Let people know who's here and not here. That's it. Thank you, Mr. Jen. >> Board member Love, >> board vice chair Coleman, >> board chair >> here. All right. Next thing.
Purpose of this meeting. 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 metrics. Today we will focus specifically on the business systems review, transportation, real estate, construction, and facilities management. At this time, I will turn the floor over to Superintendent Dr. Richmond to begin the review. Dr. Richmond.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, and good afternoon to everyone who's here today. Uh, today we will go over transportation, uh, real estate, construction, uh, and facilities management, uh, or CCTE. Uh,
we do clue and we do community based instruction. Um our contractor um that we currently serve um have some of the newest vehicles or buses. Um they have new equipment technology and we have over
36060 buses in the fleet. We also utilize um have air conditioner for every bus. Um we have a six camera surveillance system as well as we do uh GPS tracking landscape and core function standpoint.
Um we use edgil log and edgy tracker first with edil log advance or the ESQL um well-based program. We use this to um computerize our pupil transportation data. Um we do this to modify any
students um from power school to look at how we do our stops, our runs and our routes. Um we also use this for directions for runs and to generate standard using defined uh reports for transportation data. And then board members, you may remember last year we
introduced the Edilog parent portal um app. Essentially, this is a app that we use to help parents identify where their students are along the way of the bus route. So if we have about 6,700 um parents who have utilized this app, they
can see their uh student from the moment that they enter the bus to the moment they get to school and the moment they return. We also use the edger tracker uh GPS system. Um this is a way that we can track the speed, the path and the conditions and also figure out if our
buses are on time early or late. And then lastly, we use the edg web query. It's a program that we use to um um identify whether the student students are eligible and attend uh schoolbased and assigned to district zones. So our PRZ zones for elementary and middle
schools, we use this web query to identify the students that are eligible. Next, this is a performance and scorecards. Um couple things that we track is the number of preventable accidents. Um as you can see that we start in August when school starts and
we go all the way this this data is through January. As you can see, um, we've been doing a pretty pretty good job of measuring the number of preventable accidents that has been decreasing and we do it by the number of miles in between accidents again that is decreasing. Um, finally, one of the um
other important things is the on-time performance. Um, if you see, we track it as early as August when school begins. 84.5% of our buses are were on time in August and then up through January, 89.8% are on time. um we have increased
by vendor man maintenance um management of 5.3% percentage points from the time school starts and this data is through January. Next is percent of hazard paths reviewed within 10 uh days of request. So um we
often get requests to review hazard paths. It may be students who are crossing multiple lanes um to um um get to school um and those things. Um you remember I want to say two years ago
Walker had the incident with the um um the traffic I won't call any board members names who always advocating for kids. Miss Stephanie Love. Um but that's that's one example that we do when we hear um about issues with our students
and we try to rectify it within 10 days. Um as you can see um as early as as July it was a six- day period and then in December and January up to four uh reduced to four days. Next when we look at the strategic plan outcomes again we want to be on time as
much as possible with our buses. So we want to improve our route route reliability to reduce missed and late trips um through better coverage and our fleet readiness. We want to be heavy in communication. So we want to provide timely consistent updates to schools and
families to close all loops and concerns. And then we want to engage with our stakeholders who again are our schools, our families, our district offices as well as our vendors. Um there were no uh audit findings related to transportation. However, we
do get audited from um the Tennessee Department of Education using the checklist. We was audited as uh early as March. They actually just completed um the team. I want to congratulate the team. They had a really great successful audit. Here are some focus areas they
look at. They look at documentation for our current motor vehicle report. They look at background checks for our um bus drivers. They look at to make sure their current CDLs are up to date. They look dot medical cards. They look at the annual evaluations, the training records
for our vendor, um any complaints records for our vendor, and then they look at the drug drug and alcohol program documentation to ensure that our drivers are in good standings. Um some major program initiatives that we have, again, you continue to hear me say
we want to optimize our routes to be as efficient as possible. When we uh have the most efficient routes, it ensures that our buses are on time. Um we want to continue to integrate our student information system which is power school with edgel log to ensure that data is as
accurate as possible and we always want to continue to automate our recurrent reports. um some s system integrity and risk. Um from operational continuity, um we do from an internal control perspective keep our route sheets for
