No one is required to participate or be present for any of these, and being in this portion of the meeting is completely voluntary. Our prayer and pledge will be led by miss Rosales. Thank you, madam chair. Before we bow our heads and pray, I would like for us to pray for, a dear dear friend of mine. And I'm bringing her name up as a petition prayer request because she did work for one of our schools in the county, Christiana Middle, as a counselor. Her name is Ginger Etheridge.
And tonight, she is fighting, she's fighting a a critical terminal illness. And so if we can, please if you can remember, say a prayer for her. Bow your heads with me. Dear heavenly father, thank you for this day. Thank you for being a gracious God. Thank you for being a God who listens and who loves your children. Lord, I lift up every person who is dealing with some type of sickness. Your word says that by your stripes, we're healed.
So I pray in your son's name that healing is comes to people's body and they'll be, and they're transformed. Lord, I pray for the pray for the board as as we're getting ready to make decisions on behalf of so many people. Impact not just our students, our staff, but also the parents. Give us divine wisdom and discernment as we make chart take as we make decisions. So we love you. We praise you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Before we lead the the pledge of allegiance, I would like to introduce the group
that's gonna lead it tonight. And it's coached by miss Heather Wharton and miss Courtney Gregory. And I would like for them to step up to the podium and introduce the group and share a little bit about this phenomenal group of students. But before, miss Courtney starts to speak or miss Morton, I wanna share a little fun fact about miss, Gregory. Miss Gregory and I had the pleasure of knowing each other way back in the good old days when UT had his glory.
We both were football hosts where we, recruited many fine young men and also got to meet Pete Manning. So that's our claim to fame. Right. That's right. Well thanks for having us tonight and and letting us, lead the pledge. But I I do wanna recognize our kids on winning their eighteenth TSSAA state championship in the small coed division. We've been doing this, we miss Wertman and I have been coaching these kids for a really long time, very proud. But, when you've done it 18 times, they kind of can can run together. But but with this crew that day, we woke up at 6AM, and we drove
to Knoxville and competed. We have two football players on our cheerleading squad as well, and the game had been moved from Friday night up to Thursday night. So we went, we competed, our two guys raced back to get to the football game, then we raced back and got to the football game and won the first round of the playoffs. So what a memory, to win a state championship and then come back and win the first round of the playoffs. And we're still playing. Go Blaze, but very proud of the work ethic that they put in because sometimes it can be thought that, oh, competition comes first. That's most important. And absolutely not at Blackman High School.
Our support of our school and our community and our football team come first and then, it's nice that we get to do these have these other accolades as well. So with that, I'm gonna let you say the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Black men, coed Chi Linh for coming and winning the pledge. Thank you very much. Congratulations on your eighteenth championship.
You all should have stayed up there. You should have just stayed up there in East Tennessee. You're going right back this weekend to Maryville, aren't you? Oh, that's right. Because Blackman is playing in the playoffs. Well, then we're not gonna play in Maryville. We're actually it's a home game that'll be on Friday. And I hope everyone can come and cheer Blackman against Maryville. Here. Go, please. Yes. Go beat Maryville, please. Do not want to. Thank you, girls. First up, we have the agenda. Do we have any items we want to add to the agenda? Any comments or questions? Yes, miss Sharp.
Thank you, madam chair. So I see where we have teachers. Thank you for taking care of them because they they they're there early in the morning and helping with the weapons detection. Will will they kind of rotate in and out for semester? It's up to the teachers. They have a contract for the year, but we do allow them to switch at the semester. We have a couple that for one reason or another had to switch, but we asked them to do semester long. Yeah. Well I'm seeing that too as I'm riding the buses and they're getting them in there. They're doing great jobs. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. Next we'll move to the approve. Miss Maxwell.
Yes. I have one more question. Doctor. Sullivan, so these are the stipends for this year and so we'll have to do this again for next year, for the next semester? Yes. Okay. Perfect. I just wanna clear that. Okay. Make it clear. Any clarification there. Or question? Thank you. From anybody? Okay. We'll move on to the consent agenda. Any comments or questions there? Okay. We have no public comment tonight, but we do have miss Shannon Groom with us tonight. And I was hoping she could come and speak to us just briefly about the resolution that passed regarding our nurses. Thank you. And thank you to miss Sharp.
I think the t TSBA just passed a very similar resolution to what the Rutherford County School Board passed where asking the Tennessee legislator to add additional weights or formula to tisa to help sufficiently fund school nursing in this school. So very excited to see that getting a little bit more momentum going forward. So Thank you. Yeah. It was just about time. It's about time. And so you're also the Tennessee school nurse director so that's going to be part of your agenda as well, that agenda as well.
At the most recent conference I was voted in as the director to, the National Association of School Nurses so legislative initiatives are part of my, duties for Tennessee. Excellent. Excellent. So excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be following that closely. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. We'll be following that as well. So madam chair if I can just a minute, if I may. I have spoken to a couple of our representatives because we want to see if we can get sponsors of the bill. I've spoke to HealthInEd and they're gonna talk if once we get the sponsors we'll
go to HealthInEd and then they'll send it through the full committee. So Excellent. That's where we are. Thank you. I'll let you know when we hear something from Okay. Thank you. Doctor Sullivan, did you have something to add? Okay. I was just gonna welcome. This is the first time here with us. Mister Roger Johnson is here. Our you don't have to come up with specific guides. We'll do a formal introduction in one of your other meetings. But But mister Johnson's our transportation director, and he is here tonight. So I just wanted to introduce him to the boardroom. Settling in? Yes. Yes. Well, can he come before the mic? Sure. I mean, he didn't he didn't plan to. That's okay. It's just on the spot.
It's just I figured you would you like to you could say just a you could just say hello. Yeah. Introduce yourself. Yes. Introduce yourself and just share a little bit about you. Again, my name is Audrey Johnson. I am a retired army officer. I'm a retired federal government employee. I'm also an ex senior director of the Denver Public School System transportation department. I wanna thought thank doctor Sullivan and my boss for giving me the opportunity to come here to do and use all of my experience, all of my knowledge to
try to develop a transportation system that's safe, that's reliable, and that the public can trust. That is our goal. That's our desire. And I just need your help as part of our team to help us do that. Thank you. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. Thank you so much. It was awesome. When I met with him, I was talking about, you know, the bus transportation world can can be political at times, especially in the county the way we run it. And very respectfully, he was like, yes, sir. I've I've presented my budget to sitting members of congress before.
And I was like, understood. Thank you. Understood, sir. Thank you. So Next, we have Rutherford Proud. Yep. So first, we have a member from TIDA here to present, doctor Wai Aluki to at Smyrna High School has been selected as 2025 John Semi teacher of the year award by Tennessee Educational Technology Association. Good evening, doctor Sullivan, madam chairman, distinguished board members. My name is Jill Pierce. I'm the executive director of the Tennessee Education Technology Association. We're made up of members from public, private, and higher ed, and we put on,
a lot of trainings and things. We work very much with Tulsa and TSBA. I apologize. I came in on two wheels. I was at a meeting in Bartlett and like most school meetings, they run over, but I'm sure y'all have no you have no experience in that at all. So, as a retired educator of thirty years in East Tennessee, I think my accent kinda gives me away, but, we're very proud to be here today. And I know that Wally didn't know until they contacted him for this meeting. I wanna give you a little background. Obviously, the state the Department of Ed does the teacher of the year, which is
a very distinguished award. But we realized that in our organization that there was a little bit of a gap about, teachers being able to do that were outside your standard education format, and this can be applied for for any classroom teacher across the state. I wanna give you just a little background so you know, this is a statewide award. With the presentation of this, Wally gets a free, trip to our state conference, all expenses paid. Nothing comes out of the board of ed budget, which is always a good sign.
And, so I just want to read kind of what this is very quickly because I know, getting out is always good before a holiday. The John Simmie teacher of the year award, is basically presented to an outstanding educator who embodies excellent and integrated technology to enhance teaching and learning for their students. This award is about teaching and learning, not just technology. But we do have an emphasis that we want to see that they're using it efficiently because that's always the main thing. We can put a lot of shiny things out there, but it's not good unless
it benefits that child in the classroom. So I'm very proud that this year's, winner is mister Wally Luckadoo from Smyrna High School. Well, I'll present this to you and if I hope we'll get a picture and all that kind of stuff at the end. If that whichever works out for you guys, and we'll get a picture from there. But, this is a statewide award and like I said, he'll be recognized at our state conference also. And, we'll have some things sent out on the national choirs with our national affiliations also. So Rutherford County's, shows what great teachers they have.
That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Somewhere around here. You want the board too? Okay. We have the best staff. We are constantly have someone up for awards and across the state and federal level. Just so proud. Yeah. We do. Next, we have the man of the hour. Rob, you're up. And so the board can see it's something that we are trying can you go back to that? We are you'll see that John has on the screen. One of the things our board agendas have that you can see is they are three and four hundred pages long at times. And so we're working to link, like, all our boats, everything else will still be
the same. But we're working to link documents here instead of having tabs, to hopefully make it a little bit easier for people to follow. Everything else will still look the same. The format just looks a little bit different. Thursday will still be the way it's always looked, the three and four hundred pages. But that way, people following along, anybody that has their computer, they can follow the links here so it doesn't look three, four, 500 pages. And they can just follow it there. Lot cleaner. I do like this. So alright, Rob. It is all you. Good evening. I I heard man of the hour.
So I have at least an hour. Right? Yeah. It was Rob. It is all you. Because everyone's about to throw stuff at me. So this is part two. Right? So back on the fifth we met and I think we met for five and a half hours and we dug into enrollment, demographics, developments, capacity, and started talking about what what does this all mean as we start to plan for what you're gonna hear tonight. And so a few things that I wanted to address just to bring to your
light from the last, presentation that got into those tidbits. So if you went back to page 36 of the enrollment report, so the big report that you got back then, we've had conversation about what is going on with, like, Stewarts Creek or Brown's Chapel or Poplar Hill. And when you go to page 36, just in Stewarts Creek alone, we have over 6,000 units that right now are planned to be built. They're not yet built. If you go to page 34 where you see the scatter plot of all of
the units, you see there's been a tremendous number of units that have been built in that area. And so when we talk about some of our elementary challenges, it's the amount of development and how we're yielding kids out of those areas. And really, what I'm setting up is when all those units are built, we're gonna be making some other boundary changes in that area. We we just can't get around that with just the number of units. The other tidbit before I get into this presentation of of the boundaries is if
you go to page 66 of that full report, from that day, that gets into retention. So we went back to the 2018, 19 k through 11 students. We had over 41,000 students. As they aged through to see who's here, we've had 13,000 students of that original k 11 that progressed and were not here as they move forward. So there's a tremendous amount of movement. We just think of retention.
