May it be a place of inspiration, growth, and transformation. It may equip students with the knowledge and skills needed for the future endeavors. May it foster a love of learning and a thirst for knowledge within each student. In your mercy and grace, we we humbly offer these prayers for our school system, and may your blessings flow abundantly upon every student, teacher, staff member, and the ministry. We trust in your unfailing love and your power to transform lives through education.
In your son, Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Please stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. First up, we have the agenda. I'll give everyone just a moment to look over the agenda. Next, we have the consent agenda. Any changes or any questions? Okay. We have no speakers tonight.
Uh-huh. And we have no public comment. So first up, we have Rutherford Proud. You gonna turn the timer on me, Dennis? I thought you were reaching for the timer. We're gonna start out with the amazing shake, which is an incredible competition. I'm gonna bring up Christine Bryan. Amazing shake. She's gonna introduce our guests from the Chamber of Commerce. Hang on, guys. I like the anticipation, but we're not there. So would you introduce our chamber first? Yes. At this time, I would like to introduce Marissa Sparshu from the Chamber of Commerce to talk about the amazing shake.
Good evening. This year, we welcome 38 students to our county wide amazing shake competition. The dynamic competition helps students to strengthen and showcase their inner personal skills. Also emphasizing manners, discipline, respect, and professional conduct. Through a series of challenges, students learn the essentials of professional interaction, including how to give a proper handshake, network effectively, interview successfully, and remain composed under pressure. The ultimate goal is to equip students with the confidence and skills to present themselves
exceptionally well in both current and future opportunities. We appreciate the participation of Rutherford County Schools and continued support. We've been excited to see it grow over the the years. And thanks to the volunteer judges, educators, and parents that made this our best amazing shake yet. For the fourth year in a row, I am proud to announce that all three winners going to the Atlanta Global Amazing Shake at the Ron Clark Academy are from Rutherford County Schools. And and I saw doctor Duke on Friday and made sure to rub that in.
So I just as I announce the winners, I would like to have them come up to the podium as well. We have Erin Berry from Rutherford County Virtual School who's in seventh grade, principal doctor Soupikhan. Then from Stewart's Creek Middle School, we have eighth grader Ellie Turner. Principal doctor Murray. And then we also have Knox Guillen, son of doctor Guillen, from Wilson Elementary, the principal miss Barnes. At this time, our amazing shakers would like to say a few words.
So the first thing that I wanna say is I wanna thank the Chamber of Commerce. And so they called my name second, so I think that means I finished second. And I also wanna thank the people that stuck with me all the way, and now I here I am now, which is out in the crowd, miss Barnes and miss Kay Smith. And the last thing I wanna say is I'm one thing that I'm probably excited for for going to Atlanta is probably the people that I'm going to meet there
and go the long way that I am that I already have now. Hello. My name is Ellie Turner. I'm in eighth grade, and I would just like to thank the Chamber of Commerce for this opportunity. I really have enjoyed the amazing shake. It definitely grew me as a person in my confidence. And last thing that I wanna say is I'm very much looking forward to the global competition, and I am so excited for this opportunity to grow as a person in in my professionalism. My name is Erin. My name is Erin, and I just wanna thank the the event organizers and all
the judges who took time out of their day and their personal life to come to event. And I wanna say about the amazing shake, it was a very eye opening experience, and it helped me learn a lot about communication and how many opportunities one can achieve when you can talk to other people and learn your social skills, which can be, in my opinion, is one of the most important skills you can learn in life. Because when you can work together, you can achieve so many great things. And I think some of our board members have served in the screening or competitions of school level competitions.
Right? How many of you guys did that? Several of you did. Right. It's always, really interesting to see that come through. So thank you all. We're looking forward to one of you winning in Atlanta. Right? Okay. Alright. Thanks a lot. Now, doctor Martin and and guest. Thank you. So, every month or we can do one last month, but we do it February, March, April, and May. Thanks to Sonic, we do the Rutherford County, strong outstanding staff awards. We ask the public and employees to make nominations. It includes the central office level, which also includes maintenance.