hard copies as well as we have it electronic. Um as well as we are uh continue to update our GPS tracking to ensure our route assignment sheets are up to date. Some of our strengths and challenges um as I mentioned before, we um in my opinion, we do a really good
job of um communicating with our stakeholders. We have a strong performance for monitoring our daily tracking of ontime arrivals as well as we have um according to a surveys great customer service with our parents as well as our schools. Some challenges
that we u always face is driver shortages. Um we're running right around 92% field for drivers. Um and then another thing that has been prevalent um amongst us the past couple years is student behavior on buses. Currently on
our um special education buses, we have um monitors that oversee um our special our kids with special needs. Um we want to look at doing it for our general education buses because um it can keep down incidences that we have on buses
with our student behavior. Lastly, for recommendations and next steps, um we want to consider possibly making an investment in a general fund for um those general education um bus monitors and then continue to look at
the um the safety level for our students on those general ed buses as the behaviors tend to tick. Uh that's the end for transportation. I'll take any questions that you may have. Good job, Tito. Um, superintendent, what
is the uh update on the Macio Walker? >> The Macio Walker bus. Take Thank you for that question. I think the Macio Walker bus was the bus related to students having to cross rain. >> Yes. >> Rains. Did didn't we provide a bus for
those students? I think we're provided. >> Yes, ma'am. We provided that bus for uh those students as early as last time we talked about it. Um if if we're talking about the same thing particularly you when we I think you asked us about the crossing of the lanes. Yeah. And we
added an additional bus. >> Yes, ma'am. We added an additional bus for a mia walker to ensure that those um students can can now instead of walking to school take that bus. So, per policy, um, the policy allows us to be able to add buses in situations where there are
hazards like that. >> You don't have to get it to me now. What is the difference in attendance rates after the bus was contracted? >> We'll look in that. I think Miss Davis
could probably look at uh prior attendance at a Mac Walker and compare to see if the attendance has gone up. I'mma pass it to her. She gonna answer it real quickly because she got some good news. If she had bad, I wouldn't pass it. >> Good afternoon, Dr. Richmond. Board
members, uh, to your question, Commissioner Love, we met with Principal Banks doing budget checkout last week, and her attendance has actually improved greatly since those bus routes were added. So I can't remember off the top of my head what the percentage is uh but
she was advocating Brooks to hold on to her attendance leazison because her attendance has improved so much. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And we've closed four schools down. Um
any conversation on getting those schools? Um I am particularly talking about the Frasier community. Um um two of those principles been um complaining to me that they um
walk to school, the kids walk to school and they don't come in the rain or when it's cold outside. Any conversation been had about increasing the bus route? >> Great, great question. Uh board member Love, we
uh had several conversations. I want to say as early as if not today, yesterday, uh I spoke specifically about one of the schools, elementary schools that we know has uh an extremely high uh chronically
out of school rate. I think it may be even in the 60th percentile or may have been around that at one point uh that I've said I want us to really look at uh providing transportation for those
students even if it may be in the PRZ. We'll be doing that as uh one of those upgrades to that school during this transition so that we can help transition those students from uh
Frasier Pointing uh and we can do everything we can to wrap our arms around that school to be successful uh from day one. So, we are looking at transportation specifically uh for Whitney uh and all of the other schools. If students are outside of the
PRZ, we'll be looking at that. also be looking at looking at it case by case the way we normally do with all of our schools. >> One more question. Um this is um do you have conversations with the city
of Memphis and uh Shelby County uh government to identify the road or the crosswalk that have been full of litter and debris?
Uh we haven't taken that step, but we do work closely with MPD through our safety and security department to uh identify where we need crossing guards. Uh and we also with our transportation team, we get out and we look at uh places where
they may be dangerous or hazardous for students to walk. We do that all the time. Uh as we merge these schools, uh we will look at some of those routes and if there's trash or debris or anything that would be classified as being uh
hazardous or dangerous for students to navigate uh going and coming from these schools, we'll take a good hard look at. So if there are any specific areas that you know about that we may not know about, let us know so we can >> I will call you. >> Yes, ma'am. I I drive that neighborhood.
Uh I can recall I told Miss Stewart when we were looking at merge in those schools, I went to look at Corning. Corning had a lot of debris in and around it and I think we've cleared all that debris from
around it. So, I I drive uh these locations all the time, assessing them uh for students as well as looking at our vacant properties to make sure that no one uh is breaching uh the security that we have in place.
