Blessing boxes for people who may need some foods and I was gonna have her talk about that for just a minute. But since she's not here, I'm gonna do the prayer. Everybody bow your heads. Lord, we thank you for us getting here safely if even if we're not on time. We thank you for this day and the beautiful weather that we had. We thank you for our administrators, our teachers, our custodians, our children, and the fantastic things that are going on within the school systems. We thank you for your son, Jesus. Amen. So tell him, boom. I pledge allegiance to the flag of 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 approval of the agenda. Move to approve. Second. Thank you, miss Rosales. Thank you, mister Tipple. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next, we have the approval of the consent agenda. Move to approve. Thank you. I have a comment. Yes. Go ahead. We did add today a EA from La Verne Middle School. So just so everyone's aware. Okay. Thank you, mister Vaughn Vaughn rather.
And thank you, mister Arvey. All in favor say, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. We do have three that signed up for public comment. And when I call your name, please, come up to the podium. First up, we have Lee Meisner. Hello. Hi. Good evening, chair, board members, and district leaders. My name is Lee Meisner, and I'm the proud mom of three McFadden students. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and for the thoughtful thoughtful leadership you bring to every decision affecting Rutherford County students. Last December, our PTO was honored to host many of you as well as some
of our commissioners for breakfast at McFadden. It was a great opportunity to share both our pride in our school and our vision for its future. And to give you a closer look at the place our students and teachers call home every day. We appreciated the chance to share with you McFadden's strengths and challenges that make our goals so so important. We're grateful for the board's continued interest, support, and open dialogue about McFadden's needs. Those conversations have helped bring us to this point tonight. As you prepare to vote on moving forward with the process of purchasing the five
adjacent properties behind our current building, I want to express our strong support. Even if a new or renovated school is still years away, this acquisition is an important first step. It strengthens safety, provides room for thoughtful growth, and gives our district flexibility to plan for the future. Our current building, full of history and charm, is showing its age. The beautiful classic steps that have welcomed students for almost eighty years can no longer be used for students to enter the building in the morning because the main level
floors lack the stability needed for the new weapons detection system to function properly. Instead, our students now must enter through the basement to start their day. It's a small example, but it represents something larger. This structure, for all its character, was simply not built to meet the demands of today's students or the safety standards of a modern school. We've stretched every inch of this building to continue providing an excellent education, but it's no longer a structure that fully supports the needs of children in twenty twenty five. At McFadden, we don't complain, we adapt.
Our teachers, staff, and families continue to make it work every day, day after day. But the issues are growing and our taxpayer dollars would serve the district better by investing in a long term solution, purchasing land and redefining the school's layout rather than continuing to apply costly band aids to an aging structure. Owning the surrounding land gives the district options, safer designs, modern learning environments, and even immediate improvements, such as relocating our front playground that currently sits on a busy street corner to a safer place behind the school.
We understand that large projects like this unfold over time. By the time new plans come to life, many of our own children may have moved on. But we care deeply about McFadden's future because it has given so much to our families and to the to the Rutherford County as a whole. Your continued support allows us to imagine the kind of future McFadden students truly deserve. Thank you. Next, we have Elizabeth Chandler. Good evening, chair, board members, and district leaders. My name is Liz Chandler, and I'm a proud parent of two McFadden students.
Tonight, I'm speaking on behalf of the families, teachers, staff members, and future McFadden families who care deeply about this school and its future. While the standard of learning at McFadden remains extraordinary, the building itself tells a different story. As you may recall, after being rebuilt three times, the current structure was built in 1939 and that age shows. The building has served this community well, but it now comes with growing maintenance demands. Multiple costly repairs due to wear, water damage, and retrofitted accessibility features that don't quite
meet modern needs. The boat to move forward with the acquisition of the five properties behind our current building is about more than just expanding land. It's about protecting our legacy and creating room to dream. When the time comes to rebuild or renovate, the additional space would allow McFadden to finally offer facilities to our students who have never had access to things like a stage or an auditorium or perhaps even a full size gym. It would also give the school immediate access to Bluff Avenue allowing us the ability
to more safely and efficiently redirect traffic since our entire school population are car riders. These aren't just upgrades, they're investments in the full student experience. As a parent teacher organization, we are committed to maximizing every McFadden student's potential while doing everything we can to make sure that the facility challenges do not disrupt the education of our current or future students. Moving forward with these property contracts brings our goal one step closer to reality. While I speak on behalf of the McFadden families and staff, I'd also like to
note that my own two children will have moved on from McFadden by the time any projects on the property have reached completion. Like many McFadden parents, both here tonight and watching at home, I recognize that my children may not directly benefit from these facility upgrades. But this does not lessen my determination to see this project through. Attending McFadden has been a giant blessing for our family. And I am personally excited about the thought of a newer renovated school building which will give additional families that same opportunity to experience the same privilege.
As a PTO, we believe it's our responsibility to ensure that future McFadden students have the same, if not better opportunities than our own children. On behalf of our families and staff, we would like to thank you for taking the time to thoughtfully consider the steps to securing McFadden's bright future. Thank you. Thank you. And lastly, we have Corina Maldonado. I think that's Corina Maldonado. She's she's not here today? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Next, we have middle school rezoning. Hi, Dawn. Alright. So the public that is watching, just so that everyone has an idea of, kind
of, what we've been doing the last couple years. This started in the 2022. We began working with RSP to give us district enrollments and really help set us on a trajectory of success for the next few years. We have gone from rezoning our elementary schools with the opening of Poplar Hill Elementary this year, to rezoning our high schools last year with the additions at Smyrna, Riverdale, Oakland, and then this upcoming year with La Verne. And middle school rezoning takes place next year.
We did pass a preliminary middle school rezone plan in December 2023 with a caveat to revisit at least six months before implementation, so that we would have the ability to look at new growth trends. Before we get into that, I did wanna go over just a very quick analysis of what our board spent about six and a half hours looking at on Tuesday. I'm not gonna spend six and a half hours going over this. I'm just gonna go over a couple couple highlights so that everyone has, an idea
of what we were looking at. So give me just a second to get where I'm going to give a quick summary. Alright. So here are is our enrollment, takeaway. And so our enrollment takeaway this year, we are down a 149 students from this point last year. One, we have a lower kindergarten class and then we also went to a four by four with for our high school students, which increased the opportunity for students to graduate early. And so that gives us kind of a one time shot to lower our enrollment
at the high school level. But that'll of course increase. Another looking the opposite direction is that most grade levels are going to continue to grow in size as our cohorts move in the system. So our grades are gonna continue to grow in size. Our graduating senior class does remain larger than our incoming kindergarten class. That is always gonna be the case for us. So for our county commissioners that watch, we have a sister school system on Murfreesboro City. As long as there are two school systems, there's always going to be a smaller kindergarten class than a graduating senior class because of two school systems.
