again this year welcome back to ruford County Schools we we we always enjoy meeting with you guys and look forward to talking with you today just a few logistical things before we get started everyone um if you're not familiar with how this works um we are being recorded and broadcast live on the YouTube
channel um so to make sure you can be heard whenever you speak please turn your microphone on don't forget to do that and then turn it off when you're done so it doesn't pick up any extra noises um folks in the audience if you uh choose to respond to one of the questions or provide some feedback if you would just come up to the podium
that microphone stays on so you're good there if you would just step up there so so we can hear you okay I'm Jeff mccan by the way if you have not met me I'm the coordinator of choice and charter schools for R County schools and I just want to take a minute to kind of go over the setup for this meeting today um
we're going to start with just some quick introductions cuz I know Dr Sager and your team there's some new faces on the committee this year that that you didn't see from last year and there's some new folks in the audience this year too that we don't remember from last year so we're going to start with introductions then we'll get directly
into the questions um and and our hope is to um maintain um a a fairly quick Pace just be respectful of everybody's time so please don't be offended if I if I ask you to to wrap it up if we if we get a little long-winded in some of our our questions and answers okay so but
we're going to try to keep things confined to that time frame uh first of all let's just start with introductions from the panel up front I'll start down here on this end if you guys would just introduce yourselves and talk about and just give us your role um um one at a time please and you can move the mic down if you
want hi I'm Angela Barnes I'm the Wilson principal um and I'm here as part of this committee hello I'm yisha Campbell I'm the principal at kitrell elementary hi I'm Lissa Westerfield I'm the coordinator of teaching and learning for prek through
12 hi my name is Francis Rosalez and and I am one of the school board members for Rutherford County school and I represent Zone 7 which is the Blackman area and part of smna hi am Lisa Kegler I am one of the ELA K5 um English language arts
Specialists I'm Butch bone I'm Schoolboard member of zone six all right I'm Annie Roston I'm the coordinator of special education in Rutherford County Trey Lee chief operations officer
season EPS I'm one of the elementary math Specialists here in Rutherford County for K5 hello I'm Mark Goan I'm the director of special populations and federal programs for Rutherford County Schools hi I'm Emily Madison I am a
parent of Rutherford County Schools hi I'm Shannon kwood and I am the accounting supervisor for ruford County Schools hey Dr Sager if you want to talk let your team introduce themselves or introduce the for them you
can so good afternoon and I do want to provide some context uh just if that's okay uh that will actually come from myself and our board chair and then everyone else's uh introductions will be much shorter but just wanted to you know prepare everyone but a good good
afternoon everyone uh my name is Jeremy Sager and I'm the proposed executive director for Nova smart academy uh I have over 15 years of experience in education ranging from being a classroom teacher to also being U an academic leader at the uh District level uh I've
seen firsthand the power of Education uh and the things that we can do to transform the educational experiences for our students uh especially in Partnerships with with Rutherford County um we believe that College and Career begin in kindergarten uh we believe that students uh deserve an opportunity to
have an additional choice choice and option we believe that Rutherford County schools has some of the greatest schools in the state of Tennessee specifically in Middle Tennessee and we just want to be a part of making that Greater by adding uh an additional School option to this community so that families have a
choice uh for things that might be a better fit for them as they continue their children's educational uh career paths hello my name's uh Charles Frasier uh I am a long a resident of Rutherford County a father of four graduate uh
graduated two from Rutherford County one from black men the other one from Le High School uh gold Blaze gold Wolverines I've got two young kids uh that I look forward to educating here as well so I've uh of course figured out that Rutherford County has a great
education a while back uh since I landed here uh after graduating Law School uh myself I've been here practicing uh for 16 years about 16 years uh since I left the Internal Revenue Service uh provide uh Estate Planning and tax work uh for
um uh local residents uh M Middle Tennessee residents um in that work I get an opportunity to uh lend uh expertise to boards all the time um and so U when um Jeremy Sager came uh to me
and asked whether I wanted to be a part of Nova smarty um board um and he told me that uh they had um um the career and college expiration piece that that just resonated with me
um uh that's not something that I was able to experience unfortunately I hope you guys don't hold it against me I was raised up north um um and and the schools that uh that I was uh groomed in uh did not give me an
early uh love for learning um and so uh if that is something that I can be a part of I would definitely want to uh uh lend my skills um that I've since um uh acquired um since um going to Austin P
um on to UT um and two Advanced degrees thereafter U so of course i' I've learned to love and love to learn um and I want the kids to get that earlier than I got it so good afternoon uh my name is Lara white and I'm an assistant principal for
for Kip uh Nashville schools uh I serve as Nova smart Academy's proposed Vice chair in AC academics committee chair I have over 18 years of experience in education K12 um specifically in special