It includes, teachers, administrators, support staff, which could be an EA or any of those type, and then also someone in the transportation realm. And so tonight, we're gonna honor those. Our first is mister Brian Wagner. He is the principal of David Urie Elementary School. I made a mistake earlier when I submitted this for the agenda and wrote that he was the assistant principal. So they have fixed that. Come on up. Oh, Oh, actually, I'm sorry. You're gonna come right up here. So I I'm gonna read the nomination that was submitted.
Now, mister Wagner, how many how long have you been at David Gerry now? His first year. I thought so. Okay. He he goes out of his way to make sure every student has a good day. He interacts very well with the students and teachers and all the school staff, and he always has a great smile on his face, and he makes our days greater. So that's always great to hear. Good thing they like you. Right? It's your first year. Okay. The next one is the teacher from Kittrell Elementary School and I'm gonna say her last name wrong. I know I am. So Spigalon. Doctor Sullivan, will you just say it? Spigalon.
Spigalon. Spigalon. Yep. When When I point at you, just say her name. Okay? No problem. Great. Yep. Now was she one of your teachers, doctor Sullivan? She was and had the most interesting interview. I think you were in Kazakhstan at that time. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. And so I interviewed her from Rocky Fort for autism spectrum disorder and I interviewed her and thought she's running a school serving students with autism and I actually think she was a principal at that point and was coming back home and she just is, she can't stay retired. So she keeps coming back to help students at need. And so Great.
Is missus Lonnie. Is that right? Miss Lonnie. Miss Lonnie, as the students call her, is an amazing soul. My daughter has autism. She struggles with communication as well as other issues. She wanted to ride the school bus so bad. She had integrated pre k at Walter Hill. It just wasn't possible for her to ride the bus last year. So this year, when she started school and we met her teacher, we explained that she was so excited to ride the bus and has an older sibling in high school that can monitor her while on the bus. Miss Lonnie, waits for her every single day to make sure she can exit the
bus safely. It's quite a step for her little legs. And after a few months of this, miss Lani messaged me and said, she is so sweet and she is so excited to be on the school bus every day that it has brightened up her mornings, which is turn in turn brighten my own. That's that's the nomination that you received. You probably know who this parent is, I'm guessing. Okay. Congratulations. For this next one, I asked, principal Brad Decker from Oakland Middle School because he made this nomination. I thought it'd be nice if he actually talked about miss Megan Sands and she would come up, please. Sorry. You sorry. Did I let it out?
It's all good. So James told me, like, ten minutes ago I was doing this. Usually, when I get emails from James Evans, I just delete them. But when I when I saw this nomination immediately you know, when I saw this email, I thought of miss Sands. And, again, without having anything prepared, basically, long story short, what, maybe a year and a half ago, I guess, miss Sands, she came in my office and sat down. We had a very serious conversation about a diagnosis, that she had received. And so since then, she has been going through, you know, chemotherapy and and radiation
and just all kinds of things. And I don't I don't wanna get too much into, you know, what she has going on. But day after day after day, regardless of what she's going through, she shows up for our kids with a smile on her face, in our structured setting classroom, which is, if you don't know, is one of our classrooms with our kids who who just need more love, really, sometimes than than our other kids. But again, she does not miss work. If she has to come in for a half a day, she comes in for a half a day. If she has to come in for three quarters of a day, like, she is
there as much as she can possibly be there. Loving on our kids, loving on our staff, like, kinda giving us that that boost and that encouragement to keep going. You know? Miss Sands does it. Let's do it too. So I I told mister Evans, if there's someone who is worthy of an award like this, who when you think of a school and an adult who really makes a difference in the lives of kids and who is selfless for our kids, it's miss Sands. So that's that's why I and we nominated you for this award, miss Sands.