Live births in Rutherford County have increased and so that is a continuing trend for us. The next five years, all grade size averages are projected to continue to increase and the district maintained a positive net gain of incoming students each of the last three years. So we expect that to continue. So enrollment's gonna continue. So now let's look a little bit further at what is going on at each grade band. So now let's look at our oops. Sorry. It's not where I wanted to go. When we are looking at these, there's a couple and this is all attached to
our agenda, there's a, looking at our projections at each grade band, you're going to see a number that said, or a word says reside. That's how many students actually reside in this area. Then a section that says attend, how many students actually attend the school. And then how many actually reside and attend. We do have 10 choice seats at each school. Employees have a zone exemption that they can choose to attend at a school. So how many people reside in that area? How many people attend? You have people who may choose other options. Maybe they go to a homeschool, private school. So the number of people that reside in that area is gonna be higher than
the number of people who actually attend the school. The other option you're gonna see your number is the capacity. How what is the capacity of each building? Some good news. You're gonna look at elementary. Before we opened and rezoned and I know rezoning is painful. No one likes to do it. I know our board hates voting on it because it disrupts families. I hate counting all the numbers because it disrupts families. You're gonna see anything that's shaded in that orangish peach color was overcrowded. And then as we moved into rezoning this year, 2526, 2627, just about all of
that goes away. And so I credit the board for that because they made the difficult decision to rezone. We do have Brown's Chapel Elementary that we probably rezone too many kids out of, so we're gonna have to revisit that with Stewart Street Elementary, but we have been able to alleviate all of our overcrowding except for Stewart's Creek Elementary. You'll see Las Casas by 2930, does get a little bit overcrowded, but you're looking at their capacity of six sixty five and they're at six eighty two. And so they're gonna be fine. We'll just continue to watch that and look at those zones. However, looking and you'll see green, we're good at the elementary level.
Sewers Creek Elementary though, gets to 1785. If by the year of 02/3031. We have the Lee Road property that we'll probably need to look at a three school complex by the end of that time. Stewartsboro Elementary is at 855 by the end of 02/3031 they're at eight sixty six. So again, above capacity, but not anything that we're overly concerned about. But it is gonna be my recommendation that we rezone some of Stuart Street back to Brown's Chapel. We have four or 500 empty seats at Brown's Chapel and we'll be looking at
those proposals in the next couple weeks. The other one to look at is Walter Hill and Wilson. Wilson is a much larger building, nine seventy five. The enrollment is projected to shrink over the next couple of years, while Walter Hill is projected to, grow just a little bit. So we may wanna look at a couple of neighborhoods here. But overall, only capacity challenges are Stewart Street in Stewart's Borough, which is just above 10. So elementary looks good. Can you go back to Stewart's Borough, you said? Yeah. So over by capacity is eight 55. It's gonna be at 866.
Oh, yeah. And reside. And then you'll see attend is actually at 08:28. So we're looking at how many people actually live in the zone versus how many people are attending in it. So it attend based on our current model, it would be under. That's because there's a new subdivision in that area. Yeah. So that's why it's gonna grow a little. Alright. So then let's get, and then your choice schools are a little bit different. Our charter schools and then Thurman Francis, again, you don't have a zone for those schools. It's across the district. So it's just how many people attend.
So it goes into overall number. Middle school is, is not pretty and so we have not rezoned yet, but these projections do take into account the new Poplar Hill Middle School. We are the proud owners. Owners may be the weird word. The two largest middle schools in the state, Blackman Middle School and Rockville Middle School. Blackman Middle School right now is a little bit over seventeen seventy. You'll see in the zone, there are 1,906, but only 1,776 attend. As we go through the years with Poplar Hill Middle opening, they still stay above
the capacity of 1,568. So what we are gonna be working on is to to rezone a little bit more of our projection away at a Blackman Middle. Christiana Middle, same thing. They're gonna be over projection. La Verne Middle is below projection. And so something that I've been working on the last two days is something that should be exciting for the La Verne area is that right now, and I'm gonna pull up the map. This is the current zone, I believe. Let me make sure. Where's this 2627? This is the current approved zone for next year right beside La Verne Middle.
So La Verne Middle is over here. This section right across Murfreesboro Road goes to Rock Springs Middle all the way down into Smyrna. The zones that I'm working with RSP right now is gonna be able to take a lot of La Verne proper and move it into La Verne Middle School, which is gonna be very good for La Verne to be into La Verne. And so this whole area should be able to go to La Verne. This area, I think there's only one student that lives in this whole part. That one student will be able to go to La Verne, but a lot of this will be able to go to La Verne as well. And so that'll be able to do a couple of things. It'll get La Verne into La Verne to utilize that space, but it's also gonna
allow us to alleviate some overcrowding at Rock Springs Middle School as well. And so that'll allow us you'll see the capacity is 1,400. We only get to eleven oh eight. We're at ten sixty four. I don't necessarily want that La Verne or any of our schools to be that close to capacity, but that helps. Oakland Middle fourteen forty, very close to capacity. You'll see Poplar Hill, we are opening large. It has zeros because it's not open. We're opening it above 1,100 with a capacity of 1,200. It is right beside Shelton Square.
So Shelton Square will finish filling that up along with another development by the time that it opens. It's reside and attend is exactly the same because we do not yet with it not being open, don't have a percentage yet of how many people actually attend versus or reside years. So we're gonna look at some of that as well and I'll talk more about
that. At the middle school level and then we'll get to Rockville Middle, second largest middle school in the state. Currently, it's over sixteen thirty nine. This was back at the October And it gets back over 1,600 even with Poplar Hill opening. The issue with Rockville Middle School is that it does have extra classrooms, does not have an extra gym like our other schools that have an addition to it. It does not have any extra bathrooms. And so it is still core capacity for only 1,200 students.
