and so we're going to go ahead and get started. So once again, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Memphis Shelby County Schools um Board of Education July 14th, 2026 business systems review electronic roll call,
please. Mr. Jenkins. paid enough for this prescription. >> Board member Porter. Board member Murphy. >> Board member Love >> here. >> Board member Otay >> here. >> Board vice chair Coleman >> present. >> Board chair McKinn
>> here. >> All right. You have a corn. We have six in front. >> Thank you. Announcement of the meeting purpose. The purpose of today's meeting is a critical exercise in our governing responsibility in accordance with board policy 0027
board governance business systems review. Our goal is to review the performance of the district's business systems against the approved [clears throat] metrics. Today, we will focus specifically on the business systems review, student attendance, and discipline. At this time, I will turn
the floor over to Superintendent Dr. Richmond to begin the review. Dr. Richmond. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh first of all, I'd like to uh thank the board for being here today as well as staff uh and others other community stakeholders who
are here. Uh we're going to go through our business system review associated with attendance and discipline. Uh I'm excited uh to have this group to report out. Uh and to kick us off will be Dr. Broadway who's our chief of student support services. Dr. Broadway.
>> Good afternoon. Um board members and superintendent Richmond, I too am excited for this presentation this afternoon. We will be kicking it off with director Bates and Director Davis. So I will start uh with the business system review. So the mission of the
office of student support services is dedicated to advancing student success by addressing the needs of the whole child through comprehensive support that promotes academic, social, emotional, and physical well-being. We strive to
remove barriers to learning and ensure every student has access to a high quality educational opportunities. The next is our org chart for the office of student support services. Next slide.
This pulled from the description for chief of student support services. And now at this time without further ado if we go to next slide we will start the presentation starting with discipline. >> Mr. Bates. >> Thank you Dr. Broadway. Uh this is the
org chart for the discipline portion of the attendance and discipline division under student support services. You'll see the director two of attendance and discipline. Two directors. Although the directions say just go down to the manager of of the level of manager. We did list the hearing officials as they
are the uh basically the due process arm of our district. Next slide. The department of attendance and discipline is committed to creating a safe, inclusive, and supportive learning environment. We promote respectful behavior, consistent attendance, and fair practices that support student
success through collaboration, accountability, and mutual respect. We partner with students, families, and staff to help every student grow and thrive. Out of alignment with the district's mission, we are aligned by providing leadership,
guidance, and oversight to promote safe, inclusive, and equitable learning environments across the district. The department ensures consistent implementation of student discipline practices. We safeguard students due process rights and support schools in fostering positive student behavior and academic success through collaboration
and transparency. The department the department partners with students, families and school leaders as I said in the previous slide. Some of the components although not in isolation some of these we do collaborate with others. The district hearing authority appeals and hearings due process uh shape program the school home adjustment
program enterprise the firsttime drug offenders program. Uh this is in collaboration with our mental health center, restorative interior behavioral support, incessant incessant behavior data review and monitoring, uh the brand new over fiveday suspension protocol, as well as
bullying and harassment compliance. Our alignment with the mission continues with the following positions. The director tool of attendance and discipline directs the efficient and effective operations of the district attendance and discipline programs providing systemwide leadership direction and expertise in critical
areas. Serves as the also serves as the federal right federal rights coordinator for students. The director too oversees the development and implementation of equitable practices that promote student engagement, behavioral accountability, and consistent attendance. You will also
see listed the following policies and Tennessee code annotated laws that apply to that position. District hearing officials. I know the number says seven. That's wishful thinking. Chief Langston reviews case documentation, facilitates hearings, renders decisions based on the
district policy and applicable laws and communicates those outcomes to those relevant stakeholders. The district hearing officials work closely with family, schools, and administrators as well as legal representatives to uphold due process and promote equitable resolution to discipline matters,
disciplinary matters. >> [clears throat] >> Also the director one of social emotional learning. The director one of leads the district multi-ter systems of support social emotional learning and RTI squareB initiatives by providing strategic leadership implementation
guidance and oversight of the district-wide prevention and intervention efforts. They also supervise the advisers and RTI2B specialists to strengthen schoolwide behavioral supports and through coaching, professional learning, and continuous improvement.
Okay. Well, don't worry about you can keep going. We going we going to be fast. We're going to give you full information, but we're going to be fast. No, go back so I can go through the other positions. They also we have social emotional learning advisors. uh they support schools in implementing the district expectations for SEAL which is
social emotional learning and RTI squareB response to intervention for behavior by providing coaching, professional learning, data review and technical assistance. Also please note that these social emotional learning advisors are assigned by regions. You
can go ahead. Our system landscape and core functions Apex and Alo view is used to uh for the budgeting software to manage finances, payroll, purchases as well as vendor operations. FileMaker Pro a lot may not be familiar with FileMaker Pro, but this
is the platform where we capture all of the evidence from our hearings, the decisions, and it is also the avenue in the event that legal needs documentation of a hearing. PowerBI efficiently integrates and manages student behavior and demographic data. Powers school
central student information system for documenting, tracking, reporting student behavior. Microsoft Office suite uh to collect, store and share data in a centralized accessible system to support accurate tracking as well as TDOE plan. We use TDOE plan for
a centralized system used for data collection and to ensure compliance and margin with the state's bullying and harassment compliance, title six, the anti-semitism report as well as the civil rights annual reports. This is the discipline scorecard.
You will see we were responsible for A31 which is a key performance indicator. By 2026, the district will reduce ODRs, which are office disciplinary referrals, by 5%. Our baseline was 61,978.
Our goal was to get that down to 58,000, less than or equal to 58,879. We came in at around 37,469. 834. This is a two-year goal, so I want to be able to explain this one fully. By
2027, the district will have a 20% decrease in suspensions. That's equating to a 2.6 percentage point reduction over two years. The baseline is 13 was 13%. Our goal was 11.7.
We came in at 11.2. 835 reduce the rate of office disciplinary referrals leading to suspensions that last six or more days. I see that uh printed incorrectly up there. So, I want to make sure I say it clearly. The
baseline was 15%, we were charged with reducing it by 5%. Which was the goal of 10% and we came in at 9.2. We're excited to have met each and every KPI according to the scorecard. You will see the data here. This just
shows you a pictorial graphic of the reductions made on 831. again from 61,978 for a total reduction of to a reduction of 37,469. If I'm not mistaken, that's about a 30
plus percentage point reduction. That one makes me nervous because I do believe Dr. Richmond will continue to expect that type of reduction. 834 we came in suspension rate at 13%. Uh I can say that some intentional efforts
around safeguards on suspensions as well as our district's MTSS process garnered some of this uh reduction right here to get us from 13% to 11.2. This is the first time in about two to three school years that we've seen a reduction in out
a reduction in out of school suspensions. 835. The rate of ODRs lasting more than six days and that means an office disciplinary referral leads to a suspension that is 6 to 180 days. We
wanted to help support the increase in average daily attendance by doing some things that will address those uh students staying in school. So from 15% our goal was 10 and again we came in at 9.2 Two, strategic plan outcomes achieved. The
student impact decrease the number of office disciplinary referrals achieved by promoting awareness, accountability, and alignment to Memphis Shelby County Schools discipline practices, policies, and guidelines. Decrease suspensions by supporting schools to build a preventive school climate and culture based on
restorative practices. achieved a substantial reduction percent reduction in ODRs over those six days. Operational impact integrated ongoing coaching cycles and or more importantly a continuous self-improvement cycle
focused on the systems and capacity gaps aligned to inconsistent practices. This simply means we took a look at our comstat data each and every quarter and we made those decisions based on the data, those operational decisions based on the data. provided support to high
schools to focus on climate and culture to reduce suspension infractions. Organized district-wide reporting link for school leaders to document OSS lasting which stands for out of school suspensions lasting 5 days or more. The financial impact supported district by
district funding by reducing out of school suspension, thus supporting an increase in average daily attendance. implemented a process to return students from long-term nonzero tolerance offenses at a natural academic break.
When I say natural academic break, I mean first quarter, second quarter, third quarter or the, you know, end of the year. Establish a super a suspension review protocol for suspensions over 5 days which impacted a slight reduction in our chronic absenteeism.
Next slide. This is how we're aligned to all the district's four top four priorities. Priority one, improve academic growth, achievement, and literacy levels for all students. We promote a strong understanding of the district goal to
reduce office disciplinary referrals. Understanding students learn more when they are in class, engaged, engaged, and supported. Priority two, recruit and increase. Priority two. I'm sorry. This 55 year old eyes can barely see that over there.
Chief Langston, you keep moving your head. [laughter] Recruit and increase the retention of the most effective district leaders and teachers in the nation for our students. We promote that schools are safe, orderly, supportive, and that helps to retain highquality leaders and
educators. Priority three, prepare students for the global workforce through rigorous coursework, certifications, supportive highquality facilities, and learning environments. We support those learning environments that are structured, respectful, and free from disruptions.
Priority four, strengthen operational excellence, transparency, and financial accountability. We support schools that we support schools to implement effective discipline system to maximize instructional time, use staff resources efficiently and create conditions that
support student achievement. Although we don't have an audit like schools and some departments in the district, our internal measures, we come in in compliance with every single piece of compliance measure that is set before us. Attendance and discipline complies with the following policies. TC code
annotated 49-6-3401. Discipline hearing authority complies with the same one. The due process complies with policy 6026. Ensures students are afforded fair procedures before significant disciplinary consequences are imposed. The code of
conduct also complies with policy 6026. Bullying and harassment compliance. This polic this complies with policy 6046 prohibiting bullying behavior and outlines how schools must prevent, report, investigate, and respond to each
and every bullying incident. We're also in compliance with the new anti-semitism report and the title six report that complies with race, prejudice, dissimmin discrimination, and hostility. At this point, there have not been any corrective actions mandated from any
audit for being out of compliance per TDOE or the district. [snorts] One huge lift years ago when we had uh pupil services, people often looked at hearing officials or pupil services as
the principal's graveyard. Well, I'm here to tell you our district hearing officials do a lot more than manage a graveyard. We conducted over 1,710 hearings. These are hearings are held when a student receives a suspension
more than 10 days. Of those, we modified 65% of those suspensions. We upheld 17.7%. Well, about 120 were cancelled. 7% were no shows. 32 were completely overturned.