Thanks. Okay. From this from the central office, Mary Howell has worked in our central office for many, many years. But miss Howell, let me know that some of you may know that she cares for her sister after work every day. She has to be there every day. So she said, I just can't make night meetings. And I said, well, we're gonna do the honoree anyway. So the person who nominated said she's amazing. She knows her job well. Always helpful. And this is the best part. It would take six people to replace her, and everyone loves her. So it's always good to know that you're worth at least six people. You wanna multiply. Right? So so we're gonna share all this with her tomorrow, but we wanted to still
read this out loud at the board meeting. And then last The bad news is she's retiring. Well, I didn't wanna get that. I have made that mistake before about an announcement. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The bad news is she's retiring, so I hope I don't have to use six people to she's been here. She has been That's our way of softening the ground for the budget meeting. She has been here for decades and is does a lot with our attendance department with our enrollment numbers. And so anytime I need an update about how's our enrollment figures go, I always go by Mary's office and I just ask, how are we feeling? Do you feel okay? And if she tells me she feels okay, then I feel good.
If she tells me she doesn't, then I'm concerned. And so far, she feels okay. So I'm good. I also got ahead of myself and I said that this was presented by Sonic, but I didn't say who these people are from Sonic. So Alan Skewers is here along with someone new this month, Beth Keach. It's like Beach but with a k. They like to try to trip me up on the names. I think they're making these up every month, but they have been graciously sponsoring these awards now for the last couple of years and so we appreciate that. And we have one more to give out. Miss Clarissa Smith from bus fifty five. So miss Smith miss Smith is such a sweet wonderful person to these kids.
The stories I get to hear about miss Smith is so sweet, are so sweet. She is the best bus driver ever. Miss Smith goes above and beyond. We will miss her as our bus driver next year due to the zoning change. If there's ever an issue on the bus, that she is on it and takes care of it immediately, and we love miss Smith. So thank you. Alright. We're gonna do a photo. Yep. Alright. Yeah. Let's get some down. Oh, wow. Okay. You guys ready? 321. Alright. Thank you much. Congratulations. Yep. Yep. Yep. He's got three. Yeah. That's great. It makes us feel bad when everybody leaves.
Everybody's bailed out. We talked to be here to see us. Nobody's here. They have never been here. Never here to see us. Nobody wants to see the budget amendments. No. That's the most riveting part. I know. Okay. Now we head on to number eight, instruction. First, we have an updated job description for the student information data analyst. This title was updated two years ago with the combination of both the administrative assistant for EIS and the administrative assistant for attendance. Additional responsibilities have been added to this position without a change in pay scale. Any comments or questions?
Okay. Next, nine. Financial matters. This is fund one forty one budget amendment. Talk to the county and just for FYI, the county does not do a midyear cleanup. Talk to Brian. It was our option whether or not to do one or not. This is a pretty small amendment for as big of our budgets. Our budget is 500 and really at this point with so many other programs, and then I think it's over 600,000,000. But Brian likes to see where we are in each account. Overall, this is a budget amendment adding $880,000. And, again, you won't see one from the county's general fund because they just do
one at the end. But this budget amendment cleans up expenditure line items at midyear. The amended revenue reflects state grant allocations not including the original budget. The amended expenditure reflects the increase of cost of instructional support supplies and material, maintenance contract and services equipment, state mandated teacher instructional supplies and material allocations that used to be BEP, the $200 they get. This amendment has a net increase in both current year's revenue and expenditures of 880,000 with no use of fund balance. And so we get, Brian, you wanna talk about which revenues you've used in this
one? We budgeted a portion earlier, in, in whenever we did the original budget of voluntary pre k state funding that we get. There was, I did not budget because I wasn't sure what it was gonna look like all the way. I knew we were gonna get over a million dollars. We ended up with 1.7, I believe million. So I did not budget about $3.80 to $400,000 of that grant. So we're using that the rest of that portion to budget for. And then the rest is, from the outcome funding that we received from TESA for
the, for, you know, the outcomes, the student outcomes that they give to us every year, which I believe that was $4,600,000 this year. So we've only used 880,000 of that. So, we'll still, because we did receive $2,500,000 as well for the letter, a grade, funding as well, which unfortunately that was prorated. We should have got 4,000,000, but we only received 2,500,000.0 of it. So we're looking at a total of going into year end of money that we
may have to adjust due to insurance and salaries of somewhere around $6.6.36 $400,000 that we'll have to use to be able to clean up the amendment at year end if we need to. If not, then the rest of it just rolls in a fund balance. Yep. And so overall, I think last year's was $1.21300000.0. So less than last year's and appreciate all the work you do because I only have 880,000 at midyear to have to use with as big of a budget this is.