And so that's, that's tough for the administration and teachers and students at that school. Rocky Fork Middle is not getting to capacity even on this projection except for one year. Segal Middle, with Oakland Middle having so many seats nearby, we're trying to get it back under capacity. Smyrna Middle, we are getting close to capacity with some of these moves. Stewarts Creek Middle, it shows you we're gonna need another middle school at the Lee Road property eventually. And then our other spot that we have a lot of room is Whitworth Buchanan. And so our capacity challenges are gonna be Rockville, Stewarts Creek, and still Blackman that
we showed up here. So middle school has a whole lot and we'll come back to that in just a minute. Real quick, high school. High school shows the need for our, I say North End, but our Northwestern End high school needing at the Lee Road property that we have purchased. You will see by 2030, 2031, and why I hope that we ask for a high school in the next six months design fees, that by twenty thirty thirty one, we'll have a campus built for 2189. That'll be at 2859. And then Stewarts Creek High School will be at 3114 for a building of 2,338.
And so that shows you the need for that school on the Lee Road property. Outside of that, and that would then also relieve a little bit of Smyrna and allow you to shift a little bit of Rockville down towards Blackman as well. So that school site will help us alleviate high school. You'll see at the high school level, we had a lot more peach shaded colors. And we were a lot more dire straits without those additions. We need that next high school to be able to alleviate that crowding. Last thing I wanted to cover is just our overall kind of conclusion of what we are looking at.
And this is the part that I think is really good for everyone to see. In our next five years, we're projected to add 964 elementary school students, 1,944 middle school kids. That's why adding the 1,100 seats at Poplar Hill is not enough. And 2,561 high school students, which is why the one high school complex is not enough. Overall, 5,489 kids. That projection is actually a little bit down than where it was from a couple of years ago. So it is definitely following with what you're seeing the nationwide trend.
I think it's scary to see that a 10% projection is down, but that is a downward projection for us. Our next task and kind of where I want direction from the board is what I'm looking at right now is we had on a couple of our areas and I'll show those first, that we couple small areas. You're gonna be able to see them there. You can see two colors. Right here, we were moving these areas from La Verne Middle to Smyrna Middle with
La Verne Middle being under capacity. My recommendation is gonna be to move them back to La Verne, so that they can stay there. We were moving these from I'm just giving you a quick highlight and I'll have a whole lot more. So our timeline will be, meeting with RSP tomorrow to get some firm projections on what these numbers look like. So the board can have those, the public can have those. We will have a zoning meeting on December to go over projections. We'll then have another meeting on December.
Does that sound right, miss Williams? December. Doctor Sullivan, thank you. You said December 18. I think you meant November 18. November 18. Sorry. You're correct. November. Thank you. November. And then we'll have another meeting December, I believe are the dates. Ninth and eleventh. I've looked at so many numbers today. It is Alright. So let me clarify. November is our next board, scheduled board meetings. Those are to look at zoning projections for middle school and hopefully have, a new model to go with.
The community and parents will have about three weeks to review that, make recommendations to the board. Then the recommendation is going to be for the board to look at that at our work session, December 9, hopefully vote on that December 11. Rob will be back with us at RSP to present kind of our new numbers to the, hopefully for a joint meeting on December 16. So I was able to confirm that today. The next from our current, just so that you have an idea of the changes, this area right here is supposed to go to Rocky Fork Middle. I'm gonna recommend that we have that area go to Smyrna Middle.
That's gonna allow Rocky Fork Middle to go a little bit into the Poplar Hills zone. Poplar Hills then gonna be able to go into Blackman zone a little bit more. Blackman zone is gonna be able to go into Rockvale zone. Then in a little bit of a different, we're going to, to match pretty closely the downtown area with our high school zones. We're going to we have hundreds upon hundreds of middle school students who right now all go to Rockville middle in the Cason Lane area. We're going to split this area because there are so many kids between several of
our middle schools, which we like to keep them together. But we also have this as a dual zone high school area. So they're not all going middle to high school together anyways. Anyways. The other big shift is going to be Whitworth is going to come into the Christiana zone, probably following, we will keep Savannah Ridge and at least that's gonna be my recommendation, Savannah Ridge and Indian Hills at Christiana and use Joby Jackson kinda as the cutoff. It's easy access to Whitworth, Buchanan, and then go down Country Farm Road all the
way down Rucker Wayside, Christiana Hoover's gap and kind of use that as the new cutoff for Whitworth Buchanan. That allows Christiana middle to come pretty far into this portion of the more urban part of Murfreesboro where Salem, Cason Lane is to pick up students. And that also allows Wentworth Buchanan to pick up students to where right now on this projection, our smallest middle school is still projected to get smaller. And so we've we've gotta fill some of those seats in that school.
So that's kinda what we're looking at. I'll have a lot more information for the board, Trying to utilize our seats. Happy to answer any questions, thoughts, anything you guys have. If you'd like to go in a different direction, I'm happy to go in a different direction. My only other option is to move portables that I know of. So Doctor Sullivan. Yeah. With these new projections, I know this is a lot of work because as much as I'm I'm not a big fan of rezoning because I've been rezoning so many
times. However, we cannot overlook the fact that this county is growing. Development is happening all the time, and these subdivisions are are popping up everywhere. So with these projections and even with the rezoning that you are recommending to the board next time we meet. Where do you think we need an additional middle school? After this, we are going to either we're doing a lot of work north. We're gonna have to go south next.
I there's there's no if you look at some of those other projections that they have, that talks about let me get to it real quick. About where this is what we're trying to relieve some of that. Right. We've relieved a lot of enrollment from rock springs elementary. We're relieving enrollment from rock springs middle. The Lee Road property is really gonna help right over where are we sure I am, over here with a lot of that, probably at three school complex eventually over there. But then you also have a lot of growth that is here's the south side
of the district where this is all going to be Whitworth Buchanan Middle School, Christiana Middle School, and then this is all Christiana Middle School and, Rockville Middle School and high school. And so our middle and high schools are not gonna be able to hold all of these students down there. So South is gonna have to be next after we address the North. And we have land in the Plainview. We have land for one school at Plainview. Right. We're gonna need something else, and I would recommend on this side of 231.