Also of those 1,710 we referred 207 to the shape program which is designed to prevent or to be an alternative to suspension measure. How we're connected to school performance the efficiency gains DHA
appeal hearing processing time 10 days or less from the date of incident. So we do try to get that hearing in within 10 days 10 school days of the date of the incident. We have a streamlined documentation review process. Standardized decisionmaking process with
a standard script that's aligned to policy. A standard hearing script that's aligned to policy and state requirements. This impact reduce delays and inconsistency in how hearings are scheduled, prepared, and decided resources for schools regional advisment
and counsel to school leaders on disciplinary decisions. We have a hearing official assigned to support each region in making those decisions. We provide the schools with a comprehensive climate and culture resource in the suggested discipline guideline. This allows to reduce
variance and consequences across schools to school and region to region. We also provide real-time technical support to school leaders on the bullying and harassment investigative process. This ensures fair, consistent, and equitable disciplinary processes that support safe
learning environments and student success. Service level improvements measure stakeholder satisfaction through family surveys and school leader feedback. Also, regular calibration or norming sessions among the hearing officials to ensure consistent decisions
across schools and regions. This is to focus on consistency, transparency, and responsibly the hearing process serves students, families, and schools. Some of our major initiatives, the first time drug offender program. This program
provides timely intervention for students supporting student growth. This is all year long. and the impact in lie of a state mandatory 180day suspension for drugs basically THC vapes students receive alcohol and drug counseling uh
and their suspensions are modified only one time the over fiveday suspension protocol this was a huge new initiative this year which provided guard rails to schools uh when they issue suspensions over 5 days this ensures the reduction
of exclusionary practices and consistency in documenting steps in progressive discipline. The fight free or fight reduction plan or days of peace ensures safe, supportive and orderly learning environments. It's all year long. Uh support student growth,
accountability and re-engagement in learning. That is one area that we really want to sh up and really push out this particular school year. As mentioned earlier, the shape program uh school home adjustment program enterprise. This reduces exclusionary practices as well. It's an alternative
to suspension initiative focused on redirecting student behavior through restorative learning. Each and every secondary school has the shape program [snorts] system integrity and risk, data accuracy and compliance. Ensure
behavior codes, actions, locations, and dates are entered correctly and maintain documentation that supports disciplinary decisions along with providing due process before disciplinary actions are assigned. Security and privacy. We want to ensure that we follow the
requirements of FURP or Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act regarding the collection, storage, and disclosure of student discipline records. Risk if gaps remain. This could result in inconsistent discipline practices
where similar behaviors receive different consequences depending on the school or classroom and illegal and compliance violations such as failure to follow due process, special education requirements needed for the manifestation determination or district policies. How are we going to mitigate
that? provide clear policies and procedures, ongoing professional development, data monitoring, and consistent administrative oversight where discipline audits and case reviews are conducted to ensure policy compliance and consistency.
Our strengths and challenges, the over fiveday suspension protocol. This documents intentional steps and progressive discipline and lays another set of eyes on the suspension of students from each and every school. The challenges or limitations is ensuring completion of the suspension link with
fidelity and consistency. The DHA appeal process allows hearing officials to conduct impartial reviews and determine the most appropriate corrective action where none where zero tolerance, repeated infractions or major offenses occur.
Some of the challenges uh manual data entry for you know basically one person to complete along with the process being procedurally complex and time sensitive. As I mentioned earlier these appeals have to be done within 10 days of 10 school days of the date of the incident
that create that fostered the suspension. The suggested behavior guidelines support leaders in making school level decisions, disciplines, discipline decisions to guide proactive supports and equitable practices. Some of the challenges and limitations
discipline policies provide a framework for decision making and ensure school leaders apply them consistently. Ideally, we want this document to reduce the variance from school to school. A 3-day suspension at Colonial will be the same 3-day suspension at GDKA.
first-time drug offenders alcohol and drug program. This provides structured support to students to help build trust and tools needed to make better choices. Although we know that THC vape apparatuses are running rampant across our city, it is one of the highest um
offenses or zero tolerance offenses. The highest zero tolerance offense. the the challenge or the limitation only limited number of students that are referred for alcohol and drug cases for uh modification to suspensions. We have a limited number of those students that
actually complete the entire 10 sessions required recommendations and next steps. The request for our board of commissioners uh adopt and regularly update discipline policies that align with state law and district goals. Invest in some student
information systems and discipline dashboards that improve data accuracy monitoring and reporting. Planned improvements. We surely plan to strengthen the MTSS process, RTI squared B and social emotional learning and violence
prevention and deescalation programs. This is huge because we often hear Dr. Richmond talk about the technical work versus the adaptive work. By doing this first bullet, we'll begin to make those differentiation between that technical work and that adaptive work. Share
regular discipline monthly. Share regular discipline reports each month to monitor trends, suspensions, appeals, and disproportionality. We want to tailor these reports to each region tailored to their respective regions. provide ongoing training in restorative
practices, progressive discipline, classroom management, and most importantly, deescalation strategies. And the last plan improvement ensure discipline efforts move beyond enforcement and become part of a comprehensive strategy for safety and
academic success. The closing statement, the work of discipline is not about exclusion. It is about creating conditions for every student to be successful, every school to be safe, and every community to thrive. Before we jump into questions, do we
want to pause for questions and then go into attendance or keep going? All right, pause. We'll pause for any questions. >> I have board member Love. Great presentation,
but I have a couple of questions. Um, do every school have a behavioral specialist? [snorts] >> Not every school. And actually, that's a great question, Commissioner Love. We actually have several iterations of support for schools. reset assistance at
some, behavior text at some, RTI2B specialists, which we have 40 of that are being uh deployed according to the data, as well as some schools having their own school funds. They hire their own behavior specialists that want to say we have about 59 of those, but I'll
have to double check that to get back with you to get those firm numbers to you. clarifying question. Do every school has um one of those three things you've just talked about?
>> Based on the data and what I can do, we're actually preparing a report now. So, if you give me till next Friday, we can have that information to you where all of those supports are placed. >> Next question. Um, I heard you speak about suspensions
and um, we were um, we received an email last year that the state dinged us on suspensions. Um, were you going uh your team
um if we hadn't received the dinging of the state, were you going to do something about suspensions? >> I think when this position was I'm glad you mentioned that and actually just to clarify that ding we received was for
disproportionately suspending African-American males of color within our district. And to be honest, although I didn't report it here, we completely eradicated that cap this particular school year by making the bottom drop out of our data. Although I don't have it here with me today, I can provide you
with that information. And yes, ma'am, regardless of that cap, uh due to the job description, I was coming in to make a reduction to meet those that two 20% reduction over two years that's set forth by the state report card.
And the final question um for now um you spoke about student handbooks. >> No ma'am respectfully. No ma'am I didn't. >> I wrote that down.
>> Student handbooks or did I say the MSCS suggested guidelines? Those aren't for students. Yes ma'am. Those are for school leaders so they can know so we can give them suggested guidelines on how many days or the consequence or the restorative practice to implement before
they issue an out of school suspension. We want to move to those out of school suspensions being the last resort before uh we send those children home. We want to provide those wraparound supports through our MTSS systems, multi-ter systems of support. We want to send in
waves of support to the school. So before they suspend those students, we want to make sure that we've provided the intentional support necessary. >> Um the final question is when is the student handbook going to go out?
>> The parent student handbook? >> Yeah. >> I think I know they're working on it now. I've made the updates to that, but I believe that lives with comm. Yes, ma'am. >> Because years past, I received it by September. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Yeah.
again right now comms asked us as a hard deadline of last Wednesday to send our edit. So yes ma'am you can check with comms on the data [clears throat] to come out >> as part of registration gear up should be prepared by >> Thank you.
>> Thank you commissioner love >> board member Porter. >> Yes. Uh let me see with the attendance discipline major program initiatives like how many students and with all the programs how many students enrolled in the program what's the success rate what's the
repeat offenders I just want to know how many students was actually um yeah benefited from these programs >> I [snorts] can't tell you the uh repeat offenders rate I don't maintain data in that manner however as I said we have referred 207 students to shape for the shape program and actually for our
firsttime drug offenders We referred 165 157 students completed the program according to the data that I have now. But I'm still going to vet that data for
fidelity. >> Okay. Yeah, definitely. Um, email me that that particular data. >> Absolutely. No problem. Yes, sir. >> I'll get back. I think board member you answered several of my questions.
Um, I do have a question about the disciplinary actions we're taking as far as how how we determining aside from suspension rates. Of course, we, you know, if a student needs to be suspended, they definitely should be. And I'm going to talk about that cuz we talk about inconsistencies with
suspensions as it pertains to vapes and first time, second time, third time offenders. I did have some some complaints last year about that >> about the >> um students using vapes. Yes, ma'am. >> And there being uh not just a first time
offender, but a second and potentially a third time offender. >> Let me say this. Our program is designed to provide an opportunity for those firsttime drug offenders to modify their suspension
with going through the drug and alcohol program. Please remember that the use of a THC vape or any type of drug apparatus is a statemandated 180day offense. So the school has no latitude, no wiggle room, no variance.
They have to issue their suspension at 180 days. However, Dr. enrichment has in this administration has afforded us the opportunity and according to state law the superintendent can create a program in which to modify those suspensions down. So what we do is we modify it down
to 10 days that's just under the threshold of being an expulsion or a remand to an alternative school. We then provide them with the referral for the alcohol and drug classes through the Memphis Memphis Shelby County Schools mental health center. And yes, ma'am.
Now, if it's that second time, we got to issue that 180day suspension according to the state law, but we still see if we can't get them into those alcohol and drug programs. Because what I want to say about the THC vapes,
although it's not legal here, it is still, you see it everywhere we go in our city. So, sometimes I think our children mistake it for being legal at this point. So what we want to do is ensure that they are empowered, they have the resources they need cuz if they
make a mistake, we understand that and we want to give them that opportunity. However, it is state law to issue uh that 180day suspension. >> Okay. You mentioned the program. How are we tracking it if the students actually finish those programs? >> Actually, those were some marching
orders from Superintendent Richmond for me this particular day. Actually the hearing officials take intentional steps once they refer them you know they follow up with those students uh and we do that through sending them this particular year we sent them to our family wellness centers we had three
across the city manis btw and cordova middle we offered those classes uh in the evening times and if parents couldn't make it sometimes we made concessions for them to be able to go through now I know we said limited students completed but 150 57 out of
165. That's I'mma vet that data and I'll get that to you, Commissioner Otay. But yes, ma'am, it's we saved a lot of 157 students from receiving that mandatory 180day suspension. >> Okay. One other question. How often are
we using community service-based um like disciplinary? Like I don't know, we used to do Saturday morning cleanings or cafeteria duty. How often are we doing that aside from just putting a a student in in school suspension or out of school suspension?