Those kiddos left, and they were replaced by other students. And where they went was dictated by what developments, age of inventory, value of inventory, type of inventory. So I wanted to give you that context that the reason we're having any boundaries is we just have a lot of stuff going on here. So, that that's my prelude into this. We started out, in this process, really trying to see from two years ago how are things tracking with, the middle school zones that we thought would were needed.
And that was where it was also at the elementary. We we need to do some additional work. And so we've had a couple admin meetings here that with the color code here, where I met with the admin team to say, here's what we've come up with. Here's what this might look like. How do we start to address things such as transportation impacts, things with maybe some areas where, we initially thought, hey. You need to go here, but now as we look at what's happening with growth, hey. You may need to come back. And so how do we think about that?
How do we address that? That's what you as a board, we get to deliberate and and talk about. And and I want you to know that whether it's your admin team or RSP, we really take to heart that this is difficult, this is challenging, and we're trying to get to the point where we have some sort of plan that it is just known when, we have this growth. We know there's this number of students. We have this building that's coming online. It just won't make sense. And and we're getting closer. We're we're starting to have some some of the right facilities.
We have to plan for some more facilities. Right? And that's kind of the conversation that we started to have at our last meeting. I'm sure we'll have a little bit more tonight. So this brings us to that last blue not the last, second to last blue box, on that says, today's date. So November 18, where you have your first read of what this information is. So our current data foundation so again, just a recap of some of the other information that you've received in the past is where's our enrollment tracking? And, we're tracking towards 56,000 students, when we look at this k 12 enrollment.
So continued growth in spite of higher interest rates. We're still seeing, high demand of people moving into this county and, kids, being needed to be served. We have our existing elementary boundary map to refer to. Again, we're zoomed out to the entire county, so that's why it's so small. What the current enrollment is with the buildings forecasted over the next, five years out to 3031, this gets at, when we looked at Sewers Creek. They're over their program capacity or their functional capacity.
If you remember, we talked about that as well at the other meetings. How do we develop this functional capacity? So go back to some of those documents and you start to see the data that's trying to drive us into having the right decisions. The other elements that we had integrated into this is, how do we align with showing, not only you, our community, but our county commissioners that we're effectively and efficiently using our resources. This is why we're looking at some of these boundary changes as well.
So if there's places where it makes sense, where we have capacity, try to move those kids in there. If we have too much students at some building, we have to do something different. Usually, that is moving students to another building. We look at our, middle school boundary map for this current school year. You see those solid colors representing those middle school boundaries just like the elementaries. And then what was proposed for 2627. So again, solid colors bringing on an a new middle school. And then what our current projection tables are when we bring that new building on.
So what became very apparent on this table is we have, very limited middle school capacity where we actually need the buildings and where the students are. And so as you start to tie this back to the data, this is why we in the proposed plan that we had before this evening from two years ago, we can see that we still had some issues that we needed to address. So that's why we started to dig into it. So we did have some challenges.
So I mentioned Sears Creek Elementary, wanted to get them where they would be utilized because that's negatively gonna impact the student experience. Parents experience too, just trying to get in and out of that site. We also, we're looking at Walter Hill Elementary, as an older building. And so do we expand the Wilson Elementary zone? So you'll see that, in the elementary plan. In the middle school, we have Poplar Hill opening up. And so, we're projecting a capacity there of about 1,200 students. And, when we previously looked at this, we know that the zones don't adequately balance
enrollment and utilize our space. We looked at Blackman Middle because they're over utilized. Christiana Middle, over utilized. Rockville Middle School, over utilized. And then, we've not done a comprehensive middle school rezoning since 02/1718. Right? So it's been a while. We've been able to hold things in place, but we're now at the point where we we just have to do something. Right? And opening up the new middle school, provides that opportunity to try to address our over utilization across all of our middle school buildings.
Rob, I think that's a point that is none of us like rezoning. I think this is my fourth year as director of schools and third year that we've had to do rezoning knowing that we were so far behind in our building program and outdated on our zoning lines that this was work going into it we knew we would have to do. But not having a district wide middle school rezone in nine years. We're we're stretched too thin in areas that have grown over that time, but our lines are outdated. And I think it's pretty amazing to think you could have had a kindergartner in
2017 that made it the entire way through eighth grade at the end of this year without having I think we had one or two neighborhoods get rezoned from Segal to Oakland during that time. And that's all we've touched at the middle school level. Impressive. Good good excellent points to add to this. So when we started to look at the the zones, we we focused first on the elementary. And, again, just for the benefit, we're we're zoomed out for the the entire county. And what I wanted to highlight is when you look at the legend, what we've done on this map is to illustrate where some of those changes would occur.
And so at the elementary, we have areas from Walter Hill Elementary to Wilson Elementary. And then area b, we move areas of Stewards Creek to Brown's Chapel. And, again, that's where I go back to what I told you. The number of units that are being built in this Stewards Creek area is just tremendous. And to try to keep our boundaries as tight as we can in some of the other places, it will not be achievable. We're we're gonna have to be looking into the future as in 6,000 units just in that one tight area.
A lot of units being built. When we go to what the concept one looks like where we have zoomed in a little bit, so we look at this map. Get my glasses out so I can help you guys work your way through this. So with concept one zoomed in, one of the things that we also put on here is where we have school properties. So this also starts to get into some future planning of of where in future
will we build some, other capacity elements. And then when we look at the projections for concept one, what you're able to see here is, again, to my points, Stewards Creek still by 2930 will be over capacity, but we're able to, work through 2627, 2728, and 2829 with those, boundaries being able to potentially be in place. Caveat to that, if we build the units greater than what we are projecting, it
may not last that long. But, the goal is is we have these first two years and we start to plan what what is the next elementary space that's needed. Two things on this, Rob, if you don't mind highlighting. One, just for people who have been following this. So our work with Rob and RSP has been going on since '22. So we started with an enrollment analysis and building in or building capacity analysis all through twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three.
Then we went into a rezone proposal that the board passed elementary, middle, and high school initial proposals in the 2023 with a caveat to come back and pass to revisit six months before it went into effect. So last year, the board passed elementary and high school rezoning. Now, we are to the point of getting to middle school rezoning. Just to give everyone background, this isn't the first time that we've worked. And so, if community members are watching and if you're a middle school parent, you're
like, this is the first time I ever heard of this. This has been the almost four year cycle now. But if you will go back up to elementary, the current enrollment, Rob and show what happens if we don't do anything with Stewart's Creek. And I've seen the next year. And these are how many students actually reside in the area. This does not include any zone exemptions. This is just how many kids reside there. 2627 is twelve seventeen, 2728 is thirteen eighteen, 2829 is fourteen forty three, 2930 is fifteen ninety four. Then you get to 30311679, Brown's Chapel.
534, 519, 512, 491 491 and then 487. So while we know nobody wants to leave Stewart's Creek, we have schools close together. Nobody wants to be rezoned, but it's not fiscally responsible for us, at least in my opinion, to leave schools that close together and not utilize them. And have that many kids in one space. So you can see with the elementary projections, we're we're able to to hold all the buildings under the capacity through 2930.
The elementary looks good. I mean, it really does compared to where this we looked at four years ago that when we had so much that light shaded peach color was just half of our buildings and now we have one. It's it's a lot better than where we were. Yes, mister Tidwell. Sorry. I was That's alright. Rob, do these these projections take into the buildings that you mentioned, the projects that are going on, the developments that are happening, are you kind of forecasting that inside of these projections? 100%. So within that model, we have a subdivision life cycle that has a building permit
allocation model. So as we look at what's the developers are intending to build or what they have been building in some of these subdivisions, that's pushed in. And then as we look at how are they yielding a certain number of kids, with those first 25 units or 50 units, that starts to statistically help us understand, here's what this might look like. We're attracting younger age kids versus middle school or high school. In that same vein, obviously, there can be some variance. Right? There could be families move in with no kids. There could be more families move in with more kids.
Since we've been working with you, have the projections kind of lined up, with what you forecasted previously? Yeah. Good question. And I believe we've been at 99 to a 100% accurate with the projections. Where things get a little bit off is when we get into the buildings where some of them and we can track it back to variables like, hey. They built more units than what we anticipated, or they started to yield more kids because the value of those homes, started to attract different type of students.
So that's kind of been the value of the modeling processes when it doesn't quite work the way we looked at all the variables. We know which variables need to get adjusted as we've been moving through. This is now I think our third cycle. So we got some historical precedent, but it doesn't necessarily mean that's the way it's gonna end up. But these are the most likely outcomes. And most likely statistically driven by some of the datasets of what could happen. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Alright.
So that was concept one. So in concept two for the elementary, we again move, areas from Walter Hill to Wilson. So that's up on the North side right on our our county boundary. And those are the same areas. Right? In both? Yeah. Same same in both of the options. And then in area b, we moved some areas of Stewart's Creek to Brown's Chapel. And so it's a bigger area. So when I zoom in, the area that, we're looking to move, it's in the
blue area on this. See if it's got a pointer on it. I don't think it does. Maybe it does. It didn't show up on the screen. Of course. So, when we look at, the the street, just to give you a perspective there, of the areas that we're moving, this is near Amaville Road and, this this big chunk here just south of our property. And then, we take, an area that's on the North side, that's in Sturess Creek.
So trying to get things that are a little bit farther and on the east or south part of the existing boundary and moving them to Brown's Chapel, to be able to get the right number of students out. And we're not able to go as long in this option as we could with taking areas that are directly south in concept one from Stewards Creek to Brown's Chapel. So if you remember, I'm gonna go to the numbers. We go back to one, we can get Steward's Creek all the way till twenty nine thirty. And in this other option where we take the southern parts of Stewart Creek and
then the north and eastern part of Steward's Creek to move to Brown's Chapel, that gets us, only till 2829. So that's that's the big difference as far as number of students, that we'd impact or how long this boundary could potentially last. So those are the two things that we had at the elementary level to to address something that we know we have to to look at with Stewarts Creek. We'll stop there. Any questions about concept two? Doctor. Sullivan. I have a point. Rob will not be here Thursday. So if you have questions and you want him to run models or something, everybody
just email me, then I can get those to Rob or I can answer questions the best that I possibly can on Thursday as well because I can pull very easily the number of kids are in each spot, but Rob models for us very well as far as the number of kids in those spots. Yes, mister Zales. So we can relieve black men, Sewers Creek, and Rockville. And it feels like we're back at the same spot a little bit, not necessarily with Rockville and Black men, but with Sewers Creek. So two questions. Number one, of these two concepts, which one gives relief to Sewers Creek the longest?