Okay. But we don't have any land right now in that area? Nothing. Yes. We don't have. We don't have anything even big enough to build anywhere. We have yes. That I know of. Yep. Yeah. We're gonna need something over here for sure. Okay. It's a gift that keeps on giving. It is. But we are I do wanna give the board credit. We are much further ahead than we were Yes. This time I agree. Three and a half years ago. And then with the high school, well, we'll talk about the high school later. Okay. Yes, ma'am. I spoke today with one of the aldermen and got some updated numbers from, the
West Side Of 24. So there's going to be 10 phases of that Arbor Ridge. Right now, the Waldron Road, the Twinning Station, there's going to be 12 buildings for apartments, five seventy eight units and 54 homes. For Woodland Hills, when they finish that development, that's a smaller little area. It's going to be 85 houses. Mission Hills, which is kind of where we had looked at, all of its, all of its Walden Road. Okay.
So I'm all like right here. Yeah. All in that area. So Mission Hills is going to have two zero one lots. So we need to make sure that For sure. Having as much room over there is Yeah. That we put that in there because, Rock Springs is already at capacity as as is middle the middle school. Do you like having that part East Of I 24 that probably should be La Verne over to La Verne? Because right now I had, being realistic, I was surprised that Rock Springs was all over here I had no idea I didn't think that we had any Rock Springs
on the East Side of the Of 24 I had no idea that this entire like right across from the City hall was Rock Springs Middle. And it is right now. That surprised me. Yeah. It needs to go back probably. Yeah. It needs to it needs to go back for sure. K. Doctor Solon. Yes. I appreciate you working on this. I know it's I know it's a lot, and it's ever changing. So we can't project everything. My request would be and I I told you this, but, just get this information out to the parents because we had community meetings and we went through this for several years, and some of them have already kinda set plans on what they expect.
And now, I hate to say there's a little bit little bit of a rug pull on some of them, but it's just the nature of of where we're at. We're trying to fill up this capacity where we have it. But I just ask that we do a kind of a mass movement for that communication. We'll we'll have, of course, our district. We're gonna ask our schools and then we have, when are our yard sign are signs ready to Our signs are ready. We're putting them out tomorrow and And so we'll put those all out. The schools have a QR code so that everybody can also scan as they hopefully, as they stop and don't drive by.
But Awesome. Yes. Okay. Any other questions? Only other area I forgot to mention because I know this area is Blackman area trying to match some of the Poplar Hill Elementary zoning, is looking and in this part isn't the elementary, the other part is. But looking part of not a lot of students, but could be a lot of development is North of Shores Road and Manson Pike going towards Poplar Hill because Poplar
Hill is right here. So trying to relieve Blackman Middle by adding this part that matches the elementary zone up towards Poplar Hill by going down Manton Pike to Blackman. So that's one other area we're looking at. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Number seven, financial matters. Okay. Alright. Number seven, Fund 141 budget amendment. This amendment increases budgeted fiscal year twenty five-twenty six, fund 141 revenue and expenditures to recognize TISA on behalf payments. These payments are funds generated for students under TISA but not issued to the LEA, which is a school district.
They are paid directly to the state for specific items such as state portion of charter school payments, education savings account, individualized education accounts, and juvenile detention centers. TDOE requires LEAs to report these payments and their financial statements and will provide the amounts at year end. This is a budget neutral amendment and does not provide any net gain or loss to the general purpose schools budget. The amount of these budgeted entries is $4,017,240. Any comments or questions? Miss Maxwell. Move to approve. Thank you, Miss Rosales. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?
Motion passes. Next, we have properties. Mister Reed. Mister Reed, please. We talked about some of this on the at the work session, but there's two property items on the agenda tonight. One of the is the McFadden property. Another is just another property has been a bit come available in the county if we won't have any interest in it. On the McFadden property, I've given you a handout for each of you tonight, which is, some sheets. I think some of the McFadden PTO people actually put this together. But you have the existing on the first page, you have the existing school site that shows the, McFadden Community Center adjacent to the school site.
You'll see that? So that's the current property as it exists today. On the second page, you'll see some of the parcels that they were talking about acquiring. These are the five that are under contract. And you got, the second page, you have the two small houses there. If you go to the third page, you have three additional houses there. And, these are small houses. The parcels of land, so really what you're paying for is the land, not the houses because these houses will be torn down. And then the final page that you have in the, presentation of materials here has
shows the property as it's squared off and what it would look like once you get if you acquire all five of these parcels. So you see a very square that takes up the entire block of property there. So you have all that additional land in the back that you could do something with at the school. So so I just present that to you so you know what the properties are that we're account dealing with. I know the schools I know the board members have not had a chance to look maybe some of you have, but we haven't gone as a group to look at these school sites. What I was gonna propose is if the board is so inclined, of course, it's
up to the board to decide what you want to do with these. But if you're inclined to to do so, what we could do is is on both of these property items is post postpone them to the next meeting and then arrange for a tour so we can get a bus set up to take all the, board members to do the drive by and look at these properties. I did talk to doctor Sullivan. He said, we could do it as soon as next Wednesday. Of course, it gets dark early tonight, so it's dark as early as five. So I was gonna throw out there may be 11:30 or twelve next Wednesday as
a possible time. Trying to I know people are working, so I don't know if that gives you a chance to leave your work during the day to do it or not. And that time may not work. If it doesn't work, let us know kinda what time would be better. But we do want to do it during the daylight, so you can see this during the daylight. And it does get dark at five now, so it needs to be some time before before five. So, so with respect to both of these items, the property items of this one and the next one to come up next, well, I I would propose is that we get a bus time schedule that we all get together and go do a
drive by to look at these properties together as a board. Historically, that's what we've done before we acquire property. I know it's always hard to get this number of people together for anything. So if there's some board members who can't make it, we can arrange for them to go look at them independently or have their own time to go by and look at them if you choose. But I do think it is kind of good to have one common time that people look at these together to the extent we can get a a good bunch of us together for that. So I don't know what you think about that, but I will throw that out there as a option for maybe next Wednesday, 11:30 or twelve.