Thank you. Please excuse me. I have my my co-consel today. She's leaving. Chief Langston, I have a question. I think we talked about this recently. Is the Sherwood and Melrose area where
those kids are down at Sims. I know for a fact that when the weather They're not going to school. They're not going to school. Have Is that something that we can look into because that maybe the middle school is it doable where the middle school and
high school could ride the same bus? >> I think board member, Vice Chair Coleman, I think the school start times are different. So, it would be difficult. I think the middle school starts at 7:15 and the elementary school starts at
>> high school. >> Oh. Uh >> yeah. I don't know if they could ride the same bus because they would be going to two different uh locations. Uh so we may not want to do that with them riding the same same bus, same location. But I
will tell you when the board asked me to revisit some of our PRZs in transportation, one of the zones and areas that bubbled up uh was the Orange Mound area if I
recall correctly. Uh and we did have some conversations specifically around Sherwood and it's chronically uh out of school rate as well. I think that one uh bubbled up along with mail roles had somewhat of a high uh truency and
chronically out of school rate too. So we'll review those uh attendance uh PRZ's as well as providing transportation. Yes, ma'am. We'll we'll review it. you said safe walk. So great, that's a great question. So Dr. Richmond kind of
alluded to. So one of the things that we do is that um students still have to walk even though they ride the bus, they still have to walk up to um the bus stop. So and one of the things that we want to ensure is that they don't have any hazard um as they're walking up
through to the bus stop. So, one of the things we do um periodically and particularly before we start the schools is we do dry runs to ensure that those walks that those students are taking from their house to the bus stops are safe for students to do so. And when
they're not, to Miss Love's question, um we're um using some of this hazard information to be able to improve those routes. >> Thank you. Um the uh PR zone
who identifies that >> uh board member love the PRZ is identified through our policy >> yeah the PR it's identified through policy uh any uh K8 sorry elementary age student the PRZ is
1.5 miles so anything beyond 1.5 miles we provide transportation secondary students anything beyond two miles we provide transportation and that's per policy but I believe uh the general assembly is also taking
up a statute this session it wouldn't necessarily affect us but I think they are establishing a 1.5 mile PRZ as a statute across the state I don't know if been adopted but they are discussing
that but our policy is already in place even if they adopt the statute this uh legislative season I think it may be I think it may be every everyone but I'm not I'm not sure
>> it it wouldn't impact us because again um 1.5 miles is the threshold for elementary uh and I think that's what it's written for is elementary. Uh but we'll we'll look at the statute and bring it back. But to answer your
question, our policy sets the PRZ. >> I would love to see um what you did throughout the whole district for transportation. You you remember when we did it for a small cluster of schools, I think it was
it was going to increase by about $6 million. Uh I also would like to remind the board we we're doing an RFP around transportation. So the RFP is based on what we had in place. So we would want
to be careful about if we're trying to bring something new and different. Uh now would possibly not be uh an optimum time, but we'll do what the board uh requests. But being that we just did an RFP, uh I would just caution
us about uh trying to do anything additional at this moment. >> Um noted, but I would like to see it after the RP is >> Yes, ma'am. and and we can we can forward it or we
can resend it to the top of your email if you'd like for us to. >> I have a couple of questions. Thank you board members for your questions. Um could you make sure Dr. um Richmond with that piece of legislation because I do
believe if they mandate 1.5 for all students that would be that would impact us because we we have done two miles for our our um secondary. So I just want because that Yeah. Okay. Um and I have a
um first of all thank you for this. This is very informative. I have some questions along the line of parents. This looks like a really whatever portal you're using is a great portal. What I would love to see is the data around
that the strength that supports that this is a strength and any um feedback that parents have given around how we could make this even better. The other thing is do we do any um get
any feedback from students and their experiences on the bus? >> I defer to Mr. L. >> That's a great question. Um we haven't done it um for we've done it for um we've done the feedback since we
introduced the parent portal log. We have that data for parents. We probably, as I say this, I mean, it's a logical and great thing to do, but I think we got to get better at getting the the students because they're the ones who actually have the experience. So, um, we
can implement that as soon as tomorrow. >> Thank you. That would be that would be great. And so, I think that was, um, the recommendations of next steps. Again, I assume that we're going to see this request reflected in the budget for
additional bus monitors. Is that what I'm understanding here for the um recommendations and next steps? >> Uh yes, ma'am. In some some capacity, um I have the the duty of being a financial officer in and over operations. So, that
means that I I get to come up with a creative way to include this in the budget. So, I can tell you that it is in the budget, but it might not cost us any additional money. >> Oh, I need to do my budget. Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm Yeah, that
creative financing. I appreciate that. >> Okay. All right. Board member Love has another question. >> Um, this question, um, let me know if I'm off topic. This question is for the attendance
zone. Uh who decides um what school the kids will go to? Because there is two principles in my district that
are fearful every year that their kids go to another school and they are being transported in this district. Who decides that? Um never mind um the
parent stays at the house year over year and they haven't moved. Who decides that? board member love through uh Miss Stewart's office uh and through our uh GIS tracking. Uh we do our attendance
zones through that particular office. Uh that particular office has been uh doing school assignments uh for as long as I can remember now. But I will tell the board uh if board members want me to because I've had another board member uh
to bring to my attention uh school assignment zones. Uh if the board requests us to start to revisit some of the school assignment zones, we will have looked at those uh assignment zones. But what again I would caution the board uh for every decision we make,
there's intended and unintended consequences. And those intended and unintended consequences could be shifts in enrollment and building utilization. So if and when we do that, that's the impact of doing so. What I'd like to do
would be maybe to discuss uh some of the schools because we know we've changed attender zones over probably the past two decades u as a way of rightsizing the district and looking at school uh
closures, repurposing and the new bills. >> I understand what you're saying, but I have had two principles in my area uh for the past three or four years,
a st a parent comes to register them in last year and they are moved to another school year this year. The parent hasn't moved his her or his address haven't changed
and they are rerouted to another school. >> I I'll defer to Miss Stewart to see if there's some uh nuances or things that have occurred in the in in your district lately. >> Thank you, Superintendent. Thank you, Miss Love. And I've spoken about this. I think I know what schools you're talking
about and particularly in Frraasier where the ASD hit hard and the zones were taken from us and then put back and then taken from us and then put back that area does need especially at the elementary level some resoning and there are specific schools right around the
Egypt Keystone Raleigh Bartlett Meadows that little swath where and scenic hills where the kids were reszoned a lot because of that that movement. So that is probably an area we should look at. Thank you.