education as well as uh leadership uh and curriculum development my decision to join this board um was because I was just driven by the my passion for education and the alignment uh that Nova smart uh has in terms of innovation in
education and so I am honored to uh join this team and lend my expertise uh for the academic oversight to help shape its success thank you hello uh my name is Daniel kba I'm a Director of Finance and strategy for an
international healthc care company and I'm a uh licensed CPA in Tennessee so I serve as noice smart academy proposed uh bar Treasurer and finance committee chair and as a father of two kids who
attend rerf for County and a husband of an educator uh when I learn about uh the mission and the focus on College and Career it was just you know something that I couldn't turn down so that's why I joined the board good afternoon my name is Celeste Davis
and I'm a resident here at Rutherford County um and I also am a credential and specialist at Dita Healthcare I will be Nova smart academy proposed board secretary and member of the development committee I chose Nova smarter Academy because I have kids in the school system
here at rord County right now and I'm seen firsthand of the um two instructional model and it works and Nova smart Academy has the program thank you good afternoon my name is Brian Bradshaw and I am the executive director
of external Affairs for Mount Zion uh Nashville and I serve as novit Academy smart academy as proposed board member uh and member of the governance committee uh I chose uh Nova smart academy uh because I wholeheartedly
believe in the vision uh and the mission of Nova's smart academy uh whereby it is designed and looking to equip uh all of the students through academic instruction as well as character uh development and believing in the future of our students thank
you good afternoon my name is Dexter Peterson I'm currently a contractor for me Metro Nashville Public Schools where I serve as a e specialist at amq K throughh school um I have 20 over 20 years of experience from being a uh
principal assistant principal educational consultant special education teacher you name and I feel like I've completed that role um I choose Nova smart because of his vision and Mission it aligns with what I believe and the passion that I I do for helping students
especially those students of special needs we believe in cering to the whole child so that's why I chose no smart I am um academics uh smarty proposed board member and academics Committee Member all right thank
you good evening everyone my name is Chris Hill and I am the proposed uh member for the development committee I am a realtor in the Middle Tennessee area with over 7even years of experience with contract negotiations and coaching and the reason that I chose being a part
of the noas smart academy board was to be a part part the change that I want to see and to impact a lasting future for Education here in Rutherford County good afternoon my name is Lonnie Vasquez Hall I'm a resident here at Rutherford County um I'm an independent Financial
strategist I've been doing that for about 20 years now and I serve on Nova smart academy as a proposed board member of the finance committee um I support Nova smart academy mainly I am a mother of five um two have graduated from Rutherford County at Blackman one is a senior this year and I know the
anxieties and the um what comes with them planning for college and for what's out there if they decide not to go to college so the unique um perspective of introducing that really young um Can can help with those choices earlier on and actually give them an opportunity to
explore I'm really excited to be here today and um just appreciate you listening to us today uh yes so we do have one member that will join us soon there was a bit of a family emergency but he's on his way his name is starson odat he's going to join
us eventually um and then there may be one or two board members that are listed or not here today they had previous obligations and priorities with work uh pre presenting it at a conference and so they could not be here with us today right thank you for that and a great opening statement there from you Dr
Sager you kind of um surpassed that first part of our our meeting so we'll just dive right into the questions about the application um and you know you you met with us last year and submitted an application and ultimately the committee ended up finding favor with your application last year and recommended
the board that you that you be approved um but the board had some Financial concerns and they decided not to do that and you went to the state and they also had some concerns over the application submitted as well so I'm kind of curious why don't you just tell us in a nutshell what's different about the application
this year what did you change I think uh first I want to say thank you for the opportunity to come back um and to present our application I think one of the things uh that changed for us is uh really thinking about the strategy we had a lot of research-based uh things
that we truly wanted to implement uh in our school last year and it it's not that they weren't great Innovations it's just that we had to to make some considerations as it relates to the third grade promotion law uh one of the things that we did change is we wanted
to do a year round school model uh in our first application and we did make the transition to go to a traditional 180 Day School calendar and we realized that that is important especially if we're going to uh meet the expectations of that third grade promotion law to
support the students in the way that they need to be supported also another uh change that you will see in our application we were we had all of these Innovations or our application but they were not clearly defined and so what we did was we made sure that we didn't just