And, we can get a bus. We can either meet at central office or people want to be on-site. And if it's quicker from where you're coming from to be on-site, we can be on-site. So so I offer that to you. The immediate, item agenda item here is these five properties on, next to McFadden. We do have, contracts from the sellers on those. And if we want to, whenever we want to act on those, all those contracts provide for a hundred and eighty day inspection period with two thirty days extensions and
basically gives us a free look. So we have time to look at those properties and decide whether or not they're feasible for the school site. You can do whatever kind of inspection and testing you want to do during that period. So you really have no obligation to follow through and close on them until you decide, during the inspection period to do so and we give notice to close. So so that's the and all these are contingent on county commission approval for funding as well. So, the the three McFadden properties are not huge money. And and when you're talking about for as for land this day, all of them
together is, like, 1,360,000. So the prices that are in the contracts today, the total of all five is 1,360,000. So so I leave that for your discussion. If you guys want to do a a bus tour next week, we can get it set up. And if Wednesday does not work, we can look at other days. I know we suddenly had the school conference for TSBA, I think, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. So, we're thinking Wednesday might be a good day for it. And I threw out lunch just thinking that might be more convenient for people who
are working. Any comments or questions? Yeah. Mister Tidwell first. Jeff, alright. So you said the price that's been negotiated is $1.31.0.3, 100 I'm sorry. 1,360,000. Is the appraisals that are in here, are these recent? Those appraisals are current tax appraisals on the tax rolls. So those are the Rutherford County tax roll appraisals. Alright. So we appraisal are typically low and do not reflect current market prices. Yeah. So as part of approving this contract, approving it it for us to do our
due diligence. Right? Just locking in the property. If we were to make that decision, then we would have it reappraise at market value to see where those values are at. Because there's there's quite a chasm between the numbers on this paper and the numbers that they're asking. The board if the board wants to do so, you can get appraisals done. Okay. Miss Fegwell. Yes, miss miss mister Vaughn first. I'd like to make a motion that we go ahead and move on these five properties for McFadden. We're not gonna do anything with the houses but tear them down. So land is land and, you know, we talk about appraised value.
It really doesn't matter what they're priced at. This is what these people say I'm gonna sell them to you for. And I don't see any reason why we don't go ahead and vote tonight to move on these contracts. There's no reason to to, to not move on. These people are willing to buy them, and we're gonna tear the houses down, and dirt's dirt. And, so, you know, I want us to go ahead and vote on that tonight. Second. Yes. Jeffrey, can you please tell us who is representing the owners?
The sellers. Represents I think one of the one of the owners has a realtor or some realty firm they had consulted with. Otherwise, the owners are being represented by themselves. So all five are gonna be representing themselves by themselves. Some of these are rental houses. So some of the people who own these houses are somewhat sophisticated real estate people, so so are used to dealing with real estate affairs and hold hold multiple rental properties in Murfreesboro. So, so the people you're dealing with are probably more sophisticated real estate people.
So in the disclosure of the contract, is there going to is there going to be a real estate agent that's getting a commission? Who is that? There are no commissions and payable under under these. So, that's one thing is that's being saved because you don't have real estate agents. You're being paying. There's no real estate agents in any of these deals getting receiving a commission on either the school board side or the seller side. Perfect. And I'm sorry. One property has one? For what? Okay. There's a Who is the property? The owner that has a real estate agent.
Who's the real estate agent for that? I think someone at Keller Williams was I saw on one of the contracts for And that's not Keller Williams. Keller Williams. But that's not the affiliation with Stanvault's. No. It's no affiliation. Stanvault is not receiving anything. He's not receiving any of these And his company is not receiving anything. Nor he get they Okay. There's no compensation at all towards Stanvault. Okay. So I wanna move forward as well in buying these contracts because all we're doing is just demolishing these houses. They the the PTO group, met us not met us, but the PTO invited the
whole entire board back in 10/20/2024 to meet with to show a presentation that including every single member that was here sitting here and also some county commissioners. Not everyone showed up. But in that presentation, they're the ones who put the PTO proposed the idea of buying those five houses that are in the same vicinity of McFadden and they said
why why why if there was a need for that to to to buy that. And they also showed us that new sketch of the new school that was gonna give them more land so that they can stay in the property. So the school can stay in the same location and not having to move there. Plus it'll give more opportunities for students in Rutherford County to have another choice school that the residents can apply for. And so, so that's where that idea was proposed.
And then when we started talking about the five year plan, there was a lot of movement in wanting to start something from McFadden so that we can get some type of ball rolling. And then in August, when we had that discussion, twenty first, August 21, well, the day before, about doing our meeting, although we had as a work session, I had asked to get that sketch in the of where that was presented in the, in
the PTO meeting. Not the PTO meeting, that was presented in the informational meeting that the board was invited and the county commissioners were invited. And then we received that information on August 21, and that was include it included every single member that's sitting here on the board with the link to go to that. And so if you go to McFadden, which I have been, those houses you can see, you can drive around it, around around them and see the houses. As far as topography, it's in the same top topography as with the school because
we already have something building there's something something already built. There is infrastructure already in there because we have, a hookup for sewer and electricity. Those will be the biggest, reasons. As far as the road, there already is road access to it because it's on the street side. There may be we maybe get asked to expand the the street by the city. I don't know, because we're expanding. But really, what's gonna help with this is that the location, if you go into
McAfee and when you see the playground, it's right by the very busy street. So it's gonna allow them it's gonna allow the playground to be moved behind the school, so it'll be a little bit more safer. So with that, for those reasons, I'm gonna go ahead and move. Well, I'm gonna move forward buying the contracts. Plus, I looked into the policy that we had as far as site selection, and one of the things that it clear stated is that, is that if we're gonna
buy something, and that is needs to be in an area where it's been identified, where we are to buy these, buy buy property for that, and that has already been identified. And I know that we the board did vote for Jeff Reed to move into negotiation. But how many people are in your firm? How many other lawyers are in your firm working with you, Jeff Reed? How many attorneys we have? The uniform. Like eight attorneys? And then when you get overloaded with work, and we have given you authority to
do, you have the authority to make decisions in our behalf, which may include giving some of that work to one of your partners so that that we can continue doing the process continue doing the work because of the overload. And it's my understanding that the reason why Stan was got involved because he does have a real estate agent, is because he was approached, there was a conversation that
he was approached by the principal and even by you to see if there was some way that we can look into committing the owners into buying these houses. So for those reasons I wanna move forward with buying the buying the houses. Thank you, mister Wallace. Mister Tidwell. Yeah. I've been to McPhadden many times. I got a lot of respect for doctor Blair and PTO for the work that they've done as well putting this together. I don't think anybody is doubting that these changes need to be made, and this is not a great move for them. But we also got to be responsible to taxpayers and, you know, what you've handed
out to us today, I understand is not the actual market value. But I would be willing to move on this because we're just doing our due diligence. We're not signing the contract. I would not be happy signing the contract when the homeowners are asking for double, the amount of what it's appraised for. So I'd love to see what that comes back to. I would be ask that we request appraisals, so that we can get that back and maybe go back to the negotiating table with a more realistic number in between. But with with this just being permission to move forward on continuing the due diligence,
I'll I'll support that. Just a moment. Yes, miss Sharp. Did you? Listen. There's no one on this board that doesn't think that you guys deserve it and that y'all need it. This map here looks so much bigger than the actual property because I did go out yesterday and look at it. So I can at least say that I laid eyes on it. And I saw your teacher all the way down at the four way stop. I'm so thankful that the experience church allows you guys to use their parking lot to help y'all with coming into school and and loading from school.