How many kids are being what's the difference between the two concepts? Because you can't tell from here. You're just getting total numbers. Because I will hate to do this if we have to rezone and then have to rezone again because there is development going on everywhere in this area where we're referring to. And so I you know, it's the whole purpose of what we wanna do this is to prevent from a continuation of rezoning.
So we wanna get this right. And and I know we we we do it, and I appreciate all the data that you all the work because it's a lot of work, and it's not easy. But we wanna get this right, and we don't wanna have to come back and rezone. Because the way it happened is that it took too many kids from one school, and is it didn't really shook it didn't shake the way we thought it was gonna shake. Fair fair assessment and when we look between these two concepts it gets us an additional year where the numbers are similar.
So So in concept one, we have a 43 students in 2829, and in concept two, we have a 35 in 2728. So it gets us one additional year of a similar enrollment. What that's suggesting is that in concept two, the areas that are left in Stewards Creek have greater potential for more students to be generated. So this is where if you go back to the original enrollment analysis and the
6,000 units, where are most of them happening? And it's it's in the area around Stewers Creek Elementary more than what we're seeing in the South Part of Stewards Creek. When you say the South Part of Stewards Creek, are you seeing going towards Emma, Van Buren to Elmerville Road? Is that the area you're referring? Because there's a ton of development over there. I do know over by gosh. I don't know where the the road what is that Road? Rocky Forest Road is Yes. Like, where is is the is the northern part of this area that we would
be taking south of that to Okay. Chapel in concept two. And there's a need there's another development that's going on with right where miss Arby lives and my brother lives in McFarland with Arbor Heights. That's and there's another development on Kidd Road. I mean, there's just development going on everywhere in that area. It's going all over the county. Absolutely. But it's just like it used to be farmlands farmlands four years ago, and now they're just, you know, development everywhere. Doctor Sullivan, I think that's something you wanted to add. The way that Rob and I worked on this as we did the next two
years is our primary focus. And you'll see twelve forty four. Those again are the number of kids that reside. Not every kid that were projected to reside there are going to attend the school. They we do have a larger attend there because of a three school campus zone exemptions. That number is gonna be higher than that twelve forty four potentially. There are about 50 kids more in option two as Rob was talking about, because it picks up more open land. Where option one is going to move more current students. Option two leaves more open land, but still moves students.
So So concept two is leaving room for the potential growth. But it it makes it bigger. But it makes it bigger almost. Because it's it's moving more. It's still moving 300 kids. So it's still moving quite a few kids, but it's leaving more land you were going to eventually develop. So it sounds like in twenty, thirty, thirty one, whoever's on the board may have to look at this again. I don't think we're ever gonna get away from doing this every couple of years, at least till we stop growing. I think that was our intent. But Yeah. It's been this way for thirty years. I don't know a way to stop it.
The only way it's gonna stop it is put a we're full sign out on the county county line. Yep. So it's closed. Mister Tidwell. Yeah. So looking at the different concepts between the elementary concept one, the concept two, Brown Chapel is is eating the search creek on on both of them. But it looks like the difference, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, is on concept one in zoomed in view, it's grabbing a very dense area, just smaller geographically. Whereas concept two is grabbing a much larger geographic area, maybe not as dense.
And so to me, is does that mean that I don't know. Just my brain thinking. It seems like we would if we're trying to plan more in the future, the more rural area the larger geographic area is likely to pick up more development than the already super dense areas. So that would allow if Brown's Chapel's eaten up more than that, or or more geographic area, and those developments happen there, then they're already zoned Brown's Chapel in the future. It seemed like that could be potentially, a better long term plan.
Even though the numbers generated show that it's gonna be 50 more students in concept two at Stewarts Creek. I'm just thinking about the potential potential developments. So Yeah. What you're getting at is the current kids versus future kids as the developments happen. So for sure if you take areas like in concept 2 that are to be developed and are generating about 50 less students, it potentially could be as as you stated. Doctor Sullivan, do you have a recommendation? Is there one plan that works best for you?
Not particularly. Just know that if concept two is going to leave more kids at Stewarts Creek, and so if areas by Stewarts Creek grow quicker, then some of those concerns that we currently are addressing, we we could be right back here. That's my only concern with concept two is that it leaves more kids at Stewards Creek. Okay. That that's my only concern. I mean, it's 300 kids roughly at either one. Miss Darby. I know I've already gotten several emails about the Doris Creek Elementary rezone being back
on the table. And obviously, none of it was done intentionally, but I I am extremely disheartened that we told the public they would be going back to Stewart's Creek after the new elementary school was built. And we are now talking about telling some of those same families that they're now gonna have to go back. I think at the elementary level in particular, that's really hard to be pulling a kid back and forth. And I someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think when we initially started all the rezoning conversation, one of our top things was not wanting to have to do this and wanting to start really looking at, you know, picking a zone
and trying to stick with it. And that might mean that a school sits more empty than another for a year or two until the building catches up with it. But at least then we're not rezoning every two years. So I think it's important that that we look at it in that aspect as well. I'm also concerned with concept one. It looks like, and it's sometimes hard to tell from these maps, but it looks like some of that is, like, right next to Stewart's Creek. And I can tell you now, it is not gonna sit well with parents that they live right next to that school, and then you're gonna make them drive fifteen
minutes to another school. I don't I'm not claiming to have all the answers. I don't know what they are. I don't know if we need to look at some really kinda out there, out of the box, unique ideas. I know I've had the thought of potentially looking at maybe doing a k two and splitting off Stewards Creek Elementary at some point. I don't know. I don't know what the answers are, but I think it deserves a lot of of thought and discussion. Like we've all said, none of it's easy. Nobody likes it.
I just have a really hard time with going back to people that we told they could come back to Stewart's Creek this year, that now they're gonna have to go back, that's just a hard sell for me. And it's really hard for me to think about us doing that to those really young students as well. So Mister Baughton. I've got three or four observations. Couple of directed to you. I've got three or four, observations that I've if you can help me with.
Couple of them directed toward you, doctor Sullivan, a couple toward you. The modeling, when do you pick up the subdivision? When do you how does the model work? Do you pick it up when it hits the planning commission at first, then you adjust it once you know the product that they're gonna build? How much for how much foresight do you have? Great question. So there's really three parts, probably four parts. The first is when they go through the preliminary plat.
So we become aware that something's You you pick it up then. Yeah. We pick it up then. And then we validate that when we get the final plat. Then third, when we have our meetings with the city themself on what they're hearing in the process of talking with the developers and builders in that particular development. And then the fourth piece is when we're touring each of those developments to observe what we're seeing happening there. And then the fifth would be when we start to get kids.
How how does that start to generate as you build 10 units or 20 units? Yeah. Right. And you've done it long enough. You've done this long enough. You have pretty good predictions depending on what the product is. If it's a zero lot line condo, $400,000, that's gonna yield one set of students if it's a 600,000 development, if it's a 800,000, if it's a million. Right? So you're you're adjusting all the way through this. A 100%. So we shouldn't be cut off guard as long as your data state stays up
to date, and there's no reason why it won't, probably. The only reason we wouldn't stay up to date is if we don't get his information, I suppose. So it's I'm fascinated. The more I'm around you, I'm fascinated by the model and and the prediction and how close you are to this, because thirty years ago, we shot in the dark. It it was just, well, what are they gonna build? Is it a starter home? Is it a move up home? What is it? Do we need an elementary school? Do we need a high school? What do we need? Alright. Here's a question for you, doctor Sullivan.
Looking at this, and I'm gonna kinda be hypothetical just a little bit, I guess. Looking at Stewart's Creek, if at 2030, 2031, we're, oh what, 170 students over, right, if we don't adjust? How many students go in a portable classroom? What's your average population? We go back to where we were last year with portable classrooms. About how many students per per per classroom? And the portables up to 25 is tough, but we try to cap those 24.
You you try to run them at 20. So in that particular instance, you would have to have, if I'm doing my math right, about We'd put them back out for Something like that. Because we still have the portables in the back at Stewart's Creek. Right. I know we are. But that that I guess the point I'm trying to make here, if we make no adjustments, then that's the other alternative. Well, we'd have to have a lot more. Could can you go back up to the current? Well, okay. That that Yeah. That's with concept two. And then the the third question well, go go back to that, I guess.
Yeah. It's 1,679. We don't have any room for that. Right. Right. You you probably don't have enough land Nowhere. But the soccer field at the high school. I mean, realistically, Trey, do you know any other I don't mean to laugh about this, but it There is no other land. Correct? Geothermal wells are there. There is no other land. Correct? Okay. Yes. So then the the kind of the third point is how much dialogue or input has transportation logistics had with this? Are we strict Trey's looked at it, but we have that as far as it
is is Looked at it. Can can we can we dive a little deeper then and see if one way or the other yields better logistics? I I hate to put our new transportation director on on on the spot real quick, but but if he could do they could do some kind of analysis, maybe. That's Trey look at a couple weeks ago. Okay. Well, great. So that would give us a little insight maybe as to which plan would be better. Yep. Thank you. Thank all of you for for that You're hitting the ground running.
He is. Alright. Go ahead. And realistically, it doesn't matter. Ultimately, my job is to make recommendations. So, I just wanna go back. What the board approved last year had we focused a lot on high school last year. High school had a lot of noise and that's where our attention was last year. So what the board approved last year had Brown's Chapel at six thirty one moving to 2,930 at five eighty three and let Stewarts Creek Elementary get to thirteen fifty. Obviously, that number is a lot higher than thirteen fifty probably because of the new
developments that I'm sure is there. We don't we could have put thirteen fifty, not comfortably, but they've been that high before. We can't put sixteen seventy nine on that campus. There there's just that many can't go there. Well, miss miss Maxwell. Yes. Miss Rosales. So I agree the points miss Sarvey is saying in the sense that we rezone and then we there's kids that were traditionally going to the school and now having to drive far out because that was the concerns I had. I think the other thing is that when we did vote it on the map,
it it showed that the zones were gonna level off and that elementary school was going to help relieve everyone. Because what really started this was that the Sewers Creek PTO emailed us and wanting us to do something because of the overcrowded in that school. There were classrooms that were returning to class into classes that were turned into classrooms. And so that's what really drove the whole comfort really drive the conversation to do
something in elementary school. But it just feels really interesting that we're kinda a little bit back to Square 1 in trying to help relieve Sirs Creek right now. So I just don't I think for me as a board member, I don't wanna get back into rezoning again after we just rezone. So I don't know how that's gonna shake out with all the development that's happening because we can't control the development. No. We can't. Houses are coming in. Yeah. And who's gonna send the kids to the school either? I wanna give you another way to look at this where you can see how
far we've come. Here we are on November 2025, and we only have one elementary building that we're talking about having a challenge. If you go back when we initially righted, some of the boundaries, the zones for elementary, there were a lot of changes. What I'm trying to suggest to you is Stewarts Creek. We just have so much development, and the type of families that are moving in seem to be having a lot more kids in those areas that we're gonna be doing more boundary changes in this area.