>> I'm waiting on the conversation. >> When you get time. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> When you get time. >> Um I have a followup. When we think we're thinking about um enrollment and thinking creatively about our PRZ zones
and being strategic about perhaps waving that or putting something putting something in polic possibly that if we have a particular situation and I'm just thinking of a situation in district two where you may have a school
sitting and you have charter schools sitting around it or charter schools who are heavily um engaged in um recruiting is there um is there a way for us to think strategically around our PRZs and
I'm just asking a question in keeping students or even bringing students end because we provide we may provide transportation in a little less of you know >> yeah even uh chair when the ASD came
even for example they had ASD I think we've always had uh attendance like a dual attendance zone for if students chose not to attend those ASD schools andor charters uh I think though what
you may asking about is how some charters may have a school, let's say in Frraasier, but they'll send buses to certain areas to pick students up and to bring them uh to their schools. Uh
that's certainly something we could look at, but for uh efficiencies, uh it may not lend itself to efficiency. So remember, our buses operate off of three tiers. So that means that one bus is used three times. In order for us to
add additional buses to our fleet that couldn't be used three times, that will come at additional reoccurring costs. Thank you for that. I was just again I'm trying to think
innovatively and be a thought partner around that. Okay. I appreciate it. Yep. Love >> this is question. Um, a few years ago when Tony Williams was superintended, she agreed to have MLK
student pick between Tresman and uh, Raleigh Egypt uh, high school in um, Craigmont. Uh, is that still going on? the buses.
>> Uh, thank you, board member Love. I believe so. But if you remember, the larger majority of those students either chose to go to Tresvent, which we already provide transportation and the other large group of students decide to
go to Craigmont. And I believe we are still providing one bus, wasn't it? One bus going to Craigmont. Uh so we are still providing that one bus from that Frasier uh area to Craig month. Uh Mr. LS you want to add something else
>> and and if I can add it is one bus and if I can add the numbers are decreasing. If you know note that Tresmond enrollment is increasing so those students are whatever brother Bren is doing um those students are starting to migrate over to Tresman as well. So,
we're seeing the ridership decrease on that one bus because students are choosing to go to Treasure. >> Um, I would love to see the uh students on the bus and um if you could call their parents
and say Tresman is the best option. I um I'm being fictitious. Um um I would love to see the data on that. Are there any other questions board
members? All righty. Thank you so much, Dr. Richmond. Real estate construction and facilities management. Thank you, Madam Chair. Next for the business system review will be real estate construction and facilities
management. And before we get started again, uh I want to just thank Miss Stewart, Mr. Langston, and the team for the outstanding job that they've done over the past 15 to 16 months relating to real estate construction and facilities management. So, at this time,
I'll turn it over to Miss Stewart. Miss Stewart. >> Thank you, Dr. Richmond. school board members. Um I will start you here with the department overview and the mission. Of course uh we would like to ensure that all facilities, district facilities
and grounds are clean, well-maintained and supported by efficiently operating building systems as well as we're committed to providing modern innovative learning environments and uh ensure optimal capacity utilization for students and staff. Those are the four
departments under facilities there. FA facility in real estate construction, facility maintenance and custodial grounds. A lot of the conversation we were just having about zone school zoning comes from the facility planning and real estate management office. Um those bullets
there you see some of the work products. Um from that office that's uh the department that generated the facilities roadmap facilities master plan. We do have our geographic information system there and that's how we create school zones. things like the loss gain report
that you may be familiar with. Um we create we monitor and analyze the school enrollment and capacity and utilization out of this uh office. Uh the facility condition assessment database is housed here and modified as we do updates from with the other departments. And finally
all of those first bullets uh feed into the monitoring of or we monitor the residential and commercial developments and all of that feeds into the real estate program itself. So, real estate sales um
are governed by policy 702. In fiscal year 26, the board approved the board has approved 13 property sales for a total of 26,124,732. Um we do currently have eight vacant facilities that you'll see down in that
table there. Um, we also have 15 properties that are vacant land only. Um, I would like to point out that this year we were able to bring all legal services inhouse which provides more oversight and cost savings to the
district. Uh, shout out to my coworker and friend, attorney Perry. Um um and I would like to note that all of these vacant schools are in neighborhoods and are very expensive to
maintain to fix. So when we do look at um potential purchasers, they're very hard to sell because there aren't many north sides running around that had so many uh private private investors, state, federal dollars, all of that was
in the north side uh uh deal. So, when we look at these in the neighborhood, they're harder to sell because community groups and neighborhood groups have the greatest of intentions, but they don't have $2 million to fix an HVAC, for instance. Um, construction department. So, our