tell you about all the great things that we're going to do but we were we became very uh specific about what it means to to implement a smart integrated model within our school and focusing on character education uh College and
Career exploration and then also with our Structured English emerging program for our uh e Learners um what we've seen within a Year's uh time is that last year we were projected to have somewhere between 20 to 25 El students based on
current projections in the community but that has uh increased significantly by 10% 35% and so we see that we will at least have 35% El students in our population and we wanted to make sure that when we think about the strategies that we Implement our school we truly
think about what it means to support all of our students in our community those families that are going to choose us especially in the special special education population and we want to make sure that we're very strategic about what our staffing model looks like to make sure that that's implemented efficiently and effectively for our
families and so I will say while disappointed uh that we uh had to uh again revisit this process we are also very grateful uh that it gave us a bit more time to like really look at our application revise it uh and come up
with uh more effective strategies to get where we need to be also to acquire more funding and so that's always a plus uh of course there's not nearly enough funding to do the work that we we're going to do but we're excited to say that we're in a better Financial space uh this time around with the application
process great we'll ask you for some more specifics on the ELO program later too I'm anxious to hear that um and being as this is your second go around you know with us and submitting an application you've done a lot of leg work already so I'm sure you have a really good feel for this but if you are ultimately approved what is your biggest
challenge going to be I know we asked you this last year but it's probably a little different yeah so of course we know we think about storm shelters so I think I dream about storm shelters at this point uh and so of course um when we think about like our top priorities
we think about one we want to make sure that we have a strong Finance strategy last year uh we did not have as many uh people on our team that had a focus with finance and so this year we wanted to go in this year very strong by strengthening capacity of our finance committee and as you can see we've done
that by adding additional uh members to that uh team and on our finance committee and so with that team just making sure that we have people who understand strategy forecasting how do we uh maintain sustainability over time but then also Finance we have um also a
dedicated uh realtor on our team we we're also building a pipeline of other uh high capacity individuals to make sure that we keep uh the capacity of our team over time strengthened with our team and so we are really focusing on uh Finance making sure that we are uh have
a the strong team to manage our fiscal responsibilities in the way that that we should as as a team then also making sure that we commit to the facilities process uh in our application you saw two facilities we have an option to collocate through a lease and we have an
option to purchase um we're also happy to say and you'll probably hear this more when we get into the finance portion of the interview but we have had a commitment from building hope that's willing to um uh consider funding our entire facilities process should we meet certain criteria and so we're so excited
about that but um we want to make sure that we keep those two things uh at the top of our list um in terms of making sure that we meet our M milestones and timeline and deadlines and timelines in that process and then of course um we want to make sure that we uh maintain a
metrics to make sure that we are meeting our uh enrollment uh expectations as well um we are going we have a community engagement task force that is consist of our academics committee but then other members of our team also we have families who have committed to Nova
smart academy already and they are going to be joining us in this uh journey of uh getting more families to apply we have an aggressive goal of 150 or more applicants and we hope to turn those applicants into enroll families so that by day one August 3rd they're ready to
enjoy Us in kindergarten first great thank you hi Lissa Westerfield um I was just curious about during the first year how your governing body and you as a principal are going to be able to um evaluate or determine if you're doing
well um to what was the state mission to provide Scholars with extraordinary learning experiences and then even after three years how are you how are yall actually um able to evaluate or just look at that yeah I'll speak to that um so a big
difference from uh last year to this year is that this year we've brought on um board on track uh as governance support um last year we were uh thinking about relying solely on a governance committee um and while we probably would have been able to be um Innovative
within our own means um I am fully confident that with the support of board on track as a as a governance support um um vendor uh that they're going to be able to help us with that uh so far uh as a board we have taken um an
evaluation all of us have um uh U took taken surveys um and uh as a board uh that survey uh has come back and as a result of that uh survey we understand what our capabilities and weaknesses are
uh the the U as a result of the the result the um survey uh then we can uh enter into certain trainings uh designed to strengthen us as a board um and again while lots of us are you know and I hate
to toot my horn especially me U are are experienced U with with board matters uh that governance piece uh with board on track I think is really going to strengthen us and help us uh find our weak spots and strengthen them over