>> Let me thank you for uh all of your questions, board member Otay. Uh the question you're lifting is a question that really shouldn't uh be left with central office. What you're speaking to
is any school that has a behavior plan, it should consist of three things. rules, consequences, and rewards. And so many times it's we put a lot on central office, but I can think back when I was
a principal, the one thing I would have is what was called community service, uh, andor you could give students cafeteria duty, you could give students Saturday school, you could give students detention. Those things cannot be driven
by central office. Those are innovative things that schools should be making part of their RTI squared B plan and that's what the team is speaking to. Uh that's that next step that we've got to be able to take with schools to better
explain to them around social emotional learning things that they can do at the school level that doesn't always result in what's called an exclusionary practice. Uh that's why this year we decided to uh put in place before a
school could suspend a student over 4 days, they had to speak to their supervisor because many times what's happening at schools and I love principles and in most instances they're trying to do the right thing. But I've
been a principal and I know sometimes you just want the student out of the building. But in the day that we live in now, we've got to do everything we can to help change and modify behavior. And changing and modifying behavior starts
with the principle and leadership not always responding with an exclusionary practice. So hopefully that answers that question. But I also want to go back to the question around THC. We've got to be careful about suspending students based
on uh what we assume. So, every vape does not have THC. And we're having to talk to principles about if we can't prove the vape has THC. We have to be careful about applying the 180 days cuz
it could just be flavor THC. And of course, we don't want kids at school with a vape. But a flavor THC versus something with CBD versus something with THC, those are three different types of vapes. And we
have to be careful uh expelling a student and then somebody take us to court and say that it was just a flavored vape when what they had in fact wasn't illegal. I was telling somebody I remember a time uh at a
suspension if you smoked a cigarette that was 180day suspension. We sometimes have to adjust our policies and adjust our rules and adjust our con consequences to what's
currently happening in society so that we don't uh over suspend. And as you all know, uh we were already dealing with a dis a disproportionality uh claim that we had to look at reducing
the suspensions of our students uh that are exceptional. And so looking at all those things, we've decided to make decisions that are first and foremost align with policy and statute, but also are in line with uh what's good for students.
How are you determining if the vape actually had THC in there? >> Well, that's my whole point. Sometimes the vape may have on there THC or you can smell that it reeks of marijuana. And that's why we have allowed our hearing officers and officials. If a
principal has somebody with a vape, okay, you can suspend, you can do an expulsion, but the hearing official, they're going to step in and they're going to evaluate whatever it is that you took a picture of or you confiscated
or based on witnesses or what have you. The hearing officials help make that determination. And that's why you see where some of those hearings uh some of those uh expulsions were modified. About 65.9%
of them were modified and they were modified because again we don't want anybody making an assumption. It has to be factual for us to uphold it. >> All right. Last thing with the first time offending the everyone has to do a hearing, right? Student has to do a hearing even the first time here.
>> Okay. So, since we know that we're going to give them a second opportunity, one of the questions were why do the APS have to be in the hearing for 5 to 10 hours when you know that you're going to just put them through the program. In other words, this way they're not taken away from doing their duty at the school
and not having to sit in a hearing for those amount of hours. If we already know that we're going to put them in a program to give them a second opportunity. >> Sometimes we may not know going into the hearing. We can't make any predeterminations. These hearings are pretty much like if
you were going to court. You have to hear all of the evidence and facts and things that have gone into the decision that was made. The only person that can help us with that is the assistant principal or principal. Now, we hate
that they're sometimes lengthy, and I've never known one to be four or five hours. That sounds a little uh excessive to me. Huh. There has been some that's been that long. >> Let me tell you something. All of these
are recorded and documented. So if someone is saying that they sat in a hearing for four or five hours, please send me the name of the child, send me the name of the school cuz we can go back and review the video recording of
every single DHA hearing. And typically the DHA hearing takes about hour and a half to two hours depending on the num the level of evidence presented, the number of witnesses that are being brought in that have to be sworn in. But no ma'am, in my four years, four to five
years of conducting DHA hearings in this district and other district, it normally I've not seen one in my career last four or five hours. I've not seen one go beyond two hours. Okay,
I'll let my other colleagues answer questions or ask questions. >> Board member Murphy. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh several questions. Uh mine is concerning compliance report. um with the audit report reporting zero findings and a
full compliance across all areas. What specific best practices are we um are we practicing or being proactive with proactive strategies um are we prioritizing to ensure we maintain this flawless standard moving forward.
>> What we're prioritizing is what is required by the state. In fact, in next week's upcoming operations institute, we made mandatory training sessions out of the ones that actually lead to their compliance. That's how we know we can boast we're in compliance with this particular TDOE requirement. We're in
alignment with that particular TDOE requirement. And we also stay in constant communication with the state because they let us know ahead of time. Most of the time when those reports come out, when those reports are due, Bill White will get an email, I will get an email, or Cheap Broadway will get an
email saying it's coming due. It's sort of like MG&W. They going to let you know before it's due. And yes, ma'am, we prioritize that by ensuring we provide those required trainings when we need to, you know, uh have those. also in compliance with those 10 days as far as
to conduct the appeal hearing. We monitor that through our in-house system of when it happens. Uh and again that was one of the limitations because it is a lengthy process. You got to wait for the call, schedule it, get the information, print the information from
power school and then provide a hard copy to that hearing official to go and conduct that hearing. But yes ma'am, we are proactive with the ones that are mandated by the state. >> Thank you. One last question. Uh even though no corrective actions were mandated, are there any particular areas
such as bullying prevention or student engagement where the district is internally aiming to go beyond minimum state compliance to improve local school environments? >> Absolutely. Right now in our student support in our department of student support services, I'm collaborating with
Dr. Luster and her team. Now remember, my team is responsible for bullying and harassment compliance. That makes sure that means we're making sure that each school responds to those bullying efforts that they report those bullying uh incidences as well as they document it. We provide them with a dedicated
link each and every school year to be able to load that information and we keep that information until it's time to submit that report which is due July 31st and we're prepared to submit that information tomorrow. >> Okay. And are there anything is there
anything else in place when after you do your research with bullying? Is there anything else that you have in place or how we're going to move forward with these students? Are they disciplined or how they discipline? >> It depends on the outcome of the bullying investigation. As we've been stating, we try not to issue those consequences to students. If it's
founded, >> it's [clears throat] founded. And not only we don't stop there, we also ensure compliance with the full grievance process. If a parent says I don't agree with that, then we provide technical support to that parent immediately. We we deploy that person to that particular
school, work with that parent, and yes, ma'am, we make sure that we respond to it. Now, those mitigations, peer uh student mediation things, we're going to handle that through our intentional work with our seven mindset seal program. Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you. I have no further questions.
>> Thank you. >> At this time anyway. >> That's no problem. Yes, ma'am. I'm here all week. Vice Chair Coleman. >> Thank you, Chair. Um, I have two quick questions for you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> First, thank you for this. This is very
informative. My first question is based on the the data, the performance that the drops in the numbers, are we checking these with fidelity to make sure that these children when we say we
want the reduction that we're not just saying we're going to keep you in this classroom and you keep continuing to be a disruption you know most of the times when they get too far gone is what I'm saying yes ma'am
>> are we >> so we won't just have a reduction in numbers are we actually making sure that Jo is doing what she's supposed to be doing. >> Yes, ma'am. Actually, as early as this morning, I was giving some marching orders to do just that. We want to
ensure that we deploy those tier one. We want first off, we want to make sure that those tier one efforts are done with fidelity at the school level. >> Every school has that autonomy and wish to do that through their RTI square B program and just >> good school leadership. We're going to ensure that that what tier 2 supports
are coming in through those RTI 2B specialists, through those uh social workers and everything else. And then if they continue to need tier three, we're going to ensure that they get some the support they need through the uh MSCS mental health center. Now, let me be
clear. We're boasting these reductions because across the country, we have to move. We have to keep children in school. We got to reduce chroy. We got to reduce chronic absenteeism. So we're targeting that by reducing those exclusionary actions, but not to be
confused with the fact that every child has to act right. That school leader has to set that tone and that tone start with that principal. But no ma'am, violent, incessant, negative behavior will be dealt with swiftly and according
to the state law and the district policy. But we going to support them every step we can. >> Okay. Now my next question, I'm done. You said that you have it shows seven dis uh hearing officers. How many do you actually have and how many do you need?
[sighs and gasps] >> No. No ma'am. I actually have six. And I'm going say something. I learned from a great mentor. I'm going to keep this team as lean as possible because it's easier for me to provide that intentional support. And then you know
sometimes too many people cloud the judgment, too many voices coming in. I got enough on my own head. But no ma'am, we okay with it right now. >> So that you able to get everybody's hearing done in the time that is within the 10 days that that is required.
>> Yes ma'am. Well, let me say this about I want to say that I checked with Miss June Nichols who schedules all our hearings. We're now about a 97% rate of getting these hearings done within 10 days. reasons why they don't get done in 10 days. Some parents may not understand
the uh uh appeal process. We have some parents that struggle with literacy and we provide those supports. Not only can is it that parents can appeal, we've afforded that opportunity to every district employee that would like to appeal on behalf of a student cuz
sometime parents don't appeal. And you know, I know uh board member William says it all the time. We can't parent the children. We can't parent the parents, but we can support them every step of the way. So, yes, ma'am. We can get it done. >> Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you, um, Director Bates for your very informative report. I [clears throat] have a few questions for you and observations. Um, first of all, this is this is great work. you all met each of the goals. So, um kudos to you.
I do have a question about what the numbers actually um entail, just to be clear. So, the 37,000 um can we go to I don't know what slide that was that it showed us, but the 37,000 referrals that we actually got, are those distinct students or are those
the number of referrals where it could represent um a set of students with multiple refer referrals? If it represent a student with multiple referrals. >> Yeah, there it is. You're talking about the ODRs. Those office discipline referrals. We calling them ODRs. Now, this
>> for most of us in this room, that's a write up. >> Okay. >> But yes, ma'am. Those could be multiple students and we'll have to dig deeper in the data to see. >> Yeah. Because one of the things if it's if it's 10 students generating 37,000, then we have a a unique group and we can
focus in on them. If it's 37,000 students, that's another thing. So it would be interesting to see that data um when you get an opportunity. >> Yes ma'am. >> Um the other questions that I have is um are inschool suspensions represented in this at all? The
>> no ma'am in school suspensions aren't considered exclusionary? Exclusionary would include uh out of school suspension, a remand or expulsion. And a expulsion means the child is not receiving school services from our school district. Remands mean you're a
remand means you're remanded to alternative school. However, every single child that receives a suspension more than 10 days should have a referral to alternative school before their child make it home. >> So, one of the things I would like um Dr. Richmond is if we could get a report
on the inschool suspensions because the question I have is what's happening while they're in in the inschool suspension. Are they being put in a room and just sitting in a room or are they are they still being they're being um >> this it's tracked in in school suspension is is tracked. We track that
data. We have the number of students who've been referred to ISS and uh while you're in ISS instruction should continue. That's one of the reasons for uh having in school suspension. Each school should have a process uh whereby
the students work uh is susit is submitted to the inschool suspension uh teacher or coordinator uh and that student should have an opportunity while they're on the school premises uh to do their daytoday school work. >> Okay. I just
>> be interested in that data. Um can you go to page 13 for me? And um what I appreciate is that you all are making those those strides. I have a question about the um six days or more. We're looking at data six days or more.