To your point, it's how can we try to to better plan this? I would suggest areas that are closer to a building tend to be something They probably They probably would go somewhere else. Our challenge is at in the Stewards Creek, we're we're having stuff on the North Side, having stuff on the East Side, and then we're pushing down in the South
Side. And so we're just gonna be challenged. Anyone that's moving into the Sturridge Creek boundary, whatever we choose it to be, I'm just suggesting there's gonna be another boundary change likely before twenty thirty, thirty one school year. So doctor Sullivan, you said you don't have a recommendation for either one? Concept one or concept two? One is to is One moves more kids now, two moves more kids later. One moves I don't like that Morton Lane is right behind the school, But the areas I'm most familiar with are the areas I grew up in, which is the
north end of the county. And I know right now, we have 231 as a boundary line and we have students that our team here made a joke about. They have a two story house. They can see Segal Middle School or Segal High School, but they go to Oakland. So to act as we don't have people that can see schools that drive ten minutes to another school, that's not the way that we've ever been zoned in this guy. It's just not our reality. I wish it was, but we're not zoned in circles. We're zoned by roads. And so a circle we looked at when we first got together and it just
made no sense the way our schools were. I would love to have a a circle everybody within that little map goes to that school. I I we love that, but our buildings are not that way. I know our planner, Shane Morgan, would love to have that. He's got some great maps. He would love to have it. It just that's not where we have land. So, Seagulls, they're just the ones I think of because there's neighborhood right across that we rezoned back in 2019 or 2020 that went Seagull to Oakland to relieve overcrowding. Yeah. Miss Sharp. Thank you, madam chair. So let me throw this out there. Since we have two charter schools that were just approved, I know Rocketship is looking
in the seminary area. Do you know is that an existing building over there? It's just property? There's not one. There's not a building? Okay. I know that there's some property over there. Is that something that they could help us with? Because of the elementary? Because they're zoned for the elementary? If parents choose that, we've approved one. So Well, we have two now. So we've got Rocketship and we have Novus. We have one. Correct. Two coming too. There's two coming to Rutherford County. Rutherford County Schools has one. But it's a choice school, so we can't mandate We're not gonna know who's going.
I'm not saying mandate them. I'm not saying mandate them. I'm saying could they help us? Could they give us some supplemental room if we work with them in the area and they built or bought in the area that we need and we don't have to rezone? We can't force parents to send their kids in. I understand the posterity. So I don't know how we're gonna be able to help. I don't I under I understand that. I don't I appreciate that out of box thinking into saying, let's see if the choice schools can help us. But the reality is is that it's still very unknown how they can help us
if the kids from this area is not going to that those schools. So I appreciate the thought, and it's out of box thinking, but I don't just don't know how we can enter into a partnership with them when this is a choice school. We can't. In MNPS, it will have worked, and I will have agreed with you. Yes. Let's do that. Because if MNPS, they have it where a choice school can be zoned in a certain area, And if kids are living in that geographical area, they can't go to that, that that school because that's how they work.
But we don't have it set up like MNPS. Know how we can I don't know how to change it to where we can do it something like MNPS does? Mister Tidwell. I would really ask and request that in order to keep this board from blowing up in emotions that we would all seek recognition, I have been since I have been on this board, I have always patiently waited to be recognized, and I would ask that all the board members do the same. I think miss Sharp was simply asking if that in the future could be helpful. And I I don't think the answer is I don't think anybody knows, but it
could potentially. My question is about these concepts. There is no grandfathering. There is no dual zone. These are ripping the band aid off changes next year. Right? Correct. Okay. Because that was a huge issue with the high schools. And it really just delayed an inevitable problem several times because we kept dual zoning stuff out. And so I just wanna make sure that that's clear. Before that comes up at the next whenever whenever we do vote on this, that we are considering the options before us currently as the board comes to a decision.
They do not include any grandfathered. So any kind of changes that are made, this board is aware that that will could drastically affect what is our primary focus which is these next two years. So just making that point clear. Thank you. We have never grandfathered eighth grade and below ever. And it's not something we need to start doing now. I agree. Any other questions? Yes, miss Sharp. Mae Darby. I'm so sorry. Not really a question, but just kind of another point I wanna make sure everybody's thinking about is elementary is the one school where our students stay the longest.
So I think it's probably most detrimental when we continuously rezone that because you have that affects the kids more directly the more often you do it versus, like, middle school, they're only there three years. So if you rezone every three years, there's a good class or two that you haven't even bothered. Same thing with high school. But these kids in elementary school are there for a longer period of time. So it's just another thing to think about. I I really would like to explore the idea of splitting Stewart Creek Elementary into
a k two and a three five because I think it would provide relief in an area that has a ton of growth happening right in and around that school. If we're looking at what's what serves our students best, what serves our community and our parents best, I think it's something that should at least be looked at and discussed. I'm really not a fan of of pulling these kids in and out constantly. And he's already just told us that we're looking at another boundary change in another two to three years of the same school. I mean, it's like beating your head against the wall, doing it the way we're
doing it. I feel like I think it's gonna require something different and unique. That's just my 2¢. In a perfect world, I think the builders should come to us. I'm just saying, in a perfect world, the builders should come to us before they build a subdivision and say, what is the impact to this area into the school system? But they don't come to us. They don't ask us, and we just have to kind of patch patch it together. So and I've talked to several county commissioners about getting planning to come to us, but apparently, that's not gonna happen anytime soon.
So And you'll be talking about impact fees? Yes, mister. You know, we definitely don't need to have any dual zones at all. We don't need to get into that. And, you know, again, that we have got to do somehow or another, figure out a way to work with the developers and the planning commission. And because we're the ones that haven't made these decisions. And we're going to continue to grow. It's like mrs. Darvey said, we're going to be doing this every two or three years, if not
faster. And there's nothing we can do about it just because we're just growing so fast. But if we could all work together somehow or another, if we knew down the road what was fixing to happen, I think it would help us a whole lot and avoid this type of thing. Because it's really not fair to, it's not fair to the parents, it's not fair to the teachers, it's not fair to the school. It's not fair to us. But we don't have any choice. This is where the rubber meets the road. So you know, it just it is what it is.
And, and, unfortunately, you know, we whatever we decide, that's just the way it's got to be. And parents got to understand that. We, you know, we can't do anything about the growth. Oh, we can't. And, we just can't let kids be sticking out the windows because it's overcrowded. So Miss Sharp. Thank you, madam chair. Listen. We can have parents start showing up at the cities, the municipalities, because that's where the subdivisions are approved. It's not the county. It's the cities.
It's the city of La Verne. It's the city of Smyrna, Rockville. That's where all the the development starts, is in the cities. It doesn't have anything to do with the planning commission here in the county because by the time it gets there, it's already done. Parents are needing to go to these meetings and say, stop the development. Stop stop building every on every square inch. We need a moratorium so we can catch up because it's not just the schools that we have issues with. It's the infrastructure.
Works for Prosper City did do a moratorium. It wasn't it wasn't a long one on on apartments for about Yeah. But if if the if parents would start going to the city, planning sessions, they have theirs their agendas and everything out on the Internet just like we do, because that's where these big subdivisions are approved. So they're already approved at the local level before we even really know anything about them. And then by the time they get to the county, you know, I've been talking about the 11,000 permits that have been pulled from, Waldron Road to Sam Ridley in
that five mile radius. It's coming. And this is part of what Rob's trying to tell us. But it's not the county, it is the city that approves these subdivisions. Yes, ma'am. Yes, mister Tippett. Doctor Sullivan, now we're talking past these concepts a little bit, so I don't wanna get too far off track. But, speaking of long term planning, is there and, Trey, this may be a question for you. Is there room at Stewards Creek Elementary to add on an addition? Not without or we'd or we'd be taking out all the playgrounds, we'd be taking
out all the pavilions, like, what what is a realistic Playgrounds and the possibility, and I did a drawing four years ago, maybe when Twenty twenty ninth. 2020. 2019. A while. We could add and it would be a shoehorn, but you could get about 16
classrooms. And that's a that's a significant number. What what are the price tag on something like that? Oh, I didn't throw a price at it today, but, I mean, I could have you something by Thursday. But but there again, you're probably 12 to 15,000,000. I mean, I think it's very realistic just considering that we keep having the same conversations in the short period of time that I've been on the board, that these developments are gonna probably grow faster than what we're expecting. So, if that's the case, whichever concept we choose is gonna be better than not
by far. But to look at it long term, maybe that's a real consideration to be looking at and seeing what the price tag is on having an addition there. What the space would look like, what the concept is. Just like miss Darby said, I mean, we're probably gonna have to get out of the box a little bit. So if this is another option, I would at least like to know what that option even looks like. Doctor Sullivan. Trey and I have talked about it and just so that we're clear, it's like Rockville Middle. It's extra classrooms. It is not an extra gym. It is not an extra cafeteria. So That that elementary level, that that's gonna be tough.
From an operation standpoint, that's where it really hurts us. We can put the children in a classroom, but you can't feed them and you can't get them through gym. That that's the problem. That's why when we when we built Poplar Hill, we look we began to look at if we had to add on, what do we need? So we increased the cafeteria size. Our kitchen is okay because they can feed more children with two service lines. The problem is you can't they cannot they can't get enough of it enough of them in there to feed them.
The other problem is your related arts, your gym and those kind of things. You don't that you can't run them the the space is not large enough. You end up needing, and I'm speaking for an elementary principal now, but you're gonna need a third gym teacher. I need that. You've gotta divide those kids up, and we don't have the space. That's why at Copper Hill, we built the gym half again as big. That's that expansion space to give you that. That that's what happens. You can get them in there, but you can't give them the other things. Well, even a design standpoint, you it would be interesting to see if logistically we
could still work through some of those, maybe build a small gym, Just in, you know, smaller a much smaller version what we typically have, and then have that in rotation around there. I don't know. I'm just thinking outside the box here to see what's actually on the table, because I I just don't see this going completely away with these concepts. Miss Rosales. I was told I was under the impression one of the reasons we couldn't do an addition is because there was no space. Because the way that they were they were built, it didn't have any sufficient land for us to push out because they were all in the same three areas.