time and if I might add to that um another uh piece of support that we have we have I was a fellow in the bees Fellowship it's a national program to to support you in founding your own Charter school and so they will commit to to three years of bees fallowing support
but they not only support with the governance they also support with the school-based leadership team and so they understand the separation of responsibilities and duties from the governance of the of the organization versus the leadership of the school and so they will be supporting us on both tracks to make sure that we're meeting
our metrics uh from a governance perspective but then also from a school-based perspective with the goals that we've established in our application Mr oh thank you sorry so um I got two questions for you so the first one is going to be how did you
determine the level of need for the opening of your school and how was Community input obtained and so if I may I would like to invite one of our members from the team up to the podium
all right hi so we have contacted over 350 community members we've um have a relationship with over 15 child care facilities and we have over 200 interviews Zoom calls surveys um and
petitions to our community we've also have 60 letters of supports and we have those 30 family members that um have already said expressed interest 23 which said that they're ready right now seven
more says I have a few more questions but I'm excited about it um we also have relationships with the boys and girls club with Carpe artista with um Juan is college and with
a mlo State Community College just right here in our area Mr Rosales do you mind if I piggy back on that real quick would you be willing to um furnish us copies of those intent to enroll forms I noticed they weren't in the original application itself and there were a few last year so I'd like to see those if if you could provide
those for us yes so what we so they will not be in the form of the intent to enroll form you've seen previously but we did do a survey on our website and um so uh in addition to some of the things that Celeste uh shared with you we've
attended like kindergarten fairs uh had tabling events and at some of these events families have expressed interest and some of those families who were committed to us last year um that will now be going to kindergarten at a Rutherford County school they're still committing to us for first grade once
once we're approved and those types of things but yes to answer your question we can get you that information and and something to note we we have done a community survey ourselves um and so far um 84% of the respondents uh have not been in favor of approval of of not only
your charter school but other charter schools in general how do you plan to overcome that um negative opinion um or or the the lack of of a need for a charter school as as evidenced by that that Sur those survey results I think it's experience I I do realize that
there are three approved and open CH Charter Schools currently operating in this community and they may or may not have provided the best experience or perception of what charter schools are I can't speak for those Charter Schools but what I can say is someone who has
worked in both traditional public schools and then also worked in public charter schools I understand the the the pros and cons of both experiences there are some amazing traditional Public Schools but there are some not so amazing traditional Public Schools same thing for uh public charter schools and
so the only thing that we can do is continue to have these interactions that we have within the community I believe in commity community service being a servant leader and before we ask families hey choose novice apply here enroll here they have to see us they
have to have conversations we have to be able to answer the hard questions and those are the things that we've been doing uh in this community uh since the first cycle of our application another thing is is you know sometimes we have conversations and we have to hear listen
to hard feedback and that can be uh difficult to internalize however it's very helpful because the thing is is that we these are very lived experiences in this community uh these are things that people have seen there are perceptions and we have to uh address them and we address them by making sure
that one once approved Nova smart academy that we provide uh a different experience for this for the families and deliver on the promises that we said that we would do thank you thank you Mr Rosales you may proceed thank you it's quite all right um so my last question that I have
in this section um is how did your students receive exposure to the Arts and meet the state required needs for physical activity especially in the early
years and just for clarity are you talking about in my role as a principal in the past with the current structure and model for that you're proposing how will it be integrated uh PE how will pH physical activity and arts will be
integrated within the model that you are proposing to have for your grades for kids to interact got it sorry I just wanted to make sure I understood the question so right um we are looking to hire a PE teacher uh to uh to be a part
of our staff in year one uh uh students will take PE uh then also uh during our Lunch Period students are going to have what we call social time they will go to lunch but then they will also have additional time to um go the go to the playground play games and do social time with their
friends and so we do have those pieces Incorporated because we know students do need an outlet uh during the school day so that's one piece the other part of it is is that um Mr Ron ay at um at uh Carpe artista uh they have a fine arts program and we've been in conversations
with them uh they have also provided us with a letter of support and I believe in the Arts I went to a Creative and Performing Arts High School where I participated in uh vocal music and so I believe that those are those types of experiences and creativity are so important and uh have and make a um