And so I would since you guys are doing such a good job of of getting to your goals so quickly. Is there is there a way to back that up a little bit because you can still do two days suspensions, three day suspensions, four day suspensions. So let giving letting us see or
>> Yes, ma'am. Yeah. And the reason why this KPI is here >> because at a cumulative 5 days suspension, each child should have their behavior intervention plan or that behavior support plan. At 6 days or more, we
begin to see a child whose average daily attendance and their average daily attendance is reducing and their chronic absenteeism is increasing. Even though a child receives an a suspension and they're told not to come to school, it still counts against their chronic
absenteeism. And what we want to do, uh, Director Davis and I, we decided to work together. So that's why when children receive a long-term suspension, we make sure that if we're going to modify it, and that was another reason for the high rate of modifications, we ensure that
every child returns back at a natural academic break so that they can continue their academic trajectory. Sometimes in previous years, we would send them back at any time of the year. They off track, so they end up not coming. and we're beginning to affect some of those
numbers with these intentional steps that we're taking now. But yes, ma'am. >> Right. Because I think there's a potential correlation between um makeup work and and the time that they're out of of class. So just looking at at that because you're right, it doesn't matter
how many days if you're out, it's counted against them towards crime. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. >> But you all are doing such a good job with this. Just it's a stretch goal to think about. Um then let's see.
I'm going to piggy back um just really quickly and I'll come back around cuz I have a few other board members that are coming back around. But to Vice Chair Coleman's question about the number of hearing officers, you've heard me say this over and over again. Ask for what you need
>> if it's going to make the work better. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. And and get us where we need to go for our students. >> Absolutely. Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. I have um board member love um >> I hope is a funny question
>> the financial impact. >> Yes ma'am. >> How much money did we save from sus um not suspending kids? >> That's a number that I have to get back with you on. But um what I can say is
that >> Tito can answer it. >> Well, Tito can answer it. Okay, go ahead. >> So that's a that's a great question, Borman Love. So the answer to your question is probably roughly around $2.5 million. So remember that our attendance
data is based on what we get from the county. So that's the $427 million decided set aside on the education fund. And I don't want to steal Miss Davis thunder, but when she comes in and shows the attendance rate when the suspension rates uh directly uh affects those
attendant rate attendance rates, which affects our funding that we get from the county. So roughly about $2.5 million based on the data before to where we are now based based on us increasing the data here today. And the next question
is, everybody's following the state law and the policy on your team. >> On my team? >> Yeah. >> Yes, ma'am. Our script is rooted in the state law. Every word we say is recorded. Every note we take is
documented. So, yes, ma'am. And we also send it to our legal council every year to vet to make sure that we remain in line with the law. How can you be so sure? >> Because it's every Tennessee code annotated is
actually mentioned in the script. 49-6-341 is actually mentioned in the script. Superintendent Rich, >> because the reason I asked that is because I've talked to several people throughout the years and it is a
different policy for different people. Everybody um everybody don't know the stack of policies. I don't even know them. M everybody
doesn't know. Um I have heard that employees are giving our wrong policies to school officials. Um they ain't doing it intentional.
But I have heard through um conversations and it it is an indictment to the staff. Everybody doesn't know everything and I don't know everything either. But
the staff at the central office is supposed to guide the schools and um you can say I don't know the policy. Let me look it up. instead of giving the principles and
teachers a correct policy. That's what I would do. >> I can Yes, ma'am. I get that. And what we do is provide that policy and the Tennessee code annotated law. And a lot
of times when they say they gave the wrong policy, most of the time our district hearing No, I'm sorry. All the time our district hearing officials give the right policy. Sometimes it's the practice that's frowned upon. Yes, ma'am.
>> District hearing policy. Um I'm not talking about the district hearing >> officials. Okay. >> I'm talking about the employees. >> So let me ask. So if you're an employee, it is your responsibility to be
wellversed around every policy. If you're an employee in this district, you should be able to read and comprehend policy. That should be an expectation. And people will tell you one of the first things I did when I was
hiring uh behavior specialists is part of my interview process was them reading and interpreting the truency policy because you cannot be in some of these roles and not understand and know how to
interpret policy. So, no one should give an employee the wrong policy because the employee should be intelligent enough to go to where the policy manual is on the website and read and interpret it for
themselves. And what I do every week in my Monday memo is I send out a policy as well as reiterate people following the policy. Now, if it's a parent and someone is giving them wrong information
and parents do not know their rights, what we have tried to do specifically with the DHA hearing officials and sometimes schools become upset with them because they do modify suspensions. They do interpret and apply
policy. The reason they're doing that is to protect students rights, parents' rights, but also to protect the district from exposure. When you look at sped, all of these positions that we have at the central office level, we have sped
advisors. Their roles are to go out and to advise not just schools, but to advise parents of their rights. So all of these individuals who are in these roles, they also serve a duty. We have a title nine compliance
person. That person is in place to assume that no employees title nine rights andor students rights are violated. As Mr. Bates said earlier, we have people who go out and address bullying. They go out and address
bullying and they approach it from a nonpartisan perspective. Normally when that person goes out, they don't know either of the students, either of the parents. They're going out and um helping to
mitigate helping to mitigate those situations so that both parents as well as students feel that they have voice and people are listening to them. Now, I'm going to be honest. As a principal, you operate every day in a gray area
where you're making a decision that may or may not uh violate policy or the law >> because it's a difficult job. You're making those decisions every day in real
time. And that's why we tell principles, if you don't know, call the general counsel's office. If you don't know, call your supervisor because y'all these just like you said, no, everyone doesn't know the policy man. Even myself sometimes I have to go and look at the
policy. Board member McKenna will tell you today I told Monica, Monica, go to the policy and let me read it. No one knows all of it's so much. It's massive. But we do have measures in place to
protect everybody's right and due process. So that's why even if we find that's why I said I don't want people expelling kids saying it's THC in there and it's not because we want to protect the rights of children and everybody. So
we have these guidelines in place where no one should be uh lording over any school, any employee at any level of this organization. Everybody should have
checks and balances where no one is taking advantage of anybody. That includes me. >> Um the next question is the frightfree reduction Um that is a district or school initiative.
>> It's a district initiative. Yes, ma'am. >> Um what um um why do the schools have frightfree in the walkway?
>> Oh, as soon as you walk through >> they got the fight free board. I don't you pro I probably was talking fast. I was a little nervous, Commissioner Love, but I did say fight free or days of peace. I think that's what we wanted to go to cuz you've mentioned that before. So, we're looking at either peace in
practice or days of peace cuz I think you kind of mentioned it before. You don't like that. >> Yeah. >> Fight free boy because [laughter] the first words you see is fight. >> Yeah, >> I got it. What about peace? >> If I was a parent, >> Yes, ma'am. >> I would walk out this school. >> No, man. We going >> I think we going to say peace in
practice >> or days of peace if we going doing a countdown but yes ma'am I we we have discussed that. Yes ma'am. >> Thank you. >> Thank you commissioner love.
>> Port member Murphy. >> Thank you madam chair. Several questions. Um, how do social emotional learning advice advisors help school implement social emotional learning with the RTI to the second power-b so important?
>> Actually, I'mma uh allow my colleague Lorie Phillips to address that. I'm glad she's here. So, would you mind Good afternoon, Superintendent Richmond, members of the board. Um, absolutely. So, one thing about this year and going
forward, accountability means everything. And so, as we're talking about castle, which is the collaborative academic and social emotional learning, we're wanting to make sure that every school is embracing thiso approach. We have seven mindsets that's 30 minutes a
week but also council lives in everything we do, everything we teach, everything we say, everything we breathe in the schools. So our advisors are taking schools per region. They've been assigned per region and they're going in just to make sure that we're enhancing
culture and climate through making sure that we're embracing the curriculum because this is the year that is PK-12. So in every school, every teacher and every student should know what the seven mindsets are which embraces those cap
castle competencies. >> So are all teachers aware of this? >> Absolutely. We had over 6,000 teachers oriented last year and this year all of our new teacher for new teacher orientation that's in next week the new
teachers will be oriented as well and then we're doing reinforcers and we'll have open labs continuously all throughout the year every month. >> Okay, thank you. My my next question next. What are the primary responsibilities of the director of
social emotional learning and how do they support the district multi-ter system and support? >> Again, I'mma turn that over to >> Oh, she's the Okay. >> Yes, ma'am. She's she's the director of social emotional learn. >> Okay.
>> Thank you. So, ultimately, we were talking about that accountability. Then accountability is hierarchy. It starts with the visionary who is superintendent Richmond who we live in the five A's of attitude. We start there and making sure that we're walking out the vision and
then we go to Dr. uh director Bates and then myself. And so what we're doing is making sure that that trickle down effect is there. The vision is being executed and I'm totally responsible for making sure that we are doing everything with fidelity, implementing with
fidelity. And so that's one primary role along with we have schoolwide ecosystem. So like board member love said when you walk into a school you see fight we're talking about peace and so you'll hear more about a fight free campaign but we're also talking about how does a
school feel right and so we're equipping those school leaders in those schools with incentives and things that they need to do on that approach. But we also have to make sure that they have the workshops the orientation the professional development. So we're making sure that these individuals who
are responsible for coaching up which is my responsibility is they are being certified and receiving these certifications and these endorsements so that they can become the experts and so it's kind of like the train the trainer model. I I'd also like to add that Dr.
Phillips finished the castle cohort. Um if you could speak more about that because I think she's the only one in Tennessee. So Castle is the root of social emotional learning. Even if you have seven mindsets, whatever it is, Castle is is social emotional learning.