That's why I that's why I use the term we would have to shoehorn it in. Mhmm. It's there's not space there. Basically, what you would look like is on the wing where the drive up pickup line is. Each of those wings would one wing would get four classrooms, another wing gets four classrooms, and the other wing we would have to build out in the front and you could get six to eight. You could possibly make it two story. It's gonna from an architectural standpoint, it's not gonna be aesthetically pleasing, but it would be brick and mortar, and you could do it.
But it's they're gonna be difficult. It is tight, and they would be expensive. And there is no it would strictly have to be classroom because there's no sewer and there's no water additional services there. No bathroom? We wouldn't be able to expand the bathroom. Oh, wow. That's that because bathroom is a problem. That won't be a problem for elementary kids. Problem we got into at Rockvale when we added on Rockvale Bedding. There were no additional bathrooms. Because let me tell you, these kids go to the bathroom all the time.
Yes. They do. Especially as young as they are. Mister Vaughn. Mister Fred, I got a solution. Let's consolidate the city in the county. Let's take over all the schools in Rutherford County. We'll solve this problem. There goes my tomorrow. Mister Reed, if you'll see what the what the next steps are, just let us know. That's that was meant to be a joke, but Thank you. No. No. No. I'm gonna hear it from you. Yep. There goes my tomorrow, mister Vaughn. Thank you. Anybody else would like to comment? It's not an easy decision to make, but you've done you've given us all the
data and information. And this is that I'm a have to kudo what mister Vaughn said. This is light years better than the way we used to do it. Yes, mister Vaughn. And I hate to assume things, but, like, the the kids that are in Stewarts Creek, they go to Stewarts Creek High School Eventually. They'll stay that way. Yes. On both of these. Where do Brown's Chapel's kids end up going to high school? Blackman and Stewarts Creek. So it's kinda split fifty fifty or some five twenty five. Where do they go to middle school?
Poplar Hill, Stewarts Creek, next year. So that based on the Chapel will pick up most out of Poplar Hill. Poplar Hill. Okay. Yep. It's on the next slides. That's so if I recap and give some names to the things we've been talking about. So in concept one, the area that's south of Stewards Creek Elementary off of Morton Lane, that's Cedar Hills, Derby Run, and Amberton. So directly south in the area that's b. When we go to concept two, the areas that are off of Seminary Road, that's
Belmont and Sage Fields. And then the areas that are off of Amelville Road or Rocky Fork area, so the the more southern parts, that's Hidden Valley, Blanquany, Saddle Grove, Briley Down, Revere At Music City, and Tucker's Point. So given some place names of of what's out there currently. So that's the elementary. If we go to the middle school Would you recommend some rezoning for elementary? I think with what we're talking about with Stearrs Creek, limits of what you can
do for additions, bathrooms, all that stuff, that doesn't seem like a plausible good situation. So, definitely need to do something with elementary. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I do as well. I don't like it, but I do as well. Trust me. I know the board has to vote of it. I'm I'm as tired of dealing with rezoning as anybody too. And I think what could help, what I'm hearing from you all, is how do we start to set the plan for the areas where we know all this development. So it's like getting to work and thinking about what do we do in twenty,
thirty, thirty one. This is part of the conversation that, doctor Solon and I have been having is that when you go to the county, it's like, hey, look, we gotta have this. You guys keep approving that the county, but the cities in these areas approving, these developments, how do we have this planned out? So that we have the land, the sites needs to open in 3031, so we don't have the multiple. And looking just and this is just me looking at it. It's just something that came to me. I would probably, if I have to make a recommendation I do, I'd recommend Concept
1 and I know that's right by Stewarts Creek. But we have room can you go to Concept 1 in elementary real quick? Let me see the, enrollment projections. Concept one by year twenty thirty thirty one leaves you more than a 100 open seats at Rock Springs Elementary stills. So at 2031 if you had to revisit something, you have quite a few open seats at Rock Springs Elementary that could shift Stewarts Creek Elementary's north end boundary if
you had to. Who knows what things look like at that point, but just thinking five years ahead, you have open seats at the north end boundary. So just moves to most kids. That's maximum. Yes. Again, they're I'm sorry. I just wanna make sure I'm getting your information correct here. You're saying Rock Springs concept one. Yep. And it may be very similar in concept two. I was just looking the most number of kids. Oh, okay. About a second. I think the numbers are exactly the same on Rock Springs. Yeah. But it leaves the most number of kids at a Concept One.
Okay. But again, it's you're looking it's it's not a large variance between the two. It's about looking five looking five years out, who knows what those developments are gonna do in the next five years. I hope they don't hit faster. So that's the elementary. Middle school. So in concept one, there's a lot of changes in the middle schools because we have a lot of need. Right? So when you go back to the current middle school projections where we're already over and it's only gonna get worse, we have the new middle school opening.
One of the things right then and there we're gonna impact kids. Right? They need to go to the new middle school, so we can alleviate, Stewards Creek and Blackman. So as we look at, this boundary in the legend, there's a lot of different moves that are happening in concept one. So basically, I'm I'm just gonna summarize some of the things here. There's there's a lot of changes. But Poplar Hill uses Manson Pike and Wilkinson Pike to move south of 840.
Blackman loses that that finger that that goes to the south that we've been referring to as the finger, but it picks up some other neighborhoods along Saint Andrews, those would be like Franklin Heights, Evergreen Farms, Carrington Park, and Autumn Woods Apartments. As we zoom by the quarter of first week, we'll see what you're talking about. Now my clicker does I can't shine anything on there, like, dyes there. There's use the mouse. Alright. There we go. Probably is not to get any of your eyes out or something.
Alright. So, this is that that finger area that we're talking about right through here, that goes to Blackman. And so in that particular area, those are Franklin Heights, Evergreen Farms, and Carrington Park and Autumn Woods Apartments. And then Poplar Hill is this light green area that wraps around here. What this does with our projections, again, it's still pretty messy. Right? We we have a lot of capacity issues.
Not saying either of these concepts resolves all of this because where the buildings are, where the students live, some of our transportation would is really difficult to try to get kids to the building and not have them on buses longer than forty five minutes. But what we are able to achieve, again, to what doctor Sullivan and I have been talking about this primary focus over the next two years, is we have three buildings that in this time period would still be over capacity.
So Christiana Middle, Rocky Fork Middle, and Smyrna Middle. And, each of them, when you look at this, is about a hunt less than a 100 kids, I think. In each of these buildings. Some are, like, less than 20. So they're pretty close to what the capacity and number of students would be over the next two years. As we move into that future planning, what I wanted you to see is when we start to get to 94%, 95% of our capacity at any of these grade
bands, it's almost like you can't really do anything to solve the capacity. That indicates the need for more middle school capacity. Or like one of our other clients, up in Illinois, they just decided to change their class size, from 24 to 30. That automatically changes the number of kids that you can put in a building. But that brings altogether different issues. At the middle school, just like elementary, we have some things, that might be lunches and and whatnot. So I just give you some things that we're seeing other districts try to do
as they look at some of the costs or their ability to get land and and build facilities. But as we look at each of, these buildings as we get out to twenty nine thirty, you can see that, Smyrna Middle, they're over 150 students over what their capacity is. That one probably stands out the most. Rocky Fork is is still at about 75. So we're we're kinda holding the line. Some of the buildings are just gonna be over. It it won't be perfect. The only way we can get it perfect is if we went to something called
enrollment capping. So once we got to the capacity, and I think we've done some things like that in the past, We start to send them someplace else, but that creates, again, a transportation issue. Right? And an individual household issue when we do the enrollment capping, which is why we're trying to have zones that work. So this is middle middle school concept one. Middle school concept two, so this is where, with Poplar Hill, it goes into that pie wedge, there along 24.
It's that light green. And so, what that does is it extends down Old Fort Parkway, and so everything in Blackman High School is, in that downtown zone. Blackman takes on everything West Of Rucker Lane, South Of Franklin Road. So that includes, like, Viewpoint time townhomes, Overall Creek, and Kingdom Crest. So that's that area where we come to where that finger is, and it comes to, the West. It was dead. So what does that do with the numbers?
In the next two years, you can see it's only Christiana Middle that's, potentially over capacity and just slightly by seven kids. Right? Then as we move into '28, '29, because of the changes for Blackman, you can see, there's a bubble class is what I would call that as they come in, a a large class, and then as they exit in 2930, they get within their capacity. When we look at Rock Springs Middle, there are about a 150 kids over and
they continue to grow, as we get to thirty, thirty one, over 200 students. And the same thing with Rocky Fork. They go up over their capacity, but then come back down. And then we look at Stewarts Creek and Buchanan, those two buildings when we get up to twenty nine thirty, start to get over their capacity. Initially, Stewarts Creek just a little bit, but then by 3031, they're quite a bit over. Again, it's all the development in that area. Some ways this is is is a little bit better. We look at the numbers and how much some of the buildings are over.
Yes. Go ahead. Between the two concepts, I definitely recommend concept two on this one. It shifts our numbers pretty well. Again, I know it shifts a lot of parents. Miss Darby at a great point middle school kids, it's three years. All of our middle schools offer pretty much the same programming. Every middle school in our county is a level five middle school. The other portions that you were looking at, again, we haven't rezoned middle schools in nine years. The ones that are overcrowded outside of getting towards 2030, '31, where we know we have the Lee Road property, where we're gonna need a middle and a high school.
Everyone else is is close to where they're right where they need to be. If you can go back to the map, I'll explain a couple areas because this this is different. I know that there are areas that are north of the Segal zone, so in the orange. And that area will get a lot of attention because that has been Siegel Middle since Siegel Middle opened. We are overcrowded at Siegel Middle School with a lot of the cottages at Siegel
is what we call them. I think that's what we call them. Is that what we call them? The cottages at Segal Middle and we have an addition at Oakwood Middle. So filling up Oakwood Middle, we also have land at the Matthews property. To ever get a middle and a high school at the Matthews property, we have to fill the land, the seats that we have. And so that's that's something that we have to be able to do. And so we do with Matthews property is in Walter Hill. So we need to use our seats at Oakland. You could use cut off road instead, potentially, But we were trying to match this with moving from Walter Hill to Wilson.