construction department manages the planning, design, and execution of all the major construction and renovation projects like building new high schools and new classroom additions. Um they also oversee the capital maintenance projects like brand new HVACs and roofs
and windows and other infrastructure um improvements. Um they are charged with uh writing our detailed scopes of work and doing cost estimates, preparing all of the technical documentations for our projects. Um and of course they coordinate the building plans and
permits. um follow the design guidelines, create our own district construction construction guidelines. Um and I'd like to point out here that we have implemented a very robust um compliance process in our construction department along with a vendor vetting
process and um more strict uh and larger better I guess insurance requirements. Um to that end we this year managed 1 capital projects. This is the list right here. You can't really see the
color. Oh, you can see the colors on your printouts and over here. The green ones are the projects that we will that are rather new and will be carrying over into fiscal year 27. Um, but all of the rest of them we had uh managed in-house. I'm very proud of this team. I'm very
proud of um all the progress we've made in terms of on time and within budget. The facility maintenance team is the team that's responsible for all of our building and maintenance repairs, all district buildings um including admin
and schools. This is where our skilled and licensed and certified tech technicians um are housed and of course they respond to all 178 locations. This is where our HVAC techs, our painters, our roofers, electricians, welders,
carpenters, flooring techs, our auto repair shop, asbestos, uh compliance advisors, fire system, brickmasonry, sheet metal, all of those um folks are housed in that uh department. And finally, our custodial and grounds teams
are responsible for monitoring and maintain our monitoring the custodial contracts, making sure our schools are clean, monitoring our grounds contracts, making sure we are mowed. We also run the field striping field prep for our athletic fields from this department.
And of course, our newest addition to this department is the new concrete and asphalt team. This is our org chart. Um you see that the facility planning folks report directly to me um as well as my three directors and then all the people
that flow under them. Uh there are 377 of us. Our systems landscape we use asset essentials and that is basically our work order system. So building engineers enter work orders from their schools or
their admin locations when they need to request repairs from a trade technician. So a repair that's a little bit more difficult that they can't do themselves. Um and then our maintenance department prioritizes those and assigns them and dispatches the text. Compute Clean is
our custodial and grounds or sorry our custodial software um where we rate the clean cleanliness of our buildings and issue um any corrective actions that we may need to issue to vendors. Facilitron is the software we use for um district
and third party users of our facilities after hours and on weekends. So all users can put uh their events into facilitron and that allows us to collect insurance and payment from third parties. It also allows us to schedule
security personnel and facilities personnel for events. And then finally, just like everybody else, we use Apex and Contract Advantage and Nova Time for our hourly for payroll. This is our performance scorecard.
You'll see on that first uh row that we're talking about increasing average custodial cleaning scores. Our goal there is 93.5. At the end of quarter three, we're at 93.4. So, we're on track there. Reducing our work orders submitted. This is
important an important metric because um as I said earlier, building engineers enter work orders at their buildings. So we want to train them to do as many jobs as possible themselves so they don't have to enter a work order. So if we see high a lot of work orders coming from one location, we know that might be
somewhere we need a little more training. Um right now um as of quarter three we are on track to meet our goal of 40,000 entered. Increasing work order completion rate of course is increasing how many we complete. And our
maintenance department goal is 94% and right now we're at 89%. Um delivering construction projects on time and within budget. 100% is our goal and um as I said, I'm really proud of this team. We're at 98.6%. So, we are right on track. And then uh the final
one is about real estate and it's about maximizing our proceeds um our net proceeds versus our appraised value. So we will always strive to bring you recommendations at or above appraised value and if we can't negotiate such
then we will bring you recommendations right under. Um so that's that's the goal in the real estate section. Uh these two charts the one on the left shows you the work orders completed. Again, we discussed work orders submitted. There are blue and you see
them over the last two years and then thus far in FY26 and work orders completed. We do um have a lot of vacancies in our trades and I'll talk a little bit about that a little bit later, but uh of course we want that yellow line to be above that blue line
or equal to that blue line rather. And then on the right side you see the custodial cleaning percentages and the gray lines are um our cleaning rates by region and district today. I won't read all of this to you but this
says the blue words are how facilities is um are supporting our academic uh goals here. So basically we want to make sure that everybody has a clean, safe, well lit um temperature controlled
environments in which to learn. We want to make sure our professional development places are also supported in that way. We want to make sure that our workspaces are um places that people want to come to work so that we can attract uh more folks to work for the district.