It started with Tim Shrivever um from the Kennedy family and she was afforded the opportunity this year to uh be a part of that cohort. >> Yes. So I had a >> going No, all of a sudden you started going into that. >> Okay. I had a year-long training with
the castle uh cohort. of the Castle Academy. And then at the completion of that and received my certificate and endorsement for being able to train other individuals around Castle, uh we are also now I'm on the we're I'm one of the only ones in Memphis. And so now
Memphis will be represented by the state of Tennessee. So I'm on the Tennessee Castle Leadership Committee as well. I don't think I have any more questions at this time. If I do, I'll let you know. Thank you. >> Thank you. Board member Porter. >> Yeah, this real simple. I know you said
you want to you thought it was going to be you want somebody ask a funny question. >> No, no, no, sir. No, sir. Please. >> We've been on it for a minute. Just real simple. Um, what what challenges since you've been in the seat, what challenges still been remain unresolved? Basically, like what keeps you up at night? And also I know I tread mentioned that you
guys hit all your goals but what strategic goals did that that your department just your department did not achieve. [sighs] >> Actually I hit all the goals on my scorecard but I also created a compat goal for myself to reduce those exclusionary
practices. And as a former principal what keeps me up at night is that I used to lead the district in suspensions. However, I also reflected on my academic data as the principal as I was sending them out. My academic data was in peaks
and valleys. Sometimes I suspended myself out of reaching myos and I'm sitting there beating myself up at night, but I did it to myself. So, what I want to do now that keeps me up at night, but no, I'm going to be honest with you. Not much keep me up at night
at 55. I'm going to sleep at 6:00, but I wake up at 3:00 in the morning. But yes, sir. Although we did not we reduced exclusionary practices, I did not want to I did not reduce them at the rate I wanted to. So all my steps this summer
are intentional on meeting that compat goal. Although it's not reflected in this scorecard, you know, I think someone said it earlier. I created a stretch goal for myself and my team and no sir, we didn't meet that. But remember, we that goal is simply
predicated on the actions of the school principal. So my role is to equip, educate, and empower those principles to make some of those more restorative decisions. >> Thank you, Board Member Love. Um, Superintendent,
can you have the administration give us the data each time we do a presentation? because it is hard to see what increases and what decreases
we've seen by the um since you were superintendent since before you were superintendent if we don't have the data to match the presentation. >> Yes, ma'am. Um thank you for that
particular uh question board member love. We will start to give I think what you're asking for and I want to clarify would be maybe given uh three-year uh trend data. >> Yeah. >> And then given three-year trend data, you'll be able to see. But what I can tell you about this data is looking at
it, it does represent trend data because we are trending down and in previous years the discipline data was higher and that's why I've asked the team that's why we our team did a scorecard that's
why our team did baseline data. We set goals and targets because I wanted and want the board to see the work that uh my team and I are doing. But we also beyond even the board, we want the community to hear and see that we're
truly focused on the work and student outcomes. and we want to be transparent about the data and if we're doing the work that we're in charge with doing, if we're doing that work and doing it right, uh we want the public as well as parents and the board uh to know that
we're doing the right work. So, thank you for that question. >> And the final question is uh what just uh what board member Murphy just stated, where can I see that in real time? Lori
What do you uh when you ask Dr. Phillips in real time >> um >> her role and responsibility or >> um recruit that question the RTI B square or something? Yeah, >> the question was how do social emotional
learning advisors help schools implement social emotional learning with RTI to the second power-b? >> Yeah, so yes, we've shown that work. So if you think about that work, it's normally uh diagrammed as a pyramid. And
that pyramid represents what's called the multi-tered system of support. And when you think about the multi-ter system of support, you have academics and you have behavior. At the bottom tier is what's called good first
teaching tier one. So when you think of it in terms of uh SEAL, one of the individuals at tier one or two of the individuals should be the counselor, the school counselor and the teacher. And if I'm just talking about SEAL, remember we
said this year we implemented the seven mindsets. That's a new charactered curriculum. And that charactered curriculum, the um professional school counselor should be helping to implement it. but also the seal advisors should be
the experts in the district around that curriculum and supporting that curriculum throughout the district. When she mentions castle, castle talks about five competencies that all of us should have and I'm going to say all of us.
Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision making. Okay. And relationship skills. Those are the five competencies that
everyone in this school district particularly the school counselor should be the expert in the school. The seal advisor should be a expert and should be a walking example of those five competencies.
The RTI squared B specialist which stands for response to intervention behavior. We changed the name because schools had started hiring our behavior specialists and we didn't want people to confuse the two. So I'm still at tier
one. When you get to tier two, that's when your RTI square B specialist from either the district or at the school level. Cuz what that means is students at tier one are not responding to tier one instruction. If it's on the academic
side, it's good first teaching. when they're not responding, we then put in place interventions like I read. Okay. On the behavior side, that behavior specialist can support that student, that uh counselor can support that
student, and in some instances at tier 2, the social worker can support. We have an ecosystem of support to support what's called the whole child. When students aren't coming to school, that attendance liaison is at a tier two. So
you got your pyramid, 80% is at the bottom. Most of the time, 80% of the kids get it. Then you have another 10 to 12%. Or 10 to 13% that are right there in the middle. And then at the top, you
normally it's normally anywhere from 3 to five or 3 to 7% where they need intensive support. That's where your social worker, your psychologist come in, special ed comes in, or you work with community partners. But it's a
pyramid of support. And it's an ecosystem. We have all of these people, even Major Jackson and her SRO's, her shape, all of those individuals help make up the ecosystem to better address
and serve the social emotional needs of our students. Again, self-awareness. Who am I? Who am I? Do I know who I am? Do I know what triggers me, makes me angry, traumas, this and the other?
Self-management. Are people teaching me how to manage my behavior so that when I get upset, I know what to do. Or when I feel sad, I know what to do. When I feel mad, I know what to do. I know how what to do to make myself feel happy. Okay. Then
social awareness. Do I see what's going on around me? When people are picking on children, do I say, "Hey, that's not right for us to talk about people and pick social awareness, responsible uh decision making. Do I know how to go through steps to make good decisions and
then relationship skills? Do I know how to get along with people?" Those are the five competencies that adults are having to pour in the kids. So we as adults, if we're pouring those things in the kids, we should be
modeling them. >> So hopefully did that. >> Not exactly. [laughter] Um >> well, I did poorly explain it. >> Where can I go see it at in real time once the school year starts? >> Where can I go see that at? Okay.
>> The explanation that the superintendent >> thing the handbook >> where can I go see that at in real time. >> Okay. >> Yeah. When the school's open. I know it's not being implemented now because the school is closed.
>> Right. So next week we're excited about the institute and this is one of the places that we're talking about. Last year was about orientation orientation or orienting our schools but this year it's about implementation with fidelity and with that that accountability we
talked about the advisors we are going to be having in the manuals every school will get the manual and it'll show them but we're going to have a walkthrough session with our school leaders and our APs VPs and deans and they're going to see how to go actually into the database
the curriculum to see how many school how many of their teachers are actually completing the lesson. We'll also have a bi-weekly report that's going to come out and this will go to the regional superintendent. It'll go to the school leaders just so they can see where they
are because we want to make sure that x number of lessons are being completed by the end of the week. And so we'll look at those completion rates and then we have what we call not the TNTP insight survey but we have another survey and you can see those results as well. They'll take it one in the fall semester
and one in the spring. They'll take a a survey to see where when Dr. Richmond just spoke about, superintendent Richmond just spoke about the competencies. We're going to be um making sure that we survey our students about where they land right now with those competencies and then compare it
into the spring to see how well they are growing socially um within our school buildings and if that is helping the culture enhance as well. Dr. um Richmond and Dr. Phillips I think board member love is asking she wants to experience
the experience it so where can she go to get >> not a training not on paper where can I go see it at in real time so I can know what you were talking about on paper
>> with permission from Chief Broadway Director Bates Superintendent Richmond what we can do is make sure that We give you all access and you can be able to go in and look at your region as well. We don't have a report an actual report but we can create one for board members.
>> Board member love I think your question is spot on because >> social emotional learning should not be like 10 minutes right there. It is something that over time as we get this going you're going to you're going to
see it. And I also just sent this over, but I want to speak to what you're saying. Like you're saying, where can I see it? Where can I experience it? Once we get this in ingrained in the way we treat each other, you should feel it all the time. And I'm going to speak to the
days when I was in Atlanta public schools and we rolled out social emotional learning. We had these trainings, we had feelgood sessions, we had all of that. But over time, you could speak to that's social emotional
learning that I'm treating a person better. I'm taking a minute to think about how I'm treating that other person. But it's not just a school issue. You should see it in the communities. You should see it in your families. So we will also as this is
deploying and it happened last year as well, Dr. Phillips. It happened Dr. Phillips. It happened last year as well when we had those mindful moments when we sent out things especially during the ice storm on different things that you
could do and say to your families, you know. So, I I hear what you're saying like where can I experience this? But you should start experiencing it all the time. We just really want people to just start treating each other better.