You have a lot of Christiana middle zone that is shifting to Whitworth. To Whitworth has been there for fifteen, sixteen years and never really grown too much with enrollment. So this kind of stabilizes Whitworth and makes all of our middle schools. It is tough for our middle school principals to have the largest middle school in the state at Blackman Middle and then have still big middle schools when you look across the state, but to have middle schools under 800 and middle schools almost at
1,800, operating the same programming. The Cason Lane downtown, we tried to match the high schools as much as possible. So you're gonna see some weird colors and go why are they shifting? Why we tried to match some of our dual zone Rockville areas. And then there's one piece that if you look at it, it's yellow and it looks like why is Whitworth Buchanan crossing over. You have a new interchange now. I think it's Tommy Bragg that crosses over right behind Costco. That instead of going down Highway 99 in the middle of going towards the Rockville
area, trying to get a little bit of that traffic out of the Rockville area, and getting back on the interstate and going to Whitworth instead, opposite traffic. And so there are about a 140 middle scores. I know that area is gonna be a a change. It was either shifting that area to Christiana Middle, which we can tell is already overcrowded, or Whitworth and Whitworth had more room. Yeah. So and the interstate was better than going down 02:31 in the morning. So we decided to split downtown as well as split some of that Cason Lane area just because of the sheer volume of students.
There were well over twelve, fifteen hundred students in that Cason Lane in between ninety six and ninety nine in that Murfreesboro corridor to the west. It was it was shocking how many students were there. And you've discussed this with the, middle school principals. Yes. Well, and they all gave you recommendations. Oh, yeah. Multiple times we've met. Okay. They're sitting over there. Oops. Miss Maxwell? Yes. Miss Rosales. Okay. So the Rockville zone is kinda interesting because there's a corner over by the 24.
Is that downtown area? It is. It matches the high school. It's a what? It matches the high school. Okay. So Rockville High School has that area. So when you're looking at transportation we tried to look at it as much thing. I'm sure we missed something, but we look at everything we can. We already have a bus going for transportation for the high school. Mhmm. So picking up for middle school makes sense as well. Not to put you in this spot, doctor Solomon, but can you speak into that the Eagleville area that's currently black men middle but going to Eagleville? Why that area because we've looked at it trying to rezone it. Why it's rezoned to Eagleville.
Is it's you see why it's it's it points like this between Franklin Road on the other side. That side. No. Go. We didn't we didn't change Eagleville. No. You did not. But I'm getting some questions over this side. This area here, mister Vishnu Blackman, when I was in Eagleville, can you speak into that zone? Just shifting more students to Eagleville out of out of the Blackman area because it's too crowded. I'm sorry? Just shifting more students to Eagleville out of the Blackman area using I know that Blackman is probably closer looking that way, but you can get on 08:40 and come
back forty one to get to Eagleville. So it's they're overcrowding in At Blackman. Blackman. It's kinda driving Yes. And that zone. Yes. Absolutely. Mister Tidwell. I'm sure we're gonna get questions about this. I'm looking on the concept two numbers, the projections, page page 22 here. Blackman middle, Christiana middle, both of those, they start off in '28, 29 over capacity, and then, twenty, thirty, 31, they back they're both back below capacity. Yeah. That's just forecasting students not not as many students coming through from the elementary side
or Yeah. It's it's the number of grades that are not yet in middle school. And so there's a larger grade that works its way through. Actually, a couple grades in that 28, 29 that puts them over the capacity, and then the grades that are coming up are a little bit smaller. And so it pulls them back under that capacity. Very interesting. Thank you. Yes. Go ahead, miss. One point that I'll add to that, mister Tidwell, great question, is the more schools that we do zone into Murfreesboro Murfreesboro city limits, the more that there's that ability
for sixth grade numbers to fluctuate a little bit. Right now, we've got Blackman, Rockville, little bit of Christiana, Segal, Oakland, and I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody that hits into downtown where our city limits go. Now you've got Christiana, Poplar Hill, they're gonna hit some of that. So that your numbers, depending if a parent chooses sixth grade at Murfreesboro City or chooses us, it fluctuates even into September based on whether a kid makes a sports team or likes their teacher or all kinds of reasons. That makes sense. Thank you.
Yes. Anyone else? You've done outstanding work, sir. Other questions then? Any other questions? Comments? Rob. We spent a lot of time talking together, haven't we, Rob? Thank you. I also wanna thank, Paul. Yeah. Thank you. Jenna and Alyssa as well because I know that we spent a lot of time with them. So thank them as well. You bet. Still change your phone over there. He doesn't. I just don't have a phone. I feel like you're family. The same. The same. Okay. Thank you, sir. Next, moving on to human resources.
Yeah. And just to hit real quick above that, Thursday is always one of my favorite things. We have our Stones River Brigade that's gonna present how well our JROTC does. And he'll present some data that is, amazing. It shows how well our JROTC program does in our our cadets. But human resources collaborative conferencing committee pursuant to section forty nine five six zero five, Board of Education is required to appoint management personnel to serve in a committee following majority vote in favor of collaborative conferencing. Our district committee would be Andre Anthony, Kelly Chastain, Brian Sears, Brian Lewis, Susan Fries, Latony Murray, and Larry Creasy. Got a question. Yes. What is who they're gonna collaborate with?
That team. And then it comes before the board after that. So they, whoever, have they had their vote yet? About who they represent. So they have you wanna go over that process a little bit? So what we do after Thanksgiving because they brought the, information where the the employees are wanting to go into the collaborative conferencing, the PECA process. What they're doing is, they're going to be doing a week long vote and this is what we do every three years. And during that time, if they're a certified employee, they're able to vote whether they
want, REA to represent them PET or they want someone unaffiliated. And based upon the percentage of, that each person gets, majority of the time it winds up being with REA, but sometimes there could be a representative from PET. So once that final scoring of who is, recommended to represent the employees, then they'll assess a percentage of who represents them out of their group. So they'll have also have a group the same size as ours based on that
population. This last time it happened to be all REA. Okay. Thank you. Miss Sharp. Thank you. Am I remembering collect correctly that miss Bratton, Sheila Bratton was on this before? Didn't we have a board member? And I I thought that it was her. Am I I don't know. In the bill. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Is there a chance to do a waive with the REA? No, sir. They're affiliated with, TEA and, the National Education Association. So they're part of that tier system. Not unless the state law changes with collaborative conferencing.
Yes, miss Sharp. We there was and I didn't I don't remember who, gave us a resolution for to removing the collaborative conferencing. That one got pretty pretty testy. So Yeah. But it didn't pass. It did not pass at TSBA this past weekend. Okay. Any other questions? Moving on. Number nine. Alright. Segal High School is requesting authorization to begin the process with Cambridge International. Cambridge is comprehensive pre k 12 academic program that includes world class curriculum assessment, teacher resources, PD, and more culminates in college credit at the advanced level.
Cambridge offers over 50 courses at the high school level in a wide range of subjects, CT, humanities, language, STEAM, and they're taught by Seagull teachers. Cambridge pathway prepares students for both college and careers through skills content twenty first century learning. Cambridge currently partners with 10,000 schools in 160 countries and have strong higher credit policies. For state of Tennessee, Cambridge can help to make a positive impact on state and federal graduation measures. Early post secondary opportunities are EPOS. Cambridge AS slash A levels qualify for the following. EPOS status of the Tennessee ready graduate. Tennessee report card CCR indicator or TISS and TESA outcomes funding.
Questions or comments? Yes, ma'am. Yes. Mister Vaughn. I've got a clarification question, I guess. When I was principal at the high school, international backyard program was approved. At that time, the school board said that no other school could have a program in competition with the IB program. Now this program is, it's the only program in the county so far that's in competition with IB.
Dual enrollment and all I get is there's no comparison. No, there's no competition with that. But, again, you know, we've got I don't see the one. If the board approved back then not to do it, how can this be done? Well, how many high schools have we built since the IB program was granted to Oakland? Rockland and Stewart's Creek. And any board can take any action after another board. The other Do what?
Any board can take another action after another board can. So any this board can undo any action that a previous board or take an action that supersedes. The current motion would supersedes any previous board action. We also had Cambridge at Smyrna High School. So it was there in 2018, I believe. But they did away with it. Right? 2019. They've dropped. They did. So I mean you got Smyrna, you got Central Magnet, you got the Oakland IB, and now you want to put this same program right there at Segal.
To me it just doesn't it just doesn't make sense. I don't I don't understand the reasoning for it because the opportunities are there. And, I don't know. I I just think you're drawing, you know, students from other schools that's that's unfair to Oakland, unfair to Central Magnet. And so in other words, what you're saying is that what we vote on, the
the next board can come up and undo everything we do. Correct. Yes. Pretty much. Yeah. So really what we're doing don't really matter. It matters during your term. It matters during your term. It matters during our term. Yeah. So we better make hay while the sun shines. Right? Yes. Yes, miss Darby. Darby. Yeah. Do we know why Smyrna ended it? Yeah. They felt it was in competition with their Bethel program that they had with dual enrollment. Okay. I'm sorry. I can't hear you. Competition with Bethel with their dual enrollment. If I think dual enrollment in this is the same thing, they're wrong.
In regards to, mister Vaughn's point, I I don't know that we wanna start restricting any of our schools in terms of things that are beneficial for our students. As much as you're saying it would be unfair for Segal to have it, Segal could say it's unfair for Oakland to have the IB program. So it's a service to our students. It's a way to elevate their education. And if Siegel wants to take it on and make it successful, I say more power to them. I think the county has grown a lot since then, and I think our parents
want all of the high schools. I'm always telling people all of our high schools have excellent programs, from vocational high end academics and this is an high end respected program similar to IB. All of our kids should have an opportunity. And not everybody is going to be able to go to Oakland or to Central Magnet, but we have kids that can perform at that level and their parents want this. So I I don't think this will hurt. I think we're too big now. This is not gonna hurt any of our schools.
For them to have not everybody can drive to Oakland. So it gives those Mhmm. In that same area that maybe can't make it that far a different opportunity for something similar. I think it's the same thing. You know, there are a lot of kids that depend on programs like that. If they don't make it into a school like central, then they're looking for something that's elevated from traditional education still. So I think it's just another good addition to our school system. Yes, miss Short. And we also have Blackman Collegiate Academy. That's a fabulous program.
So they're they're not the only programs that are here, but they are I don't think I don't think one program is is is going to hurt another school. I think each school can stand alone with their programs. And, that's why I'm glad to represent Rutherford County because I really think we need to have these kind of programs at all of our high schools. You know, we're all competitive and I understand that that's great. But our students and our families want these and desire these programs, and I'm glad we can offer them. They got dual enrollment. They got Dual enrollment is not the same as IB or campus.
That's exactly none of these are the same as IB. I don't care what you say. Mister, the the kids that go through the IB program can go anywhere in the country. When we started IB, I researched the number one program across the world is international backyard program. Now, and so that's why we started that program.