We do not under this current leadership have any um we had no internal or external audit funings or corrective actions. But I did want to point out that we do have many areas of compliance um for facilities like fire life safety with their HVAC um system safety and
ventilation standards that are inspected. Electrical systems are inspected. Plumbing and water environmental health standards. There are pest control regulations, custodial custodial chemical handling regulations. Of course, all the building codes and
comp construction coding compliance we get from Shelby County government. And then any regarding that um some of our results from our major this year. Um, again, this is the first
uh board approved facility master plan we've had in 16 years. Additionally, there's that $26 million in real estate sales again and the 98.6% of capital projects being within budget and on time. Our huge prior fiscal year work
order backlog has been eliminated, which we're really excited about. We've taken the work orders down from 9,500 when I sat down in this seat to less than 2,000, which is a gargantuan, humongous task that I'm so proud of these guys for
getting them down. Um, we do again have our fresh concrete and asphalt team and I've got some videos showing the exciting things those guys are doing. And then we have initiated a building engineer skill development uh training session that is a required monthly training for all
first year building engineers and for any building engineers who are not meeting performance standards strengths and challenges. We um are focusing heavily on our data and we have we do have uh now a data informed
project planning and prioritization project or process um strong project management on all of my teams. I have great directors and managers in positions and ongoing training programs in order to uh bring up everybody in
that falls in facility services. Um our challenges of course you all know very well the limited funding for capital projects much less um innovation and modernization. Um of course our aging infrastructure that we talk about a lot is difficult
and expensive to maintain. uh staffing of our licensed technical trades. So especially in the electrical, HVAC and plumbing areas. Um that's difficult in this market because they do make um good really good money um in other places. So it's hard to attract them. Um but
working with HR on that um and then again I mentioned the real estate uh it's difficult to sell some of these large expensive buildings um in Shelby County. Next steps. Uh we are in the middle of fully developing our preventive
maintenance technician program and that is specific to HVAC. Uh will help us decrease some costs for our contracts. Um it will also provide us a pipeline for HVAC technicians. So hopefully these folks will be trained as they're going and get their certifications and then
just fill right into the HVAC tech position as a step forward in their careers. Um we are in the middle of launching a facility project progress tracking website. So that'll be on our blueprint for greatness and our district
website so that you can see that list of I think it was eight projects that I showed you that we were managing. There will be pictures and there will be um progress reports as we move forward. Uh we're going to we're working on right now piloting an LED lighting conversion
project in 12 schools and that will be taking all the lights out of the whole school and turning them into LED which are much brighter, energy efficient. Um, just make everything look a lot better and we hope and there's no cost up front. So, we'd be uh paying for that
through the rebates. Um, we are again creating a bunch of trainings from asset essentials, that's our work order system to make sure everybody's skills stay on point so we can also track time through that. Um, and we're going to start in
our construction department hosting a quarterly vendor informational meeting so that we can educate the local and regional and national vendors on district processes and how you bid on things so we can hopefully grow Chris Leafy, construction director, likes to
say grow our garden because we need more vendors because we have so many projects, so many opportunities. We want to bring them in and get them some work. Um, and then we're going to looking realigning the current custodial and grounds supervisory structure so that we
can make sure that we are accurately assessing building cleanliness um and that we are uh have some equity at that job level and that is it. I'll take your questions. >> Thank you. This is great work. So I want
to give you kudos to you and your team. Uh this is to see that you have gotten what is it 9600 workholders down to 2,000 with the limited capacity that we have. Kudos to you. So and your team and
whatever you're doing um Dr. Richmond and the support that you're giving. Um I do have a few questions. So the first one was when you the facilities management overview is do you have enough employees? The answer to that is no. So, um, but I do have a thought, um,
with us revamping our CCTE program and that being one place where we could actually home home have some homegrown, um, students, is there any thoughts of us partnering internally with our CCT program um, and our students to sort of
cultivate a um, a a line, a pathway into doing some of this? Yes. Uh yes, absolutely. We have talked about that. Monica Jordan and I were just talking about that this morning and I've talked about it with Dr. Hogan and Miss Slate. Um we do have a
constructionbased program at Kingsbury CTE Center. Um, so yes, the goal would be to start figuring out ways that those kids, those students could get at least their beginnings of their certifications and then maybe they do a year at TCAT or
something. Um, I've talked to HR as well about if there would be a way for us to help them get any certifications, pay for those for instance, so that they and then they promise to work for us for two or three years and hopefully we can just retain them. So yes, I would love that
pipeline and then our jobs would just be just be filled. >> Thank you for um I'd love to see once you all map that out in a plan. I would love to see what that what that looks like so we can share it. Um the other