>> So, so that we can keep going. >> Okay. I think let me be let me try to to clarify >> and I understand I'm so sorry I I get it now my colleagues help me I was thinking you were speaking of the actual report so when you were talking about you want to feel it you want to see it and you
want to know it so with it I get it I get it I get it absolutely so the beauty of that is when I was speaking about the 30 minutes a week with the curriculum we have certain Absolutely it's it's a quick fix for that we have the
PowerPoint point, but also every school has to identify a day that they're going to be doing SEAL, well, seven mindsets, the curriculum. So, you have some schools that are doing mindset Monday, wellness Wednesday, fantastic Friday. We'll let you know when your schools
will be doing it because they're going to tell us the day and the time so that you could be able to go into your schools and fill in and see it. I apologize, >> Board Member Porter. Thank you chair. Uh yeah, that's I was trying to you know clarify what my colleague was saying as well. We often
you know get the high level powerpoints but where can we see the data transfer like going to uh some data dashboards and also for our community partners to be able to click on the website and see because ultimately our job as a board is we're approving we're buying programs but and saying that we're buying
solutions but we don't know if these programs are actually being implemented like everybody like to use use the word fidelity. how they being implemented with Fidelity and do they actually work. So I think I mean I that's what I was saying earlier that we just need to see an actual dashboard and if still want to see it work I think you just said that you can't see it. So so I should be able
to go into the classroom or talk to a teacher and feel what they've learned. I should be if I'm if I'm asking the right questions. So um just overall yes these these are great great presentations but as an IT guys I would like to see it in real time as far as like having different dashboards where for us as a
board like I said now we can get um we can get access to it and our community partners who >> classroom >> yeah I'm talking so as far as far as how it's being implemented in the classroom what the data looks like and is it is it working the pro the programs itself are
they working and then for our community partners to access to our investors and the people who are who yeah who just get multi-million dollar contracts from the district are these programs are actually working and I think that's why that's why I was just agreeing what my colleague was saying but it got lost in translation somewhere
>> yeah I think board members we've given and we can reg um bill haven't we given board members access to powerbi before that's where the data dashboards and information
Pardon me. >> Uh yes sir, we have done that. I will say that that particular those particular dashboards do need some updates because we had to segment those from the dashboards that we use internally because the dashboards we use
internally can drill you down to the student level. >> Yeah. Um so we can certainly revisit that and uh we have some other ways that we can certainly share some information. Okay. >> So [snorts] >> thank you. Um I've got a few file
followup and then we need to probably get to the the next part which is attendance. Um just real quickly Dr. Richmond, I am going to assume that all of this is aligned to the TISA requirements in terms of we have to we
have to meet certain requirements by a certain year. >> Yes. >> Okay. [snorts] >> Yes. Many of the metrics if not aligned to TISA, we've aligned them to uh state
andor federal accountability. >> Okay. And on page 18, you all talked about inservice level improvements. The survey survey is just I noticed that it was
just families. And one other thing, um, what about students and teachers? Do we survey them? >> No, ma'am, we don't because well, we can survey the students. Most time teachers aren't involved in the DHA appeal. The
only person that can conduct a DHA appeal would be the principal, vice principal, assistant principal, and or dean. >> Okay. All right. Those were the last ones. >> Okay. All right. Board members, thank you for your wonderful questions. And for those where we uh need to give you
some additional information, we will. At this time, Miss Davis, would you please present uh the attendance? >> Good afternoon. Thank you, Superintendent Richmond, Board Chair McKenna, and board members. I am Stacy Davis, uh, responsible for the office of
enrollment, attendance, and truency. We are committed to ensuring equitable access to education for all students by providing seamless enrollment, attendance, truency, and school choice support. We partner with our families, our schools, our community stakeholders to remove any barriers, promote daily
attendance, and empower every student to drive academically and beyond. The next slide you'll see is our mission alignment uh through our office. Again, we just uh ensure that every child has access to quality education by managing those efficient enrollment systems,
analyzing our data to um reduce chronic truency and remove any barriers. The list of strategic components as you can see our centralized enrollment and registration processes, our attendance analysis and monitoring, family engagement and outreach, truency
intervention plans, the multi-tered system of support, community resource connections, school and district support teams and prevention and awareness campaigns. Next slide. Here is the breakdown of the leadership
within our department of enrollment, attendance and truency. I myself lead this work in ensuring the oversight and operational leadership by coordinating department alignment district-wide goals to ensure student accessibility and
improve academic outcomes through increased student participation and engagement. This aligns with our mission and our this aligns with the mission by leading strategic partnerships and ensuring equitable access. We also have the manager of enrollment who oversees
our centralized enrollment processes. This includes registration, school choice. Uh we also are responsible for ensuring compliance and student placement. Uh we um are involved in our uh district uh custody matters, our
homeschool reporting uh as well as any campaigns to recruit, retain, and reclaim our students. Our manager of attendance analyzes our attendance data by being proactive in all of our engagement strategies, monitors absenteeism trends, fosters a directwide
culture, presence, and accountability. The manager of truency directs those intervention programs and legal compliance for compulsory attendance. Manages tier systems support systems uh with persistent attendance and environmental barriers. And all three of
our managerial positions align with again our district policy and ensuring that students are present every day. Next slide. Here you see our system landscape and core functions. These are the programs that we use on a daily
basis. And I have to point out that our powers school, our power school enrollment and our PowerBI, those platforms have been critical uh in the work that we do uh outlining what those core functions are. Obviously, Apex and Aliv with our budgeting, our raptor
system, and the TOE e plan. Next, next slide. Here is the information regarding our district key strategic measures. Uh 8 point oh am okay the first indicator
increase attendance by 2% by the end of the 2526 school year. Our baseline was 91.4%. The goal was 93.4%. Our actual uh attendance rate as of June
11th was 91.9. So we did increase our daily attendance rate by.5%. The next goal was to reduce chronic absenteeism by 5%. As you can see, we landed at the end of 2425 at 30.2. The
goal this year was 25.2. That data is embargoed and will not be available. It is part of the Tennessee accountability framework. will not be available until later in the school year, but I'll talk a little more about that uh when we get to that particular
slide. The next goal is to increase our parent participation. These are the meetings that our truency team have through the SAR process. Our be present be great quarterly meetings with parents. Uh we did increase the
parent participation uh increasing from 69.2% 2% at the end of 2425 to 75.2% uh as of June 11. [snorts] And the last measure is to reduce our overall truency
rate by 2%. We landed uh the baseline for end of 2425 is 51.2. The goal is 49.2. That in information is part of our chronic absenteeism data as well. And I won't have those final numbers until
later in the school year, but I'll talk a little more about that as well. The next slide you see is our attendance rate and from 23 24 up until up to the end of this school year. Again, that
rate uh increased by.5%. You heard Chief Langston talk about, you know, kind of the ADA, that's average daily attendance and uh how we're funded through the county. So real happy about the work there. By no means are we satisfied with
just a 0.5% increase. The goal was 2% and uh we we are continuously working to achieve that goal. Next slide. So our chronic absenteeism data again this chronic the chronic absenteeism
data is part of Tennessee accountability framework. And I don't understand why the information won't be released until later on, but that's a Bill White uh question. However, I can share with you hopefully, you know, we're sworn to to
secrecy, but I would like to share that based on our internal data review, it looks like we are going to have a decrease in chronic absenteeism this year. And I think it's the first year in several years if I'm not mistaken that
we've actually seen a decrease in our chronic absenteeism rate. So I have to give all kudos you know to the team to the school level um employees and again we're not where we need to be but I think that we are
headed uh in the right direction uh in terms of the leadership and the support. Next slide. here. Board members and superintendent, we hold those quarterly meetings, those parent SARB meetings. Those are the
district level meetings. We had one less this year, but I do want to point out that those meetings have been more impactful because we have really drilled down to the concerns, the the actual barriers and then identifying what supports are needed whether through the
MTSS teams or through our community partners. So we although we held one less meeting, we were able to reach more parents and I think the outcome of those meetings uh were successful this year. The push and the goal is to hold more
meetings next year and really be able to speak to parents about the the specific barriers that they're encountering uh year after year especially. The next slide, uh, truency rate here. I want to just kind of, if I can real
quickly, I want to identify the manager of truency, Dr. Kelly Henderson. Dr. Henderson, can you stand, please? Dr. Henderson joined our team kind of late in the middle of the school year. And he
is a former principal. He brings a wealth of experience to this role and he has already come in and put a lot of systems in place. A lot of things that quite honestly we did not have before. We had a couple of turnover a little
turnover uh in terms of the staff but we have now gotten on a a great footing and with Dr. Henderson's leadership uh I think Truency is headed in the right direction. We have a lot of work here to
do board members uh in terms of reaching our parents consistently early and often and un having our parents to understand what it means uh for their children to be truency and then again just providing the necessary support uh to our parents.
So his team has been working diligently especially this summer as we have been given some additional time by the state department of education uh to go in and screw up our data. So that is what the team has been really focused on which is
why the final numbers won't be available until later in the school year. Next slide. Here are district priorities priorities one through four. I won't read those to you, but simply the goal is to increase
student attendance. As Mr. Bass pointed out, the discipline sides have done a great job in ensuring students are able to return to school, that they're spending less time out of school, and our goal is just to ensure that they are coming to school every day, and when
they're not, that we address those issues early and often. Next slide. the strategic plan outcomes achieved. Again, the increase in our attendance has resulted in more students being present uh for daily instruction. The
increase has resulted in additional instructional time where students are receiving the academic support and the additional attend the increase in attendance has helped to strengthen student engagement in classroom participation. the operational impact. Our attendance
liaison uh we recognized where the need uh where the need was for them this past year and we realigned them to schools with the greatest attendance uh needs attendance data has been used to target intervention monitor student attendance
trends and our schools have implemented more consistent attendance monitoring and family outreach practices. The financial impact of course the attendance the increase in attendance has ensured that students again are present uh on a daily basis and that has
contributed to hopefully what we will see is an increase in our funding. We've also improved attendance uh through the use of our district resources and support systems and the increase in attendance has strengthened what we believe will be the return on investment
for our attendance liaison. our audit although we ha we are in compliance with any state audits. I think it was Commissioner Murphy that kind of asked the question. We our office conducts uh our own internal audit. So we go out to the schools and
we make sure that our attendance codes are used correctly as we're running those reports through PowerBI. We're making sure that uh check-in notes, checkout notes are are received and documented. So, our schools receive, if
not bi-weekly audits, they will at least be touched uh at least once a month. And so, there have been no audit findings uh from the state level and all of our internal audits have been at zero. Next slide.
Driving attendance fueling success. our increase in parent outreach. I think I kind of mentioned that during a previous presentation about our enrollment. That to me has been one of the strong indicators uh of reaching our parents,
the outreach, the the continuous engagement with our families. We've strengthened attendance through our accountability through the regional design model. We've enhanced our data accuracy and reporting. Uh there there continues to be um some improvement
there and we've aligned staff and and the resources to improve attendance uh especially for those schools that needed the most. Our resources for schools again attendance liaison last year our attendance liaison and I've come to you before with this information supported
all schools. We saw a need in the middle of the school year where our CSI schools were just needing that additional support. So this year, uh, Superintendent Richmond board members, all of our attendance liaison will be assigned to our CSI schools full-time,
five days a week, and we have some other schools outside of CSI that will also receive that support. The partnership with the Memphis Grizzlies um, for the last few years, Memphis Grizzlies has really been um, key to our parent
participation, student participations. But we've gone out with the whole Grizz teams and we've really seen some positive movement in those schools that we targeted through the Memphis Grizzlies initiative and our real-time data and targeted resources. Again, those PowerBI reports where schools
principles can access their data uh in real time in real time to see what their attendance uh shows. Our service level of improvements, our show for greatness, it's not just a slogan board members, our incentives. I think we've done a
great job this past year and hope to do more of that through our student incentives. Not just recognizing those students in the gold category, but those students in bronze um tier three where we have said we we've seen improvement.
They may not have been at the top, may not have been in the middle, but we have seen improvement. our greatness at your door canvasing. Um just a reminder, we have a canvas in next Thursday, but that has been also instrumental in just re-engaging our families and and
reconnecting with our students. Our be present be great, which is our parent meetings have also been impactful. Next slide. major program initiatives. I just kind of went over some of these, but our recruit, retain, reclaim, R3 that is
going on now as we we're in the peak of registration season. We've been all over the city. Our school choice transfer process is is active and hot and heavy. Parents are requesting uh transfers to other schools outside their attendance
zone. and our regional support hubs through the multilingual um places also through attendance uh be present be great every day counts show up for greatness with Memphis Grizzlies um and again our greatness at your door and you
can see those dates and the impact of those initiatives. Next slide. system integrity and risk and with our data accuracy and compliance. This just ensures that student registration enrollment documents are accurate. Uh
you know these are students cune files. So any information that parents are sending us that information is placed in their cune files along with the attendance and truency tracking systems and this just supports all of our TDOE reporting uh and as well through PowerBI
security and privacy. A lot of our information, if not all of our student and family data is uh private and access is restricted only to staff. And we train our school staffs yearly on uh
Furpa processes and protocols, accessing student information and the importance of, you know, asking questions when parents call, identifying themselves, who they are, uh you know, giving key information about a student before any information is released. of parents coming in person asking for ID. So it's
it's critical that we maintain uh those privacy and security levels and uh the risk if the gaps remain inconsistent in accurate data leads to delayed intervention and support failure to identify special populations group our
EL students homeless foster care and this may result in missed uh resources and opportunities. the mitigation strategies, regular power school audits that I kind of talked about before, continuous professional development, Mr. Bass mentioned, Dr. Phillips mentioned,
we're going to be at the ops institute uh pro providing those professional development opportunities to our principles and other school leaders, talking about the real-time monitoring, having our principles to see firsthand what their data look like at the end of this school year, who they need to be
targeting, um, and hopefully presenting some positive outcomes through that. Strengths and challenges. We have our student support documentation including the parent student support plan which is empower school that we ensure that every school completes for each child our
truency intervention plans that Dr. Henderson has shown up the persistent the challenge to it is just increasing or maintaining persistent truency uh documentation through identifying especially the upper grade bands where
we are really seeing truency um issues in our high school students and requiring strategic resource allocation to reach our district goal. the utilization of datadriven management platforms. Again, I talked about the PowerBI and the real- time monitoring of
our chronic absenteeism trends. These are reports that we often send to schools or again, schools can run these reports anytime to to see firsthand what their data looks like. um the robust community outreach initiatives again
such as our greatness at your door. We're providing targeted support in areas of low enrollment and attendance and just the ongoing need for technology synchronization to make sure that there are some seamless updates between the parent portal and the internal tracking
of PowerBI. consistent adherence to Tennessee law, which we are um always reemphasizing to communicating to our parents about compulsory attendance. when they come in, they want to withdraw. They want to be released from compulsorary
attendance. Making sure that parents understand what their rights are uh in terms of student attendance and just trying to address and decrease our student mobility rate, the frequent transfers, which kind of makes it difficult for us to kind of track what
those interventions are sometimes when students are moving from school to school. recommendations and next steps. Request for the board just continued investment in datadriven systems to monitor not just truency metrics uh attendance
metrics overall. Uh we want support from you for expanding our community outreach initiatives to engage families directly in directly in neighborhoods. Oftent times with truency if parents understand that you you just need to send us a note
if your child was out because they were sick send us a note. I really really want to do um more outreach to inform our parents of what we need so that we can help them and resource allocation to maintain attendance and truency
initiatives for year round success. I know Commissioner Love you mentioned at the last meeting how recruitment should be year round. So we just want to make sure that we are we are doing those things and um that's that's about it.
Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Davis, for that report. >> Board member Love. You turned your >> a couple of clarifying questions. You spoke about the uh attendance specialists moving
to the CSI schools? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Um what is your rationale for doing that? As you know, each quarter we have to present out on compat. Dr. Richmond has talked about this and as we've looked at the data and and it may sound cliche,
but the data was truly speaking to us. So again, attendance liaison supported all schools, but you have a school like middle college high school or a Richland Elementary School where the support from attendance liaison is not as high as a
Hamilton K8 or a Georgian Hills Middle. So when we looked at the information at the data, it showed us or what told us that effective attendance liaison at a school 5 days a week with parent to to to be able to interact and communicate with
parents because if I parent I come in Miss White Law, why is your baby absent? Your baby was absent yesterday. Can you send me a note or oh he's tardy this morning? But that consistent having that one person there to engage families to
make sure that that information because our CSI numbers are so high. Our chronic absenteeism, the CSI region leads those numbers in chronic absenteeism. So when we made the shift mid year, we saw by the end of this year the numbers either
stabilized or they went down. >> Next question. Um the CSI schools, this is a clarifying question. The CSI schools are um the state deemed them as the bottom 5%.
>> Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. >> What if uh there were some schools not classified as C uh CF >> CSI? Um and uh
I lost my train of thought. What if there um I have some schools in my district that are not classified as [snorts] what you just said, but they have a high uh truency rate and
attendance issue. >> Yes, ma'am. So to your question, to answer your question, CSI, ATSI, and TSI, those schools will receive support. >> But >> schools, I know that's a Bill White question approaching and targeted, but schools
outside of those categories, Commissioner Love, your Cordova High School, your Overton High School, your Douglas High School, Raleigh Egyp, they will also receive support full-time from an attendance leazison. So we identified the top 20 schools with the highest
chronic absenteeism outside of CSI who will also receive an attendance liaison >> and they are based on feeder patterns. >> They're based on feeder patterns and they're based on again high chronic absenteeism, high truency. >> You talked about I'm um you talked about
the district's truency rate going down. Um, I have a question that can be attributed to uh Michael Bates um the district not suspending kids
no more than uh 5 days six. Yeah. >> And um that's just a clarifying question. Um, last question. Um, greatness at your door. How many
students do, uh, we do it every year. How many students are bought back to the district and how many truent students um, are not truent? So, Commissioner Love, I don't have
those numbers in front of me, but I will say this. Although I'm advertising next Thursday as a reminder to you all, we've been doing greatness at your door since after testing. So, our office enrollment attendance and truency were out. We
targeted those students who in April, we targeted those students who left the district, did not finish the year, had high chronic absenteeism, and or were truent. Uh, I can tell you roughly we start at about 2500 and then of course it's centralized to the neighborhoods
that we are focusing in on. But I will have those numbers to you by the end of this week on how many we brought back. >> As a followup, I've been asking this question for three years. No, I haven't had any district staff to
give me any students [snorts] uh direct I haven't had any staff to give me the direct student number. We knocked on 400
doors and we bought 10% of those kids bed. What are they doing now? We intervene and uh parents uh the district intervene
and what are we doing now to keep those students in school. So we >> I have been asking that question for three years >> and you have you have Commissioner Love and I want to say that I provided a slide but your question is what are we
doing to keep them in school and part of that is tracking the discipline tracking the out of school suspensions tracking whether or not it's health related and and if you need additional support through mental health services so we have been tracking those students and
I'm going be honest with you that some of those students we call, we send an email, we send certified letters, we going to knock on your door, we going to knock on your emergency contact door, and at some point then unfortunately those students have to be referred to court. And that is for some of those
cases we're in the court process of um the courts looking at those students for for intervention as well. >> The former superintendent told me the board 500. I have yet to see the number. >> Yes, ma'am.
>> And I just want to be sure that we are recruiting the kids back and we have the programs in place for the [snorts] students. We're spending money
on a program and I don't see the return on investment. And Commissioner to that point, I think it was Commissioner Porter that said it in our last meeting that the district offers so many programs and services. And that's what we try to do. We just try to educate our
our parents. If you help us to get your child to school, whether they're car riders, bus riders, walkers, we get them to school. We can provide the necessary services for them and we do the followup. We're small, we're lean, we're
mighty, but we can do those follow-ups, but we also need the parents to help us help them. >> I need to see that. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Uh year after year on paper. >> Yes, ma'am. >> No edits. >> Let me [laughter] let me let me try to
answer that question though. Board member Love, in my mind, my mind is always trying to uh operationalize what the board is requesting. if prior to the board's request, there's no way
of of of us tracking it. So, for example, greatness at your door next week, we could easily say, um, Miss Davis, and I remember when we went out in in Canvas, we had list of students,
but we found out when we went out to knock on some of the doors, some of the students were already registered. Okay. So, the data from the onset was what you would call skewed because we may have
knocked on the door, the student was already there or we may have gone and knocked on a door and the parent said, "Okay, I'mma go and register." So, we could give you a number in regards to how many doors we knock on that we touch
bases with that parent and we know that student goes and registered. That's one set of data. Then I guess what you're saying is let's say we go out next week in the Woodstock area like we're going and we knock on 300 doors and 100
students register for school. So now you have a 100 students register for school. And if I'm correct, what you're asking us to do is as a central office, those 100 students may not all be going to Woodstock. They may be assigned to, let's say, four or five different
schools. So then we've got to find a way to track them going to f four or five different schools and then who were those kids. We would have to have somebody build shop. I I want you to understand how difficult this is. He
would have to know who those 100 kids are. We would then have to flag those students and then somebody would have to wait and see if those students stay the entire year where some of them may leave come back some of them may stay in
Christmas leave come back it's difficult and that's a job that then somebody would have to say I'm going to do and it's going to be more than aund kids it's going to probably be somewhere in the ballpark of like Stacy said every
year we probably have 2500 to 3,000 kids that what I would call are highly mobile and it's an in out migration of kids that we would have to have some type of mechanism for tracking and so I just want the board to understand what the
request is but also I want the board to process in their mind how we would have to look at how do we track for that if that's what you're requesting um partially
I'm not asking for uh schools. I'm asking for the supports uh the supports, >> okay, >> the students and the families are getting to help them stay in school.
>> Gotcha. Fair enough. And I think we can speak to that, but we'll we'll we'll get you a list of >> I'm not asking for school names or district names. I'm asking uh you connected with a 100 parents.
>> Yes, ma'am. >> This is what the district is doing to help them stay in school. >> Yes, ma'am. >> The parents and the uh >> students. >> Students. >> Yes, ma'am. All right. Thank you. >> You got it.
>> Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. >> Stacy. >> Yes. Yes, ma'am. >> Board member Murphy. >> Um, I don't know exactly what question Stephanie asked cuz I'm probably going to ask one of the same questions, but um, one of my questions I wanted to ask
is, didn't we have a company before that was knocking on doors when our kids were chewing? >> Not to my knowledge. Was it >> Kesa? >> I don't think they were knocking on doors. >> They were supposedly they were
recruiting kids, but I don't know about if that consisted of knocking on doors. >> They was recruiting. >> They were calling. >> And so we we don't have that in place anymore? >> No, ma'am.
>> Okay. That was that was one of my questions. Um, next question is, um, what is the district's actual attendance rate as of right now? >> 91.9%. >> Yes, that's where we landed on as of
June 11th, 91.9%. >> An increase of.5%. >> With an increase of.5. Um, and what is MSE's current enrollment numbers? What are we looking like with those numbers? Uh, Bill, can you give us the exact
enrollment numbers with and without charter? >> Yeah, let me look up the exact Give me just a minute. >> Okay. >> You have another question. We can go and then we'll come back to Bill. >> I I do. I have another question. Uh, I wrote it down.
Um, which system listed under the support landscape and core functions is used to document, track and report students behavior incidents and how uh does it support uh decision- making?
>> Uh we use PowerBI. Uh and the way it supports decision making is we uh as a district uh weekly, quarterly, daily we look at the data and we use what's called the SDIS uh approach uh where we look at data uh
baseline data, real time data. We ask feedback questions. We put strategies in place. We put people in place to execute those strategies after we've set proficiency targets. That's why you can currently see setting those proficiency targets and coming here and reporting
today. We've met many of the targets that we've set because we had those targets in place by looking at data and putting in place strategies to address it. >> Okay. Thank you. I have no further questions. Oh,
>> board member. Okay. >> Thank you, chair. I want to be conscious of time. I see it's already 5:00. I'm going to let these beautiful people out of here. I only had one question. Um, as far as the policy is concerned, and we you guys can get back to me. Um, I was
looking up the credit credit recovery we allow the students to do. We don't have a minimum amount of days that students are required to attend school. So there's no incentive for them to attend if there's not a restriction as to how many days they have to attend before they can graduate. And I was looking up as I was sitting here looking at other
municipalities and looking at their policies and how they with the requirements that they have for students to be able to graduate. We have essentially no minimum amount of days for students to attend school. So, I want us to look at that and see if we could have a policy because the students shouldn't have missed school all year
and then they get to do two, three weeks of extensive credit recovery and then they get to graduate. And then then we're then we're looked at as not graduating students that are competent because there's no guidelines of the students to be in class in the first place, especially for those students that don't have a desire to go to
college afterwards. They'll just, you know, come in and do the work and graduate and be done. So, I want us to look at the policy to see how we can make some adjustments to that. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Uh, board chair McKenna and, uh, Dr.