I think the counties can be $2,025,000,000. You just get extra revenue. The other part of that that I wanna call out is the we did receive its high performance is what it's called, high performance bonus. So if you have over 50% of your schools that are letter a, then you're eligible for up to 4,000,000. It was prorated down to 2.5, 2.6. We if the governor's budget passes, then it will give us that extra 1,400,000.0 back. The unfortunate part for us is that will not be until July, and so it'll
go straight in the fund balance. You all were at our last meeting when we tried to pull just $70,000 out. And so getting money out of fund balance is tough for us. And so I'm gonna present to the state board of education next week, and of course, we have a great relationship with our county commission. But that is one of the challenges on when funds are sent to us when they're sent after June 30. It may look like it's coming to the school system, but it's not coming to the school system. Then it's going straight into our fund balance, which we really don't get to spend. And so that's gonna be one of the topics I hit on. The only other thing I want to point, we have at least three principals retiring,
depending on which schools those are. And I may come back to the board and ask for permission to have maybe two or three weeks in between, because we haven't had any principals retired last couple years. I don't like, just the managerial set of where you have a principal, their contract ends June 23, the new principal doesn't start July 10 and there's two weeks where there's nobody in charge. That's the way their contracts line up. And so I probably will come back and ask. It's not a huge 5 or $6,000 budgetary item, but I would like to go ahead and start a new principal a couple weeks before, so that we have some
overlap. Gotcha. That'll be the next, probably next board meeting. But we haven't budgeted into this, I believe in our. Yeah. We budgeted funding into this, but I'll come back and officially request, for funding to approve it. So Any other questions or comments? Doctor Sullivan, when is there a deadline to for the principals to announce their retirement? We've been lucky. We haven't had anybody the last couple years. You used to always get a summer surprise. Somebody in July would just decide they're leaving. We've been lucky. We haven't had that since I've been the director, but now that I've said it,
somebody's gonna leave July 30. So Okay. Yeah. I just jinxed it. So no. I'm not We haven't had that. So Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next, we have engineering and construction. Smyrna Elementary greenhouse request. Principal Vanessa Ritter is requesting to partner with Taylor Farms to install a 12 by 20 foot greenhouse and develop garden spaces for use by all students from Taylor Farms. This project's requested not to exceed 25,000 is at no cost to the board. Engineering constructions reviewed the request and has no objections. And Smyrna and mister Ritter, they just keep getting community sponsorship.
So I thought she was here, but oh, there she is back there. So great job when you guys, on your sponsorships you get. Any questions or comments? Okay. Second one is Very, very, very special. Riverdale High track naming request. Principal Tamara Blair is requesting to name the track in honor of coach Ricky Field. Coach Field has been at Riverdale since 1990 and has coached men's basketball, football, and track and field. Engineering construction reviewed the request and has no objection. I have personally known coach Fields for almost forty years and he is such an honorable man and he has touched so many lives of athletes and non athletes in
this county and not just at Riverdale, at all the schools. So, this is a wonderful honor, and I'm so glad that we can do this while he's still here and can enjoy the fact that that we're gonna name the track after him. That's awesome. Okay. Number three. Number three, La Verne High School softball school report request. The project will be funded, there's a typo here, through softball, not baseball. I'm sure softball would love for baseball to pay for theirs, but this is through softball funds and is expected not to exceed 20,000. Engineering construction will be the request and has no objection.
Next, we have financial updates. So just a reminder the board, if you have any board priorities you want us to look at. So what I mentioned last time was our cost of living adjustment. Opening Poplar Hill Middle does have increased costs and then continuing to make sure fund one seventy seven is there and advocating for a new high school. So that's kind of what we're looking at prioritizing. If you have additional things, please let me know because we as we discussed last time, we're also gonna have less TISA revenue because of the way of some of our funding, and enrollments work this year.
