter. It's just, referring to the fact that that gets grossed up. And it's also to be paid within thirty days of when the board approves it.
The the second part is a little bit, you'll remember under his, contract, there's a $5,000 annual check that goes to the endowment fund. And under the contract, it says it's gonna be paid on June 30. In in trying to keep it from being, confusing as we start negotiating a new contract, Doctor. King had requested that we accelerate that payment to December 31 for the, for the
twenty five-twenty six school year. So I've also included that subject to the board's approval of that accelerated payment. And again, that will just keep down confusion as we go into negotiation of a new contract. So, that's basically the extent of the bonus metric. And what I was looking for is just approval from the Board to send this letter to Ms. Sellers so that this could get paid. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we approve the letter that Dale has prepared in,
regards to the bonus for the 2425 school year and the accelerated payment of the endowment for the 2526. Second. Second. Any discussion? Aye. Anybody can say no? Motion carries. The last one is a TSA Accountability Report. May I have a motion to approve? Mister chairman, I move we approve the TISA accountability report as presented. Second. I'll second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Anybody against it? No. Motion carries. The last thing will be the comments from the board of superintendent. Any comments?
Okay. Sir? When you work in education as long as I have, about a couple maybe three decades, you know that, achievement and excellence take many forms. And so, if we slow down for just a moment, you all, and take inventory of, and take inventory just a little, achievement and excellence are happening every day in the three broad areas that this board put a stake in the ground several years ago as it relates to the academics, arts, and athletics. Chief Hammond has a brief video recap of just the last couple of weeks, you
all, not the last year the semester, but just the last couple of weeks of things that have happened in that area. And I think it's important for every month that we begin to highlight these three areas at our board meeting. So I would just like to share this. Chief Hammond, will you please share with with us? In the Jackson Madison County School System, achievement isn't confined to one classroom, one stage, or one playing field. It's happening everywhere every day as our students rise to meet new challenges through academics, arts, and athletics.
This holiday season, our fine arts winter showcase brought the sights and sounds of student creativity to Old Hickory Mark. From visual art to music performances, our young artists reminded the community that talent thrives in every JMCSS school. Our students and schools also joined the city of Jackson in celebrating the Jackson Christmas parade honoring grand marshal superintendent doctor Marlon King.
Board members arrived in style, and parade goers enjoyed the festive sights and sounds made even brighter thanks to the incredible involvement of our schools. On the court, two seniors reached rare territory. Madison Academics Harry Rowland and Northside's Lincoln Woods each surpassed 1,000 career points this semester. A milestone built on discipline, consistency, and a commitment to excellence that inspires younger athletes
district wide. And across our classrooms, the pursuit of innovation continues as seven JMCSS schools have earned invitations to the Tennessee State Robotics Competition. Just a few years ago, our district had fewer than 10 competitive robots. We now have more than 50. And today, every school offers robotics. STEM achievement is for everyone. From the arts to the court to the engineering lab, our students are shining. This is what triple a looks like in Jackson, Madison County, where academics, arts, and
athletics work together to build opportunities, open doors, and change lives. For the district, I'm Greg Hammond. Great job. Any other comments from the board members? Very correct. That's good. Threat of the sentiment. That's exactly right. Mister, I have a comment. You're good. I wanna make this comment before, miss Houston leaves, concerning South Elementary. And we talk about the three a's, South Elementary excels in all three of those. I mean, every year, they either level four or five of reward school, on academics.
The arts, we have miss, Houston here every year with us students. And then, athletics, our, girls and the people, the indoor soccer played in the championship, Greg. And they at at the end of regulation, it was tied, and they lost about a kick, I think. Yeah. Which which was a really, really, really, disheartening for the kids and, mister Nelson. I called him, the quiet storm. And he's always glad. You don't hear anything about him, but I tell you he runs a, tight ship,
great school. He always tell the kids that you do better next year. You win the next year. I mean, he calms it down and hit you did you did what you did well. He always say you did well. You do better next year. So I want to highlight, South Alabama, Maine, while miss Houston was still here. Mister chairman, I I wanna add, I I share with you all the threat assessment, report in a work session, but I wanted to make sure I I put in my report for the official, general board meeting that we do the threat assessment that's in your form. This in your packet, you can kinda note, our quarterly threat assessment support Jackson Madison
County School System. And so I'll bring another one before you all in March. I just want to have that on record. And I'd like to say definitely, Merry Christmas to each and every one of y'all. I appreciate you. You. You know, it's the truth is, it's a lot of hard work down the board. We do a lot of stuff. We do a lot more work in a lot of districts, a bunch that I've been to. And but it shows how it's worth it. These kids are worth it. What we see every day but we now could you know, the main thing is we're here for the education of our kids, getting them up, and we're going in
the right direction. And we just gotta keep it going. There's always gonna be issues. There's always gonna be things come up, but we had to keep in mind what are we here for. And for that, I thank you each and every one of y'all. Mister chairman, I wanna just publicly thank our teachers and support staff in all of our buildings and each one of our buildings in this district. We've got four days left in this semester. Our teachers and support staff have survived another one. They have a much, much deserved, couple weeks off, and then we'll get rolling in
the spring semester. But, our teachers, do a phenomenal job. We got to sit and listen to some of them last week in stock take. And, you know, and I'll say that's something that we do, that doctor King does that's unique to this district. I don't know how many other districts have a superintendent that will bring the priority schools and underperforming schools and parade them in front of their board, but doctor King does. And we have real conversations, real candid conversations with how we're going to improve. And it's the most meaningful thing that we do, but to sit there and look
at some of those teachers and administrators eye to eye in those settings and really listen to what they have to deal with on a daily basis and are and and to see that our numbers are improving and they're gonna continue to improve. But, also, just wanna thank everybody across the board. We've gotten through another semester, and I appreciate each and every one of you guys. And I wish everybody a Merry Christmas. Thank you. Now I was joking at first, doctor King, we're gonna get ready to go. But I've lasted one whole year with this Jackson Master County School System, and I
wanna wanna say for real, I really appreciate doctor King for believing in me, me believing in him, God being the head of my life. It's been an extraordinary year for me to see how kids blossom. It's awesome for him to be able to have over 13 plus kids, not including staff that he has to supervise, maintain. He has a personal relationship with just about everybody. That that's got to be, a very extreme serious job, that I don't take lightly.
That's why I support him so much and his administration. I'm just blessed. I'm grateful. No matter what I've been through in my life, I I just thank everybody that has supported me and my vision to support the school system that I come from in a miraculous way that I can see so much strength, so much, charisma from these kids, and and so much that has to go into making sure they get a great education. And, I just love all my school board members. I always say the word one unit. We're gonna get us a t shirt with that on it.
And and and, just putting up with me and trying to make sure that we stay one body grounded in the right thing for our children and our system here in Jackson, Tennessee. Thank you. We love miss Williams. No. I do that too, Sean. I would never live that day. When the words came out of my mouth, I knew it was coming. Nothing? Anybody is. Well, listen. To y'all too, Merry Christmas. Thank you for coming tonight, and we will see you again next year. Alright. Yeah. A motion to adjourn, please. So moved. All in favor, say aye. Aye. We shall adjourn.