Richmond, if you'd like me to give those enrollment numbers. >> Yes, please. >> Okay. Uh, total enrollment, all students, we ended the year with 105,692. Uh 19,558 19,558
of those students are charter school students. Thank you. Board member Murphy. Did that answer your question? You want to turn it on? [laughter] >> I can't turn it on into >> I'm sorry. Do I need to repeat those? >> Yes, sir.
>> Okay. So, we ended this last school year with the total district-wide enrollment being 105,692, but of that 19,558 [snorts] were charter students, charter school students. >> Okay.
Thank you. >> You're welcome. Thank you, >> Board Member Porter. Thank you, chair. Um, it seems like because we all we've been caught up in this truency conversation for a long time and so it seems like there's no
real consequence for children not showing up to school. And so I do think that we can do a better job because again it is it's the district offers a lot of resources. Juvenile court offers a lot of resources. And so but the problem is if the child's not at the school, you won't be able to get the
resources. and if they're not getting being able to go to juvenile court, they won't see the resources that those people offer as well. So, I think we can do a better job as a board superintendent to raise this issue higher on on the DA's >> agenda. Yes, sir. >> And so, again, cuz we got to push cuz if
>> I'm sorry, I'll let them finish cuz cuz what I'm saying if um if again [snorts] if we can't do nothing about the parent Yes, sir. getting a child to school and the DA may may not want to get into that argument about I don't want to keep locking up parents especially disadvantaged parents. So we
have to come up with some sort of mechanis mechanism say hey let's just enforce the laws that's already on the books because it's some tough laws on the books. >> Yes sir. >> Dealing with this right now. So I think that us as a as a board we can you know just raise the issue higher and then just you know continue to advocate for
somebody to just enforce the law. >> Yeah. Let me that's a great question and I really want to give just a little bit of context. So when students are classified as being truent that means they have five or more days of unexcused
absences. Okay, five or more days. And if you think about our attendance went up, our chronic absenteeism went down, and our truency rate is probably going to be somewhat flat. I'm
going just say flat, even though the other two areas improved. If you think in terms of the safe task force, if you think about some of the things going on in and
around the community, um, as we start to talk about closing schools and putting more students on buses, if you think in terms of the underlying conditions that our students come to school with, asthma,
um, diabetes, um just kind of a a myriad of underlying health conditions. Truency again is five or more unexcused days. So, I want I
know there's a lot of talk about truency and of course we wish all 100% of our students were at school each and every day, but I just don't want the board andor the bar the the larger public to also look at the types of needs. Our
houseless population is going up. Uh with that being flat and us seeing some increases, I think what we've seen this year is promising. uh we we just need to continue to double down. But your point is well taken, >> Vice Chair Coleman.
>> Thank you and thank you Miss Davis for this and thank you for the help that you've given so far this year. I have two quick questions for you. The one is the request for board support. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what what it is that you need from us? And my
second question to you, are we looking at the number of students that we're possibly losing to vouchers because of the the the governor and what they've done this year? Are we working to keep our students from going in that
path? Because we know once they get over there and they don't perform, they're going to send them back to us with nothing. Thank you, Commissioner Coleman. Uh to your first question, what do we need from board members? Again, just to
support I need our board members because you all talk to parents on a daily basis and just helping us to help our parents understand coming to school every day. If you unable to come to school, what can we do to help support that? All of the
programs and services, like I said, that we offer. making sure our parents are submitting documentation when a child is out, if the child needs uh uh homebound, if the child needs uh any types of um of support that we're able to to do that.
So, I really and I appreciate the board members because I I talk to you all quite often. You're out in those communities just speaking to our parents and just reaffirming some of the things that we're doing in the district and where we need our our families to really to step up and help us to help them. Uh
secondly uh to your second point which was vouchers uh Mr. White's office maintains the list of students who are on vouchers. I have to be honest I have not our office has has not communicated to
those particular families. We we have for homeschool families those families that opt to do homeschool. Uh but we have not communicated to those families whose students are using the vouchers. And if that's something that the superintendent um directs me to do and
wants us to do, do that, of course, I'm I want to recruit every student uh to the district. But the vouchers is a particular program that I have not touched. Mr. White, I'm not sure if you have anything else to add to that. >> So, just to add some clarity to that, uh
thank you, Miss Davis. Um there are some and and I don't know if the board will remember when I don't know a few months ago I did a presentation on the vouchers but um there are some vouchers that we do know who the students are. There are other
vouchers these most recent vouchers the freedom scholarships um and you've probably seen some things in the media about it where we don't really know who's making use of those vouchers. So there are some vouchers that we capture because the state um
requires us to actually house those students in our student information system power school a as a record. Um and that would be those IEA vouchers that are used by students who um are
students with disabilities. And then um I'm drawing a blank on the I think it's the ESA vouchers. That's what it is. The education scholarship accounts which were those first vouchers that were limited to certain school districts in
the state when they first started getting into vouchers. Those we do know who the students are. It's those education freedom scholarship vouchers, the most recent round where you hear stories of students who are already in private schools getting those vouchers
that we don't really know who those students are. >> And I guess to add to that, with our homeschool students, we know who those students are. Of course, we're maintaining that information. But with the vouchers, if a student does not return to us, students that don't come
back for the 26 27 school year, we're making those phone calls to families. So although we may not know that you're on a ESA voucher or IEA voucher, we're making those calls to you to say, "Hey, we we see that little Michael has not
registered for the upcoming school year and uh has not shown up on day one." And so we will make notation of that if the parent says, "Well, I'm I am taking advantage of of the vouchers for for this particular school year." But you're right, Commissioner Coleman, a lot of times those families come back to us
after the first semester and and that includes our charter schools as well. >> Thank [snorts] you. Um staying along the truency line, um you mentioned that you have on page 32 when you were talking about the the um parent engagement
things that you had and how you've done one less but you've had more impact and we're talking about truency. Can we do you have any data about what those barriers are when you're actually talking to parents?
We have to document that through the PSSP plan, the parent student support plan. And again, the high numbers are transportation. Um, I was evicted and just didn't want to share that information with the school. Now, we connect them to the resources through
our either our homeless office and our homeless office uses their resources to help connect parents. So, it's the transportation, the health. My child, as Dr. Richmond pointed out had chronic diabetes. Okay, mom, we can develop now
a health plan. We can put you on intermittent homebound uh to help support you. So, those plans are well documented through these meetings. >> So, I think it's important that that is something that is reported publicly because some of these things we don't have the resources to do anything about.
There are other entities and systems that have the resources to do that or should at least be using those resources to do that. So that is one way that we can think about how we combat the truency issue that we are we're part of what our work could be. We could be the voice to say hey this is what we can do.
This is what we need you all to do for for your community as well. Um then I wanted to um that was the main thing that I wanted to say. But the other thing about the vouchers we have it's a it's a attendance issue. It's it's also an enrollment issue that
we're we're about to hit because we have some kids that we won't even see. So that means we need to think about continuously think about our recruitment efforts. So that that's the other thing that on the other side of that with these new e
what is it ESA or the EF the freedom freedom vouchers freedom school what yeah >> the most current is the Tennessee education freedom scholarship >> right so we don't some students have
never come into our system >> right so then we have to think about how do we recruit them in to our system so just thinking One more thing, Dr. Richmond. One more thing. All right. Board member love.
>> Pressure button. >> Correct me if I'm wrong. The state doesn't identify with a doctor's note. An absence is an absence. >> Correct. Um,
we need to be advocating to the state to change that. We can't continue to ask parents for a doctor's note and the state penalizes us for requesting the doctor's note.
>> We're looking to um we're looking at policy 6014 and I think Commissioner Otay kind of led to this before. We're looking to address that policy and uh we're connecting with the policy office to to your point to help at the state
level review some of this information >> and yes ma'am the final statement is to bar member Porter I visit the truency uh courtrooms each year and parents are so smart
they have a appointment in front of the judge and they go get their children registered uh the following uh the next day, the uh the day before their court appearance.
And I have been inside the courtroom where the judge just submisses the cases and they haven't been at school all year. I talked to the judge Todd Sugarman uh a
couple of years ago to have those parents go on probation for 6 months or a year to see if the services they were doing was working and
he hasn't got back with me yet. >> Can I remember Porter? No, go ahead. >> No, I was just No, I I agree. It actually have tr on the court tomorrow. I plan on going and u taking a look and see what's actually happening because you're right. A lot of parents know how to circumvent and again like I said, uh we got to push some of our other elected
officials, DA's office, and us as a board to um you know, just just keep enforcing [snorts] these rules. We appreciate you. >> So, we've been having this conversation, Dr. Henderson and I and I see um Mary Morris Bride is still in the audience. I'm glad she's here. We're connecting
with our general counsel office because again we want to provide every support to parents as possible to get them to get their child in school. But we have cases to your point where we see the student the parent will come in they'll
register. I have a team of individuals in juvenile court every week. We register them. We get them enrolled. Students don't show up. Then we've got to start that process all over again. So, we are working with our general counsel's office for those parents that
just refuse to connect with us, refuse to do to send their children to schools to see what we can do on the legal side uh to help with these some of these situations. So, thank you, Mary. >> Thank you. Um just following up, I'm
looking at your request for board support. Your second request support for expanded community outreach. What does that look like and how much is that? And then resource allocation to maintain attendance and try initiative. What does that look what how much what does that
look like and how much any I don't think there's a dollar amount that I was referencing. However, we do have a lot of our external partners that that reach out to us and they want to help with some of the work. a lot of times they want to do it the
way they need to do it, but we look at the data and we see how we need to do it. So, we need support from you uh in terms of our community partners just helping us in this work. Our strategic planning um group, they they're very instrumental, the Aissi Foundation that
we've been working with. So, just support around those partners who want to come in and and help us with addressing our truency issues. [snorts] >> Yeah. Thank you for adding that, Miss Davis. Also, uh board chair, this year
we also started to launch um celebrations, monetary celebrations uh via the regions where we would spotlight elementary, middle, and high schools who uh had improved their um attendance
andor improve uh some of their behavioral outcomes. We set some money aside regionally so we'd be able to do that so that we could reward and further uh influence uh positively influence students around attendance and
discipline as well. So we do uh we do welcome uh financial resources but we've also had partners I use uh Mr. Cedric Turner at a number of our schools. He would go out and provide um his um what
is this called? His hamburger um catering Yeah. catering services and food and things like that uh to support students in schools. >> All right. Thank you. Just wanted clarity on what that means from us. All right.
Okay. All right. Board members, are there any other questions? [snorts] Seeing no questions, it is 5:20 and this is adjourned. Thank you staff.