impact on critical thinking and so we want to make sure that we integrate those uh Creative and Performing Arts opportunities for our students and so with Partnerships like carp artista we're going to be able to uh have those Partnerships and bring those programs into our school and then also our our
goal is to give students Choice a a pathway because we don't want to force a student into a art class or into a music class who want to say what do you enjoy doing and so that's the whole point of um like when we think about Pathways and of course um that's going to be
something that we do and develop over time but day one we will have a PE teacher and we are going to leverage the support of carp artista with this partnership uh to provide us with some of those um services that they have within our program and then as we continue to grow over time and develop
uh through eighth grade we will increase the offerings that we have pending approval with our finance committee uh making sure that we have those uh uh offerings in place for our students to enjoy in their learning so just for a point of clarification um so during the
P time it's it's lunch and then the the additional option to go and have recess so it's they go to lunch first and then recess is an option so all kids will go to lunch and all kids will go to recess in addition to having a PE so they they
will experience all three gotcha okay that was just a clarification I needed here thank you yes you're welcome and you may or not be may or may not be aware but um the the state there are some there's some legislation in proposal right now designed to greatly increase the amount of minutes required
in elementary school we just learned about that today so um soes it's up to 200 minutes now for elementary so that's that's the proposal so 40 minutes a day gotcha don't ask going to fit in but
that's our state anyway okay Miss Kar move on to curriculum so I have two questions my first question is how was the curriculum selected especially for science and social studies that's a great question and so
um I'm a researcher by trade uh you know I I love doing research I'm a bit of a nerd and so I really thought about what is it that I want students to experience I really want them to have this uh you'll see that we talk we we talk about the Innovations but embedded in those Innovations we have asset based learning
which is aligned to like character education but we have inquiry based learning and Project based learning that's integrated into our Core Curriculum and so we wanted to make sure that science is not a sit and get information or you're taking guided notes and then you take a test we wanted to be Hands-On and so what I've seen
I've seen the integration of the science curriculum uh in in school that I worked in in the past and uh you know especially uh implementing the the the ease uh the E the uh the E model uh but then also like thinking about how do we
want students to get excited about science but then also we wanted to make sure that there's like this focus on informational text where they're able to read text uh and be able to answer like text dependent questions and those types of things so we want them to have a whole wholesome experience about doing
projects but then also being able to like respond to these high level questions uh within the curriculum that we've chosen so uh we did use Ed reports to help us decide um some of the curriculum choices that we uh that we made the decision to choose also of
course we went to the Tennessee Department of Education adopted curriculum list to make sure that we are in compliance and choosing a curriculum that is accepted by the state and so uh we those were some of the process that we took for our curriculum all right and for um just a little more with that um
how will the SCH School provide sufficient instructional time in those subjects thinking about science and social studies to ensure Mastery of the state standards yes so we do realize that the state primarily focuses on Ela and math
but we also realize that science and social studies are just as important uh also in the early grades we realized that even though social studies is not a tested subject there are still these uh standards that students need to show math with in social studies so that when they
get to the tested grades that they are able to produce uh the outcomes that we're striving for and so right now you do see lesser time in our science and social studies classes and they are on a uh a day bday schedule and that choice
was made to ensure that we meet the expectations with our Ela math class in terms of like time then also with our Blended learning model because our model is inclusive of whole group small group and uh indiv individualized instruction for ELA math which then cost us to to
reduce the amount of time in maths and science but what what we will ensure is that especially when we get into the middle school grades that our students are going to have the appropriate amount of minutes that they need in in science and social studies uh especially for those tested subjects but then also uh
over time as we grow and develop if we see if the data from our benchmarks and um any interim assessments that we take we will then decide how do we need to to make uh uh changes to our master schedule to ensure that we are
increasing the amount of minutes so that our students can show Mastery in science and social studies as well thank you so I have a a question as you um were speaking about we're educating the whole child um and we have specific
requirements with special education at NL what about what is your plan for those students that don't fall into those categories but still are not meeting those grade level expectations that's a great question and so I do want to invite some other people
on our team to to to respond to that but of course um we are very specific about making sure that we give all students an opportunity to choose our school we realize that you know they may be on a spectrum of uh needing a Continuum of services whether it be special education