question that I have um again kudos to everyone several people in this room Dr. enrichment with um the facilities roadmap that we had the master plan that we've been able to do. One of the things that I want to make sure that we do is
that we don't sort of leave it there um on the table. We had a lot of people in the community come together and have some really robust ideas. One of the things and this is going to this is where that team of 10 really needs to to um to
power on as I want as I'd like to say. we need to revisit those recommendations and how you all have incorporated that into the facilities roadmap because one of the things I'm thinking about is that we're coming up again on another year
where we're going to have to there going to be recommendations for closing schools so that we can modernize and so what does it look like for us to bring the those groups back together particularly around community engagement there was a really robust plan around
that and if I I think there was um a budget associated with that as well which we would need to bring to the table now so that we could definitely implement that with fidelity and also thinking about the um public private partnerships we are envisioning we've
learned a lot with the White Haven um building um and so I want to make sure that we we take the opportunity and we don't miss an opportunity and we continue that work so whatever you we need to do. Um, board member Otay and I
as the co-chairs of that that um committee, let us know when you're ready to sit down and let's keep moving because I think people are are they're excited and they're they're ready to do the work because we did our part. So, I want to thank you for that. Um, the next
thing I wanted to ask was um the money that we have we have raised the revenue gen that we've generated if there's a way to like demonstrate or show what we're doing with those those funds. Um
I am concerned because we had some we had some promises made to us by XAI in terms of those four buildings. I would like to know have they um adhered to that promise and to what
extent have they or have not? I know that we also um had a umou with the Musk Foundation and I'd like to know where we are on that, what they have and have not done so that we can work with our partners at the chamber to
figure out what we may need to do. So that's that's what I want to make sure that I brought to you. >> Uh thank you, Madam Chair, uh for that question. Uh the team and I had a conversation about that today. What I've asked the team to do is to
work with me to prepare a brief uh to give to the board this week uh regarding where we are uh with both of those partnerships uh in regards to the revenue that we've been generating. Some of that revenue as you know and we
pointed out we went to the county commission we asked for 34 million uh for life safety uh investments. we only received five million. So, some of the life safety um needs that we had, we've used some of
those dollars for that. Uh but we've also like take Whitney for example, Whitney Elementary. I think was it on the agenda last month or this month? >> Last month was the equipment. This month will be or May will be the install.
>> Yeah. So, what we've decided to do was uh in the case of Whitney, not wait on the Mus Foundation. Uh we've moved forward with uh making that investment ourselves since we're closing those schools and merger them and we said that
we would do a number of things. Uh I've started to go out and visit the four high schools. I was at Westwood yesterday because I wanted to see if any investments have been made uh there. So I've started uh those conversations. But also today what I mentioned to Miss
Stewart and the team is we want to start to uh use the monies generated from cost savings around contracts cost savings or revenue generation from
selling the properties as we start to make these capital uh investments and to see uh the return. We're going to post all of those things on the website. Uh, as I listen and I want the community to
hear. Uh, as I listen, I keep hearing community people say, uh, what are we doing with the money? Is are the dollars going toward uh, children uh, and the needs of children? What I've told the team I want us to do is to every chance
we get to show the public where those dollars are going. So, where we put a new playground, let's show that playground where we did the work at Richland that had taken five or six years to do, show a picture of Richland,
uh, where we're putting in a new turf field. Show the turf field. So, I've told the team any and everything that's happening under this administration, uh, beginning with January 2025, uh, I wanted to appear on the facilities
website so people can see the work that this team uh, has done and continues to do around capital improvements. >> I appreciate that. And you I got a visual when you were telling me that if almost on the website you have we
started out with $26 million and as we do things you show oh this was $3 million and so now the balance is $23 million and this is $3 million so now the balance is $20 million so people can see this is where that money is going and there's a running balance and you
can also teach people a little bit about budgeting and checkbook register. They don't use those anymore. But anyway, um I do have another question about the um vacant buildings and you were talking about how expensive it is to keep them, but also it's hard to sell them. One of
the things we talk about in terms of partnership um potentially with the city is they're looking to build 10,000 units. And I know Dr. Richmond, you've talked about this and you probably have already started it. I'm always a little behind you. So, so um talking to the
city about, hey, come get this land, knock this building down, build the housing, and then make this like sort of the our our students and their families have first right of refusal with some qual some quality affordable housing. something to just being innovative about
how we can help help um one build up the um quality affordable housing um uh market one and two we are um working to ensure that our our students and their families are not unhoused. So those are