And Vanderbilt University didn't give full rides to kids because they're in the Black Collegiate Academy or the Indian they don't give scholarships for that. Mister Vaught, I think, if I'm not mistaken, I believe you had a child that went through the IV program. And there's some word out there, there's some communication that kids aren't getting a full diploma from Oakland High School, which is absolutely false.
There's been 96 kids, got the full diploma for the IB program in the last four years. So the people that are putting that word out is incorrect. I haven't heard that. And do what? I hadn't heard that. You haven't heard that? Mm-mm. Not at all. Mm-mm. Miss Maxwell. Mister Ball, did did your son where'd he go to school? Jackson was one, I think, mister Vaughn, if I remember right, Jackson was one of the first ones to ever get the diploma.
And and he did, and he was fortunate enough to get selected for the Cornelius Vanderbilt, scholarship at Vanderbilt University, and I also graduated as Vanderbilt's, outstanding senior. So I have to believe that the IB program at Oakland High School was a direct reflection of his collegiate, education. I I would say this. I think probably, I'm guessing, that the board's infinite wisdom at that time when the
IB program was started or much like the magnet school program was started, I think that you you kinda call a time out maybe in the county, and you don't start so many programs at one time. That way, you garner success with whichever. I think the IB program has been fantastic. I think the magnet school program has been fantastic. You know, as the chairman has stated, maybe the county has gotten big enough now that we can justify another program. I don't think it's a slight toward the IB or the magnet program, either one.
But, and I thank you for that. I I I have told Butch this many, many times that he saved me tens of thousands of dollars. Of thousands. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarship money. But, anyway, it's, I never knew anything about it, but it was a very rigorous program. But Cambridge, I'm sure, has got its, attributes also. So, much like the rest of the board, I think we justified too in the county. Yes. Doctor Salt. Yeah. I would ultimately, I wouldn't have it on here if I didn't support it.
I don't want to do anything, of course, to hurt any of our schools. My job is to promote our entire district and anything we can do to promote all of our schools. We have, we have over 19,000 high school students. And so we've got we have grown large enough that we can promote opportunities for our kids. It is ridiculous. Needed 19,000 high school students alone. Yeah. Miss Maxwell? Yes. Mister Zales. Does Stewart's Creek have a bachelorette or No. So how can we get them also to include something like this? Because I with this one of the biggest issues we have is that we don't
have enough magnet schools. As big as we are, we don't have the luxury of Stewarts Creek's overcrowded. So a lot of it has to do with open seats. And Seagull High is currently dual zoned, and so we are not over capacity there. Well, Blackman was I mean, I'm not trying to Mhmm. Do anything back and forth or anything, But black men is overcrowded, and they still have their baccalaureate program. They do. So I'm a start up. They have their baccalaureate program. What? Black men high school. Oh, well, they don't have black And Black men Collegiate Academy is not nationally recognized
as local. So how can and that's something that, And Black Men Collegiate Academy is amazing. I'm just saying that is when you get into that. Yes. It is. Yes. When you get into the distinctions Yes. They are. They are all amazing. They are all amazing. Cambridge and Ivy are all being connected. You have to be in the black zone. Correct? To be in blackness zone to be difference there. Yes. So why could there be something like that for Sewers Creek where they have to be zoned in there to have that as well. I'm looking from the equitable Every school has their own. That's the every school.
Every school already has their own type of so Stewarts Creek has their own arts academy that you have to be zoned in there. La Verne accepts outside with their early college program. Riverdale has their honors college. Yes. We just Everybody's got something already. And how will we get to, get the program at Blackman? Because that that was something that the principal who started that has been had worked to get the accredited. So what is it? I don't know how this all works. There is no national accreditation for it. Gary Nixon started it back when he was first principal of Blackman High School.
And I was at Blackman Middle, and we worked together to do that. And, you know, the thing that people don't understand, the IB program is, you know, you go to Ivy League school, you go to Vanderbilt, you go to any place, and if you got an IB diploma, they'll give you a full ride. That's how much they believe in it. They told us it was another one academic program in the world. Now Blackboard Collegiate Academy is great. It's a great academic program, But you're not gonna get a you know, colleges don't
really recognize that as anything different than Well, you can make a change of that in there. Right. Hey, guys. I apologize, but I would like to take a five minute bathroom break right now. This has gotten a little bit longer. I know we're almost towards the end, but I would like as the chair, I would like to take a five minute recess for the restrooms, please. Okay. Next, we have the Oh, can I ask one question? Yes. Just out of curiosity, what what does that Cambridge program cost? I'll find out what doctor Chastain should be here Thursday.
I'll have that for you Thursday. So can every schedule in the county Yes. Thing do it if it want to? Be the same as IB. Okay. Thanks. Okay. TISA account accountability. Yep. So this aligns, part of TCA forty nine three one twelve and the, board has a copy of this. School districts of Tennessee are required to present their Tennessee investment in student achievement or TISA accountability report for public review and comment and board approval prior to being submitted to the Tennessee department of education. Accountability report will be reviewed annually to determine whether a school district is taking proper steps to achieve their stated goals. The report will be submitted annually to TDOE in November since this was our board
meeting in November. These just basically go over our stats, starting proficiency in advanced, going all the way through 2030. So happy to discuss that further. Anybody got any questions or comments to this? Okay. Okay. Next we have legal. This is the first reading of two readings. The below policies are recommended on the first reading. These policies will be brought brought at the next scheduled board meeting for a second final reading. Board policy 1.703, school attendance zones and exemptions as requirement of primary domicile to be in Rutherford County
at the time of application. B, policy 3.206, community use of school facilities as language to allow deposits to secure school facilities. C, policy 4.601, reporting student progress, removes driver's license revocation to align with state law. D, policy 4.605, graduation requirements as computer science credits starting with the twenty four twenty five school year to align with state rules and regulations. E, policy 6.204, tenants of non resident students, adds language to exempt school choice schools from early admission. And f, policy 6.701,
student solicitations fundraising activities and as language for online fundraising. And this again is the first reading. We'll have the second reading December 11. Okay. Any comments or questions there? Okay. Let me one question about the, let's see. The technology, computer science credit. Is that gonna affect? Is that what? That's gonna not gonna affect, When they can graduate and all that. Okay. Yep. Okay. Next, number two. We have discipline here. Yep. The we have several, discipline.
This is the only hearing appeal 251101. Board has requested review a decision of the director of schools disciplinary hearing authority upheld the schools decision to zero tolerance of a student from equal school. Director of schools modified the offense to a remandment. Based on a review of the record of the DHA and the director of schools, the board may, a, affirm the decision of the director of schools, b, overturn the decision the director of schools, or c, grant a hearing. So it was zero tolerance. I did modify to a remandment. Okay. Any questions? Next. We have a couple transfers under discipline. The first one, the board's been requested to admit a transfer student for another school
system under discipline. The student was remanded for possession THC. According to policy 6.318, the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when student transfers from another school system. What are your expulsion records for schools recommendations to deny? Okay. Number three? Transfer student under discipline two. The board's been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. Student was placed at an alternative learning center for a student assault. According to policy 6.318, the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody. And when student transfers from another school system under suspension or expulsion, and director of school's recommendation is to deny.
Okay. Number 11, engineering and construction. Several things here. Murfreesboro water and sewer request for land purchase at Segal High. As part of the Thompson Lane TDOT road widening project, Murfreesboro water and sewer department will be required to make water line adjustments. They have provided drawings and inappropriate land purchase documents for approval. The valued offer is 4,000, almost at 4,000,000. That would have been amazing. $4,746.65 for both permanent and temporary easements. Engineering construction will be the request and has no objection. You think we could round that up to 5? I was thinking. I did too. I just went 4,000,000.
That's great. Great job, Trey. I don't know what we're getting out of that, but awesome job. I would still think we could round that up to five. Okay. Number two. Oakland High School change order number one, engineering construction with input from principal John Marshall request to utilize 500,000 of available site construction funds to address additional renovation of areas inside the existing building. This work will include additional flooring, ceiling replacement, additional fire alarm replacement, and paint. Works been reviewed by GMC architecture and the cost approved. This is not a request for additional funds, but the reallocation of unused site funds for the project. Engineering construction has reviewed the request and has no objection.
I do wanna note Riverdale had a change order for 450 nope. 550,000. However, Oakland's project overall is above the cost for Riverdale. I hate that the utilities cost more at Oakland than they did Riverdale, but the overall cost for the project cost more, which is why Riverdale had 550,000 allocated and Oakland only had 500,000 allocated. So in case you're contacted, you wanna hit some of that? No? Some of the furniture and some of the programs at Oakland was different than Riverdale,
and some of that cost was higher too. So our overall cost, we've actually expended more money at Oakland. This is just the work that the contractor did. Yep. Because normally, we try to keep them exactly the same. Mhmm. But there if you go back in a minute, you will see 50,000 more for Riverdale than Oakwood. I got a question. In this month. The old bathrooms out there, you know, have they been redone at Oakland? Has what been redone? The old bathrooms, she's no down there. They have been. We're yes, sir. That's part of this project.
We're completing all of the bathrooms at Riverdale and Oakland. Oh, so that won't have to come out of this money. Correct? It's part of this. Yes. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Next. Alright. Next, Town of Smyrna cedar stone sewer realignment request. Town of Smyrna has undertaken an extension of the sewer system along Morton Road. In doing so, the city has determined a portion of sewer on RCS properties under the wing walls of the bridge. They request relocation of this section while making adjustments for this project. This adjustment will not affect the roadways or service RCS will require an updated easement agreement. Engineering construction has either request and has no objections.
Any questions or comments? Okay. Number four. Transportation contract termination of bus 96 pursuant to section 8.1 of the Rutherford County Board of Education bus contract. Transportation departments re received a letter dated 11/04/2025 from Angela Gilley, contractor for bus 96 requesting voluntary termination of her contract with the board. She stated her termination date is 12/01/2025. Based on previous board approval, there'd be a return of insurance stipend funding for insurance to RCS of $2,399.76. Okay. Number five. Yes. Yes, mister Botte. Alright.