That's such a blessing because it is a very narrow two lane road. And I am for this, but I'm not for what what is happening here. We've I've been on this board. This is my eighth year. Before we've purchased any property, we as a board have gone to the property and looked at it. And I think it's derelict and our due diligence for us not to. So I'm a no vote, even though I support the I support the project. Miss Darby? Mister Reed, if we, move forward with these contracts, you will be signing these contracts
at the price that they are at. Correct? Well, the purchase price is as stated in the contract. So that is the purchase price in the contract. And then you have the right to get an appraisal done if we board once again appraisal done. If the appraisals come in lower than what the contract purchase prices are and you want to go back to the sellers and attempt to negotiate a lower price with the appraisals, you can do that. Of course, there's no guarantee the sellers will be willing to sell at what appraisal price you get. So that's when the negotiation comes through, comes in to see whether they're willing to
come off the purchase prices or not. These are rental properties. And while these conditions the houses are not, I'd say, the most pristine houses you've ever seen, They are generating income. So so one of the things that kinda, you know, factors in the valuation of these houses is how much rental income they're generating. So that's a factor that landlords would be familiar with that may not be necessarily reflected by the market appraisal on a cost approach basis. But all that's to say, if the if the board decides to go forward with
the contracts, you can do that. If you get appraisals done, the appraisal come in less than what the contract price is, and the board says, well, we're not willing to pay the price that is in the contract because the appraisals came in less. That's a decision the board can make, and you can go back to the sellers and negotiate with the sellers. And it'll be up to the sellers to determine whether or not they're willing to sell for lower prices in the contract. Okay. So the contract is written in a way that we are not locked into that price if the appraisal comes back less? You can you are locked we have the inspection period.
I'm just concerned about the the pricing portion of it. I just wanna make sure that we can go back. During the inspection period, you can go back and try to if you have, if you want to try to renegotiate the deal, you can try to renegotiate the deal. If you can't get a number that you're willing to live with, then you can terminate the contract. And then everyone goes on their separate ways, and you don't we don't close on the property. K. I too, agree with mister Tidwell and miss Sharp. I've been to McFadden not actually inside the building, but on the exterior of the
building many times. It's a fantastic school. The older schools are something I've been talking about for a couple years, getting on to our schedule to get them renovated, rebuilt. So I'm in favor of us moving forward with rebuilding McFadden. Absolutely. I do have concerns when we as a board aren't following policy Because we set the example for our district, and it says a lot if we're not following our own policy. So I that has been my main issue with the way this entire thing unfolded. So I just wanna be clear going on record that it has nothing to do
with these houses, with this school, none of those things. It has everything to do with policy and making sure that we are handling things in the proper way according to our policy. What policy what policy should you talk about? What policy you you talking about? I'll have the policy number on hand, but the board voted to allow mister Reid to engage with those owners. We did not vote to allow mister Baugh to do that. We're responsible to the public. So when we, as a board, vote to authorize someone to negotiate on behalf of
the board, that is the vote that the board has taken. None of us, not miss Maxwell, not doctor Sullivan, not mister Reed, has the authority to go against what the board voted and do something different in place. If that were the case, there would be zero point in having a board doing anything. Well, we're not about against what the board said. We didn't vote that mister Bogg couldn't say anything. We we voted. We said, you know, mister Reed, yeah, you can do that. But we never said, hey. Stan bought you can't do it. We never said that.
There's no policy. No. But we didn't vote for him to. We voted for mister Reid too. And as I stated at the previous meeting, we as board members, it is not our position or our job. You can talk to TSBA about it. It is it is not good for board members to get involved in financial matters and contracts. And there is a policy that specifically states that board members are not to be involved in contracts. I don't I don't I don't believe there's a policy. Okay. Well Miss Maxwell, I will be very careful right now in accusing board members that
they're getting involved in contracts. Because if we want to go there, we can go there. Go there, mister Collins. So we can go there. Go for it. Because Let me say this. Let me real estate agent other than mister Paul. Let's vote. Jeff Reed, we authorize as a board for Jeff Reed to negotiate. However, Jeff that also means that Jeff Reed can make decisions based upon what is what is in the best interest of the board. And sometimes his workload can get very very heavy.
And there's been times where he's been authorized to do something, but he gives the work to someone in his partner, in his firm so that the process can continue, so that it's in so that the best interest of our board of the board, we can still do the work. There we're you the way this is coming out in saying and saying that we broke policy, we didn't broke policy. It's it's trying to make create this narrative that there was something that happened behind closed doors with a board member and these property owners.
It's already been stated. He's no one is benefiting from this. The board he if anything, Stan Van Bock can speak to these owners. Why? Because he has real estate agent. I mean, he's a real estate agent, and he has an active license. What is not interest. Which has has happened is that if you don't have a active license, it is unethical and you're violating Tennessee State's ethical laws in real estate of going to talk
about pricing and negotiations with an owner. Has that happened? Yes. No. It has not. No. It has not. Yes. It has. No. It has not. Yes. It has. Please. One or two times. Yes. You wanna divulge that you have a real estate license? Yes. I don't know. Did I yes. You do. It was on your disclosure form in 2024. I do not have a real estate license. You do have a real estate license. Order. Order. Order. Don't accuse me of something that didn't happen. Accusing anything. Yes. You did. You said that it has happened. Yeah. It has. And if we wanna get the paperwork out, we will.