The other portion of that is our principal budget request were due last Friday. So I'll send those to you all a week or so before the retreat. Once we go start looking at those and then department requests are due this Friday. Is that correct, Brian? Yep. And so we'll we're about a week behind, but that's fine just because of the snow. So a little bit behind where but we're we're in good shape. Okay. Any questions? Okay. Next, we have directors. Let's do it. I'll do it Thursday. Okay. Mister Vaught, do you have anything to report from today's, last two days, actually? Last two days, we, and they had the, I guess, legislative and legal conference in
Franklin last couple of days. Pretty insightful. Don't want to get anybody real excited about it, but there's about 250 bills that have been introduced so far or the cutoff date is now. So when roughly two fifty bills related to education, they spent a couple of hours on about 25 of the more potent bills, I guess I would say. Some of them that probably we need to support. Some of them we need to try to get our legislators not to look at
or not to approve. But I the the feeling in general is it'll all settle out in the next couple of three weeks, not to get too excited about anything right now. I think one of them has got got a lot of headlines here lately is about going from a appointed superintendent or appointed director back to an elected superintendent. That rears its head every five to ten years, I guess, ever since that legislation was passed in, if I remember correctly, 1990 or 1992. So, there's a lot of provisions tied to that.
I don't know how much traction it's gonna get. But, you know, it's a it's a constant struggle. I'm gonna be on Capitol Hill tomorrow and and kind of fill out some of our legislators about some of these things. I have a trade organization meeting tomorrow. The realtors are going down. So but I'm gonna use that opportunity to get next to, all of our legislators because I always get a opportunity. We're gonna eat lunch with them. So anyway, no more maybe Thursday night, but right now I wouldn't get too excited.
It's interesting that a fourth of the bills that have been introduced at the legislature, if you look at the ratio, they all can introduce, for those of you watching on camera, each legislator has the right to introduce 10 bills. Am I doing that right, Frances? I think that's right. Mhmm. 10 bills each. There's 99 legislators. On the house right now. Yeah. The speaker gets a few more, but roughly a thousand bills. 25% of them are related to education, one form or another. So at least our legislators care about education.
You know, sometimes I think people don't realize that, but it is a big portion of the state budget. Obviously, it's a major portion of our local budget. So anyway, more updates to come. Thank you, mister Bodd. Any other comments or questions? Are we in miss Maxwell? We're going to general discussion if there's no other comments. Yes. No no comments for Okay. Yeah. So, really quickly. Tomorrow, the, the nonprofit that my family and I have, breakthrough Tennessee, is having its first celebration, for the the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our nation's birthday.
It'll be at the fountains. It's free. It's a prayer breakfast. All are wake welcome. Hope you guys can come. Secondly, I just wanna say thank you so much to the board who helped with the the resolution, sorry, to pass the the observance of the July 4 one day out of the school year because, one of our legislator has picked that up, representative Tim Rudd and, senator Mark Pote. And if it goes through the state general assembly, the hundred fourteenth is general assembly,
it'll be statewide. So I'm really excited that we can do something in celebrating and and honoring our nation's birthday. Two hundred fifty years is a pretty big deal. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Any other comments or discussions for general discussion? Yes. Mister Tidwell. Doctor Sullivan, when you just sent that sent that out to us about the pro rate for the high performance, I'd reach out to a couple different people. I think they are gonna retroactively get that money back to us, but we do need to be talking to our legislators to make sure that they're gonna support that
because it's in the governor's bill to do it. We don't and we know a lot of that stuff gets moved around and cut. We don't want that portion to get cut. Also, I'm just gonna go on record. I think that it's a high performance bonus that was given for the performance of this school district. I think that is school district money that should be coming here. So that's what you mentioned. Thank you for advocating for that. I I just find that that's a no brainer cause to me. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yes. Miss Sharp. Thank you. Today a lot of the title one spring, meetings have come out and I encourage
everybody to go because you've learned a lot and the parents are there. And, it's really, really good. When I first came on board, it was a lot of information that I learned very quickly from those meetings. So try to make them if you can. Any other comments or questions for anyone? Well, if that is it, then we're adjourned. I'll