Question. The the the balance of that insurance, and I think it's one reason we kinda set it up this way, would that go to the new contractor, that's gonna replace that route? That would be a finance thing, but I think it would go back in the general fund, and then they would issue a $4,000 check to the new person. You you okay. So what You can't prorate the purchase of the insurance going forward because theirs is gonna be for three years. Or I mean, for the whole year. Their purchase for a year. If it's an existing contractor, there's a possibility that in theory, their insurance could be
less, but we have no mechanism to request that information. I'm with you. They're with they get $4,000. Yeah. But I wanna talk to finance before them. Yeah. That that was my only concern, which leads me to I do under discussion, I wanna bring up something about insurance. Okay. Is Yes, ma'am. Trouble getting these routes picked up, brother? We're gonna discuss that in a few minutes too. Alright. Number five. Transportation contract termination bus 201. Pursuant to section 8.1 of the Rutherford County Board of Education bus contract, transportation partners received a letter dated
09/22/2025 from Christy Taylor, contractor for bus two zero one requesting volunteer termination of a contract with the board. She stated her termination date is 11/30/2025. Last date of drive is 11/21/2025 based on previous board approval. There'd be a return of insurance stipend funding for insurance to RCS of $2,421.98. Okay. Number six. On September 24, transportation department emailed all contractors with a new route awarding procedure and application for existing contractors. Deadline for application was October 14 and there were 11 applicants. We received calls from a few contractors.
Either did not read the information or the information went to their junk mail or did they not understand that the board initiated a new procedure for awarding routes per the procedure 3.4 pages three through five. We're prepared to begin the new awarding process, but want the board to be aware of the situation prior to receiving calls. So, mister Paul, we're back to your question. And I'm gonna explain this as best I can. On September 24, right after the board meeting, if y'all remember, we went through how we were gonna do that and y'all approved the policy and procedure.
The next day, we sent out an email to all contractors with that procedure as an attachment. That said, if you wanna be part of the new route awarding for this year, fill out this form and send it back. We had 11 people do it. We got ready to start doing the random drawing and our phones started ringing. Well, wait a minute. I didn't get my name in. Wait a minute. I didn't get my name in. And we said, did you get this email? Oh, yeah, but I didn't read it.
What what what do you mean the route of warning's changed? We go by seniority. This is the way we do it. Nope. Board changed all that. We sent you all an email on September 24. So, the reason I'm bringing this to you tonight is I'm gonna give you two options. We're gonna grad with we sent an email out on September 24 and I got 11 qualified contractors that want new routes. And that's our list. Or we can go back to everybody gets a chance and I can send out
another email on y'all's behalf that says you didn't read the first one. Here's the second one. If you wanna join and be a part of the route awarding process, you need to fill out the form and give them ten days or fifteen days to send me the form. Choice is yours. We've already fulfilled what the policy and procedure says, but I don't want your phones to start ringing going, We didn't get a chance. And then next time we're back in here trying to decide how to undo it.
So before we move forward, I'm asking what you all would like to do. Comment. I mean, I think it'd be, to mostly unfair to 11 people that did read and did what you told them to do. To undo all of it and do it all over again. That's just that's just me. Yes, sir. We've lost the two okay. I'm sorry. I couldn't see her. Somebody run this meeting. I'm sorry. How how many, basically? I mean, we changed policy for the for the power hour, but so what how
many of you had call or that would be interested? Maybe a half a dozen, but I'm not saying that the others haven't still don't know that we've changed it. Right. Right. So when are you trying to accomplish this? Well, right now, I've got open routes and I've had open routes since September. So a s a ASAP. So we make this So if you would like for us to send out another email, I'll be glad to ask mister Johnson's team to do so, but I'm gonna give them a short window to respond.
And if they don't, we're moving on. I mean, theoretically, if we if we changed it Thursday night, tell them to have it in by December 1? I'd give them a week. Week? We could if you change it Thursday night, I'm gonna ask transportation to send an email out Friday morning and give them till the next Thursday afternoon. A lot of times in life, you don't get a second chance. But if we if if we decide we wanna give them a second chance, it needs to be quick Yes, sir. Into the phone. Okay. We'll handle that. And we'll do whatever you all would like, but I I I do did wanna
bring it to your attention because I thought, well, I can be obstinate and just go ahead and start awarding routes. But then Phone were the phone rang. Thank you. Thank you for thinking of us. Thank you. Thank you, vice madam chairman. Any other questions? Anybody else? Madam chairman. Hi. I I'm along the lines of just getting another opportunity here. I I've obviously and other some of these emails probably went to junk mail or something like that too. There's probably other cert circumstances other than them just particularly ignoring it. I'm sure some did that as well.
But I'm open to it as long as we can make it a quick turnaround and doesn't really hold up the process. Then we can go back and say that there was nothing that we did that was we didn't give them enough opportunity. We gave you two opportunities, that's plenty. I'm good with making that recommendation. Anybody else wanna speak? Yes, mister Vaughn. I just got concerned really for the the level that did what they were supposed to do. You opened it back up. Now they don't get the routes. To me, that's just unfair. I I don't know. Well, it's a new change.
And so when there's change, there's always pain to you know, there's a little bit of a pain in the beginning. Alright. So the next thing is communications report. That'll be Thursday. That'll be Thursday night? Okay. Co potential closing, is that something that you need to do? Yes. The drop of potential closing last at least three or four years. We closed the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The county closes on Veterans Day. We are open on Veterans Day. The if it's because it is not a official state holiday, the courthouse decides what
they do on Wednesday, usually before whether they go home early or not. Our payroll, in order for payroll department to know, they have to know by the twenty first. And so, because of when our payroll runs. And so, we would appreciate it, but regardless, we'll we'll take whatever the board decides. But last couple years, we've it's our central office, that closes. Mister Vaughn, were you seeing something? Yes. It is. Mister Tidwell? Yes. We've done this historically in the past. I don't see any issue with it. Thank you. So we need to take a motion on Thursday about the okay.
I think is Milford City Schools is closed as well on Wednesday. Do you know Thursday? I know. I have no idea what their staff does. Well, I I know you don't know because No clue. But just trying to stay I know we try to do similar things. Alright. That's okay. Sorry. Yep. Director's update. Trey, do you wanna go over the other item of transportation on mister Reed? Good. Yep. We sent the, director we we discussed at a previous board meeting that we had some route descriptions that we had not received. And we discussed that there was, it's section 2.6
d, of the contract that to provide this. And it says that and it said that we could withhold their money, but the board asked that we not do that. We we sent out another email on October 17, asking for the route descriptions for the second time. We still have a number that have not turned in those route descriptions for us. So at this point, with the board's authorization, we can begin to withhold the money
or you guys can direct us on how you would like us to move forward now because we it helped we need these route descriptions to verify our routes. Yes, mister Arby. Have you gotten any response from them or is it just been crickets? We've, we've got one or two, but the rest has been crickets. Has anybody tried calling them to see if there's and they're not in like, there's no communication? We've talked to most of them, and they feel like that's not required. Okay. Good to know.
And mister Johnson has tried as well. Correct? Because you've yeah. Yeah. At this point we do feel this is intentional. This is intentional. This is not we missed this deadline it was you know, it's intentional. Sorry, mister. How many, Trey? 11. Contractors around 11. It's a different 11, but it's about 31 or two routes. Would the board like for me to send you the list? Has anybody been removed from that list as of yesterday? No, sir. K. I'll send the board the list as soon as we're done of the routes. Thank you. Did we discuss I apologize for having to step out.
Okay. Can we get to general discussion? Yes, mister Baut? One thing I need a little feedback on, I think. If if you remember, and this goes along with transportation on the, bus drivers, the contractors, and all that. In this year's contract, we put a stipend in there for insurance. And we also asked the county insurance, and Jeff may wanna comment on this. I I don't know. There was confusion early on. Could could the county continue to furnish liability insurance?
Could they not? You know, when the county bid the insurance out this past year, they left the school buses out because they were under the impression, likewise, myself. If you read the statute, the law kind of leans you that way. But I think we came to the conclusion maybe the county could furnish the insurance, not putting you on the spot. But Well, the law was changed. Yeah. The law changed. And Yeah. And and so we we believe now we we could furnish it. Is that is that what we believe? And so here's my question to the board.
The county is fast approaching putting their bid specs together. Do we want to, go back and and request the the, you know, county finance insurance, health and ed? You know, I think it's a big decision, you know, going one way or the other. Are we in? Are we out? But we we don't need to let this slip up on us, you know, June 1, May 1 and say, oh, I wish we'd have done this.
It takes them about six months to put everything together. So I kinda I'm I guess I'm looking for a little direction from the board. You know, do we we we had requested them to do the six month. No. There were if I remember correctly, there was nine companies approached, and none of them bid. None of them offered insurance. And so, you you know, what's the will of the board, I guess? We need we need to notify the county commission, I think, where it's not left
out again this year if that's something we want to offer the contractors. Does that make sense? I just don't want I I just don't want this deadline to slip up on us. Mhmm. So I thought I'd bring it up tonight. Thank you, sir. Yes, mister Tidwell. I really appreciate you bringing that up, mister Vaught. I I think that that would be a great thing for us to do. I think one of the issues that because the change in state law, the reason so many insurers, insurers did did not decided not to, take on the the contractors was because it wasn't included in the county budget.
I think if it was included in like it had done in historical precedent before, be included in the county budget, I think they'd be more likely to get picked up. And it's costing, at least, from when we were having all these conversations, it's costing the schools school district about $250,000 each year by going to the stipend way versus what we had before. So I would be certainly for it, if we can go ahead and put that back on the radar, I think that'd be great. Excellent. Anything else? Yes, miss Sharp. Mister, mister Reed, do you have an update on the Lee Road property?
Yes. There I talked to the attorney actually today. So he's progressing along with his paperwork that he needs to eat done with the court to get all that closed. So So everything's coming along fine on that. Okay. And is there a closing date? Pardon? Are are we gonna do we need to vote on that again? Is there a closing date? There's nothing to vote on. The county this school board the board has already approved the purchase. This board has approved it, and the county commission has approved the funding. So there's no other votes on it. Okay. So, the I've got a few more things. Yes. Does anybody else have any anything for mister Lee?
I'm done. I'm done. Sorry, mister Reed. We had some legal things I had asked you about. Will we be going into executive session today or Thursday to get an update on that? Thursday. Thursday. Thank you. Yes. Yes, miss Sharp. Thank you madam chair. So, Laverne Middle, I visited with the teacher that was, head of the men of distinction and they're looking for shirts with ties. They can be white, they can be colored. They're teaching the young men how to dress and tie ties. So if you need that information or if you want to drop off some shirts
and some ties at La Verne Middle, they would greatly appreciate it. Excuse me. Also, La Verne Lake did their first amazing shake Yeah. On Monday. And I think that they're gonna have some that will probably I'm gonna say they're gonna make it to Atlanta. So they did they did a great job. So thank you. Okay. Anything else? Okay. We done. Are there any other comments Or discussion? Okay. Otherwise, miss Darby. Move to adjourn.