Please. Miss Mister Reed. Let me just say this. You've got McFadden has a real issue with her property. We have real issues to contend with or on the agenda about whether or not we want to proceed these with these five properties or not. I think that's the relevant issue the board has to decide on. You guys can debate the process and all that later. But We have a motion on the floor. Have a lot of McFadden people here tonight. And we have a second. You have a real issue at Methadone that needs to be addressed. And what we need to know, the board wants to move forward tonight on it or whether you want to go look at the properties first and then decide later
or what you want to do on them. So that's the business matter that's on the agenda tonight. Miss Max. We have a yes, miss Child. I'm gonna let you go. But we have a motion on the floor and we have a second. And after mister Tidwell speaks, we're gonna vote wow. Go ahead mister Tidwell. I would just like to say that, you know, I'm looking this as a a singular issue whether or not makes sense. Obviously, I think it makes sense because of the need, but, again, we're just entering into some due diligence here. I'm requesting on record an appraisal, so that we can make sure these numbers are
a lot closer than they are currently. Currently, the appraisal of these properties based and I understand it's not market value, but it's 706,350. And they're asking for one point, or 1,360,000, almost double. I feel like that is a little bit excessive, and I think we'll be able to find some middle ground in between it. You're right. It may not happen, but I would like I'd feel more comfortable getting that information back. That's all I'm asking for, And that is why I'm making the vote that I am tonight. Okay. I'm good. You call the roll, please.
We have a motion on the floor to start the process to purchase the five homes at McFadden. Mister Tidwell? Yes. Missus Rosales? Yes. Miss Sharp? No. Mister Vaught? Yes. Mister Vaughn? Yes. Missus Darby? Yes. Missus Maxwell? Yes. Motion passes. Okay. So the second item is, a parcel property which I don't know if the school system wants or not. So is is something being made available to the school if we want it for school purposes? So the sellers come to us and saying they would sell it to the school
system if we have any interest in it. So this is the one in the Blackman area that disputes property. You do have a contract you tonight with you for, which for the 85 acres that does have a hundred and eighty day free look period as well with two sixty day two thirty day extensions. So, again, it's a contract that you have before you that you're not obligate if you sign it, you're not really obligated to close until you go through the inspection period and give notice to close. So this is one the board has not looked at. This is a sizable amount of acres out there that's available in the Blackman area.
I don't there's been no determination made as whether we need this for a school, whether it's suitable for a school, but it's been available made available to the school system if we have an interest in purchasing it. If we do have an and I was gonna suggest, like we've done with other large farms that have become available, for us to go as a board and look at it sometime and to tour it. First, to decide whether you'd like the location, what what the roads look like, and to see what the land looks like. I have not been to this to the land either to look at it myself. So, so I would suggest we possibly do that next Wednesday.
I would suggest 11:30 or twelve to see if that's available to people. If that time doesn't work and people have some other times that are better for them, I mean, we can talk about it. Again, it gets dark at 05:00. So I think we need to go when when it's daylight, and it's not dark, so we can see the site. And, people, if they want to meet at the site and drive from a separate location in the county, if you're coming from your work and it's not convenient to come to the central office first, we can meet you on-site at the at the farm and look at it. But I do think you should probably look at this property before you move forward
with it. I don't think you should move forward with it really without looking at it. And, so I would, suggest we do that next week. And I don't know what if any board members have comments on that whether Wednesday works or doesn't work. But I'll throw that time out there just to give us something to work from. Okay. Yes, mister Volley. I just like my promotion we move to go out and visit it next Wednesday before we make a vote on it. Second. Thank you. Mister Tidwell. Mister Reid, this is 85 acres. Right? What is the price point on that?
8,500,000.0? I'm sorry. What's the price point on that? Yes. Is that is that I thought I read that. 8,500,000.0. So it's a $100,000. Correct. $100,000 in acres. Doctor Sullivan, could you tell us when the, time frame of when the need might be for this particular property, please? Next would be Lee Road property, then south. So within the next ten, fifteen years, I would definitely we're gonna need something here if it develops. If it's like a yes.
If trends hold. Okay. I like how Williamson joined when I don't I haven't been through this site either though. Sure. I I mentioned this at the work session, I'm just gonna belabor the same point. But we have the Poplar Hill property. We bought the Beatty Farm. At the Poplar Hill, we put an elementary and a middle school there. And and I understand this this area is growing, but so is the rest of the county. Now we're buying the should be buying. We're in contract due diligence area of the Lee property. And it's gonna be big enough to potentially hold, hopefully, what will be a high school, maybe potentially a middle school, some form.
And Danelle was there. Help. And we need those as well. And and I get that. And then now we're looking at rather than going back down south, which doctor Solon has, alluded to a need that we have from RSP as well, and which I'm advocating for, rather than do that, we're gonna have another property in the same area at a $100,000 an acre. So to me, that doesn't make sense as the first upcoming we're gonna have another need before that need, so I'd rather focus on that. Because as we've had discussions here and as we've had discussions at our work retreat,
we're about to put a ask out there for some money to the county commission. And it's no light task, but it is a need. Part of that need is gonna be the funding. Well, I think we're gonna use the fund balance. Gonna ask them for to use fund balance for the Lee property. And then the high school, Trey, would you like to give us a ballpark figure on the high school? I think the last one that I heard was like 100 was it $1.80? The building itself would probably be around 120 to 130, and then you would have to have any property that would be associated with it. You gotta have the FF and E.
You got site. So, yes, it could be approaching 150 to 180. Alright. And and then at least at the retreat that was on Tuesday, we also talked about possibly a middle school there. Could you tell me what the price of middle school would be? We just did 60, 70. I'm gonna say between 70 and 80, depending upon the time frame that it's built. And I ain't gonna I ain't gonna pull this back up and say, Trey, you said Yeah. No. That's, it's just just an idea. And it's a big ask. And I know the county has their own interest in the the things that they're
gonna do. So my concern would be, let's go after the things that we absolutely need now. And I'm not saying it is completely unnecessary ten years down the road. It may be necessary if trends hold. But as it sets now, it's not the need we have. And that's why I wouldn't support it. Can I real quick? Yes. Mister I think Trey hit it very well Tuesday. I think this would have been a great thing to have known about a year ago, because it would have definitely helped. Do you have any reason to believe that the Lee Road property is gonna fall through?