just ways that we can work collaboratively possibly with the city and the county. Was that a question or a statement? >> Well, I I'll let Miss Stewart start with
some of the conversations that she's been having around affordable housing and to answer the question around the costs associated with uh vacant properties. >> Absolutely. So, I have been talking to folks at the works about some properties
in South Memphis. We've talked with uh both Mayor Harris and Mayor Young. I've also been talking with John Zena, talking to the folks who did the the hub, the houselessness place downtown. They're also doing one in North Memphis. We've had conversations with them. Um I
have had some private developer types reach out. um when we have the properties with a building on them, then that is more a candidate for somebody with a little bit more money because it's not only expensive to keep these up, it's expensive to demolish them. If
you think about a building the size of of Chickasaw, it's a big building with a big auditorium, a big I mean it's probably almost 250,000 square feet. That building is going to be $1.5 million just to demolish. I mean it's because you've got asbestous abatement and lead abatement. So you have to have
somebody with some money even to come to the table to understand if they can renovate it great. If they can't they have to come with the funding to get it down so they can use the land. So there are absolutely you're absolutely correct. We have to have some creative thinking and some creative partnerships
in this because it's going to take more than you know our regular property sales. >> Yeah. I'll just throw this in here. when you're talking to city and county officials, talk to them about pilots to make those work for us as opposed to
what they're currently or not doing. So, that could be a creative way of enticing private developers to come in and actually do what pilots were intended to do, but just in a little different way.
And I will add that um some school districts are looking uh creating their own housing authority. Um I've talked to the team about researching that. It would depend on if the district wants
to get into the business of possibly repurposing some of our own buildings to look at uh possible revenue uh generation. And so that's something else for the board to think about. We'll
continue to research it to see what it look like in the context of Memphis Shelby County School. >> I appreciate that. Board member Love, >> um, where are the
fencing and lightning for the school? >> So, we have fencing that's going the fencing that you see at some schools that have multiple buildings and they're doing those between buildings is actually security project. Yeah. >> So I can get you an update but I don't have an update on that.
>> Um lighting if it's there we crisscross we cross up on that one. So outdoor lighting in parking lots and like attached to the buildings that is absolutely mine and we did talk with Riley Egypt about their outdoor lighting and my team's working on estimates for
that. Um, and then if there's any other school that you have in mind that has poor outdoor lighting, then please let me know what that is and I will work on that, too. I know we had some parent welcome center outdoor lighting projects we were working on. So, as people tell
me um, where it's dark, I get my team out there and we get some estimates so we can get moving on it. >> Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Yes. I'm interested in the fencing, too. >> Okay. So, we do have Well, I won't say it out loud. Well, we do have a creative
project in in district 2 that might be a fencing project around most of a campus. Um, and then we can talk I'll talk with uh Chief Jackson's folks about their their fencing project because that did live with security. So, let me just get an update on where that is.
>> All right. Thank you. Board members, any other questions? Miss Stewart, are we having conversations around the schools that are returning back to us this upcoming school year? We are. We're having lots of them. So, we have an internal SCORP
team and I can't tell you what that sounds stands for, but it's basically every department in the district and what they need to open Kirby and Hillrest and what so from it to textbooks. I mean, everything that we need, lots of folks are on it. It's run
by uh Kevin Malone and Cedric Smith back there. They're running that and getting all of us together to um but then I'm also having conversations with the ASD and the charter school that's in those buildings to try to get any funding we
can get um to help us get these buildings where we need them to be. >> And can that be Dr. Richmond, I'm sorry. Can that be part of our conversation as we bring charter schools on that when those buildings the fact that they're obligated to do something. We're still
to this very day trying to recoup and do things for handling. I I still have things handling still needs an intercom system. >> You're right and it's on my list. >> Thank you. >> Yes, vice chair. Thanks for that
question. uh the SCORP process, school closing, opening and repurposing uh process is what the SCORP acronym means. Um we have posted the principal jobs for
Kirby Middle and Hillrest. Uh we know that going into Hillrest, we're pro possibly going to have to invest at least seven or eight million dollars just to open the school this year. So,
uh I want the board to know that from from the start uh because we didn't want to start the conversation around closing the school uh because we didn't want to bring before the board another possible
school closure at this late uh juncture in the year. But we will have to uh invest a considerable amount of monies. We're trying to work with uh the state and the ASD to see if there are some monies remaining that they will pass on
to us uh to help us with some of that uh deferred maintenance that never got taken care of. But this is again one of those situations where we need to share what happens when you give someone a building for a decade and you expect for them to
give it back in the same shape that it was when you gave it to them. So thank you for that question. All right, I don't see any more questions from board members. So, oh you so I think we are ajourned.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you everyone. >> Thank you team.