No. Would you mention Tuesday night? I suppose I'm closer than that. So yes. Okay. I expect the first time I heard that, so that was a little concerning. Okay. That was a great question to ask. Yes. Any other? Thing about it is, you know, we don't this property, you know, there's not gonna be you don't get many chances to buy a property in Rutherford County. And when the opportunity comes, we know in the in the future, we're gonna have to have schools, unless they put a I'm full sign at the county line.
But we keep growing and growing and growing and we just buy for what we need right now. It's like Blackwood Middle School is a good example. We built that school, for what was needed at the time, and it was built for a thousand kids. Sixth year there, we were 1,200. Rockville is the same way, built that high school, and it ended up being the largest one of the top two or three highest, biggest high schools in the state. So, you know, if we just buy for what we need now, we're gonna get
into that situation again. And then if we get in a situation where we can't buy any land, you think it's expensive now. You wait until that comes up. And we just need to keep our eyes open and be visionaries to look down the road a little bit and take advantage of the opportunities when they come. So, you know, we just need to really take advantage of everything we get. So I do think there is wisdom, and I'm not trying to wishy washy because
that is something Williamson County to our west did a very good job of about twenty years ago. They bought land and so I think it's definitely prudent of us to continue to to look and explore every piece that's brought to us because they don't have to look for land sites when they build their schools. They they already have one. And so that's that's something I wish we were in the position to do where unfortunately we're not. I want to agree with that. It seems like since I've been on the board and COVID hit, and it was awful. And for three years, we did absolutely nothing. It was like we were stuck in quicksand.
And everybody was like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And I'm not blaming them but us not being able we're still playing catch up. We're just filling some we're filling up schools as soon as we build them instead of thinking down the road and trying to be forward thinking. And that's why I think every piece of property that they're willing to show us, we need to take a look at and really think about. Because just like you said, we may not need it for another eight, nine years but it would be nice to have it. And, so I'd like to I agree.
You know Yeah. We do have a motion and we have a second. I'd like to say one thing. We need to go to the developers that are building these big neighborhoods and the these all these houses they're putting up. John Floyd gave Spring Hill gave Spring Hill the prop to build the elementary school. Yeah. We need to go these contractors. They need to put a little bit bit of the skin in the game because they're the ones that are benefiting from it. So And so I don't know how you do that, but we maybe we can.
If We did have a developer that is building south at and the original plans had land donated for school and somewhere between there and the approval at the county level didn't happen. So I don't we're not on the planning commission. So I don't know where that went south, but the land for the school the land for the school site is no longer there. Can we look at it again? Looking up to us, but it was originally spot for a school. Madam chair. Yes. You start. Thank you madam chair. Mister Bond, to your point, the policy needs to be changed at the municipality level.
Because they're the ones that are building and letting the developers come in and causing the taxpayers more property taxes and more having to build more schools. So the policies need to be changed in our cities to require the developers to give us some land or give us a discounted land. That needs that needs to happen. And our the IDB board needs to stop giving away taxes and charge for the
taxes. It'd be nice if we could meet with mayors of the, Laverne and Smyrna and Burkesboro and just tell them. They are working on that. So I wanna give the the five mayors credit. They brought this up to the mayoral council. So I do wanna give them Are they doing more? You're just talking about it? Are they gonna do something? Yes. I did. Well, we met the first time, and it was not my idea. So I wanna give them a call for that. Yeah. So we have a motion on the floor. To visit the school. To visit the school, the Dismukes property. We have a second. Madam chair. Yes. Can you state what the motion is again?
I was gonna say, could you the motion The motion is to visit the Dismukes property on Wednesday. So this is just to visit it. Mhmm. K. Good roll call, please. Missus Darby? I can't visit on Wednesday, but yes. Mister Vaught? Have a safe. Missus Rosales? Yes. Mister Vaughn? Yes. Mister Tidwell? No. Miss Sharp? Yes. Missus Maxwell? Yes. Passes. So we'll get, arrangement made for a bus to leave from here, and, I may get miss Williams to send out notices on that.
And if you want to meet on-site, we'll send you an address and people can meet on-site. Okay. Thank you, mister Reed. Thank you for all your hard work. Yes. Next, we have director's update. I'm good. Okay. I don't think you've said that in a long time. Hey. There's no Mountain Dew over here, so you must be doing good. I've looked at so many numbers today with zoning. I'm good. And general discussion? I'd like to I'd like to say that I'd like to thank mister Reed and mister Bob for the work they did to get this all this land and everything done. I mean, it's a lot of effort put out, and, I appreciate everything they've done
and their expertise. So thank y'all for y'all for Doctor Sullivan's got something to say. I did one in this one. So I wanna congratulate, mister Vaughn. He is being inducted into Oakland High Schools. John here, he is being inducted into the hall of fame at halftime today. What happens when you hang around long time when things happen. Couldn't happen to a a better, more deserving gentleman. Thank you. Any other Yes, ma'am? I'm sorry. Yes, mister Tittle. We have some middle school principals here, so we appreciate you guys here.
We also, have a a bittersweet moment. I'm losing, one of my middle school principals to the new Popular Hill Middle School. So but congratulations to doctor April Snead for that. Thank you. Any others? Thank you. So miss Brenda Bryant, thank you for coming anyway even though you were not able to do the prayer. If I we would be here for another hour if I talked about all, the things that she's done for our community, but she does have the blessings box and her ministry is keeping, people in their homes.
So she works with affordable housing and some other things. So thank you for coming. I'm sorry about the traffic today. So if anybody wants the addresses for the blessing boxes, I'll put them out on my Facebook. On Saturday from nine to twelve at Champy's in Murfreesboro, we're going to do a food donation drive for our Atlas program. So, you'll see some familiar faces. There's a bunch of people that'll be there. Y'all can just drive through the parking lot and I'll put up, the needs and things that Miss Johnson has put out for us. So it'll be Saturday nine to twelve at the Champions and Murfreesboro Road.
And if anybody wants to come and join us and help pick up and put in boxes and things like that, hopefully, we'll have a lot of people come to bless our Atlas program. Excellent. And if there's no other, we are adjourned.