or uh e learner those types of things but then every student will at uh at the beginning of the year we'll receive a baseline assessment uh we're going to take the map assessment we're going to also do some progress monitoring th those data points are going to then give us the opportunity to place our students
in tiers for our mtss program and so students will either be tier one two or three and so we're going to provide them with the opportunity to get that tier two and tier three support uh every single day uh uh during our uh schedule and um then also we will have progress
monitoring to see how our students are doing every Wednesday and that also includes uh the integration of uh Blended learning uh with using uh the different programs that we have like EXL for uh for reading and math um the other
part is that um um with when we talk about our El Learners and our uh students with disabilities they will be getting these tier 2 and tier three supports but then additionally students who need those additional supports we have already accounted for that to make
sure that we have that support such as our students uh in our e population who do uh by by what the data shows us shows that they do need to be in our structure English immersion program they will be in this particular class in place of
their English class and they will still receive grade level content but it will also be through the support of language acquisition and development and then when we think about our special education uh Learners we we talk about uh what if we have students who need a
oneon-one or or a one-on-one or they they need more they need additional pull outs and services so we do have in our um application that we will have a um partnership with project therapy that offers these additional Services um and
um we will contract with them and and make sure that those services are provided and if the data shows or if the services show that we do need a full-time employe to be in the school more than just with what project therapy is able to provide then we will then go
back to our finance Community to say hey we need to add an additional uh member to our full-time uh staff uh what what wle room do we have in place to make sure that we meet uh the expectations of supporting the needs of this particular student or this group of students uh
again we don't want to turn any students away if they've chosen Nova smart academy it's because they believe in what we're willing to provide and we're going to make sure that we can provide those services and uh do our due diligence to work from uh look at from the governance perspective to make sure
that we can do those things uh in a fiscal appropriate way so for the students who don't qualify for special ed don't are not ESL what would a typical inter what do you expect to see in intervention in intervention so that
would be for our tier one students and so that's where our project based learning in uh uh processes coming in so we know that we do have a specific time where every student will be in their smalla group for tier two or tier three but during that time we might have reading club where we're reading a
particular grade level book and we're doing a project or it may be that um that we are assimilating a situation we might we may have um give students scenario based situations uh that's aligned to their curriculum it may be um teaching students how to do budget um
they might say what is your career path because one of the things that uh we want to make sure that they have real life experiences and we want to give them uh these uh opportunities to work through U projects together the other part of that is is that we also have our
Behavior track for RTI uh that we are going to incorporate as well and so using our character strong curriculum that's they have a tier one program that's already research based and built out for us and so we will leverage both uh those Project based uh opportunities
within our curriculum and then our book clubs and those types of things to like really keep our tier one students engaged and how do you see uh using the Project based learning and still being able to use the progress monitoring tool to adjust to make sure that they are making that progress absolutely that's a
good question and so all of our students are going to be uh progress monitored at the benchmarks but of course our tier two and tier three students they're going to receive more uh ongoing uh progress monitoring benchmarks throughout the year so uh they will
weekly and by bi-weekly progress monitoring but then our tier 2 students of course when we do our benchmark assessments then they will then too at the benchmarks take those progress monitoring to see how we're uh how they're performing to see if there are any adjustments that need to be made the
additional um strategy there also that we're going to implement is like when we look at when we have our uh data reviews uh if we see that there's a certain group of students who has who have not been identified and we see hey this is how they're performing this is pretty
common across the subjects also they're not uh meeting certain expectations when it comes to our progress monitoring or benchmarks then we will think about what it looks like to uh begin the S process but of course through conferences and conversations with the families and so we want to make sure that we properly
identify students before we say this student needs to be uh in in this particular program so we we do have space where we will uh of course meet with our s team and we will look at student data on an ongoing basis to see where students are and if we have uh
missed students and we need to identify some students and begin the Este process or to make sure that our students are currently in the right tiers for the uh level of supports that they need the the work the thing that we don't want to do is to keep a student in a particular group that they've graduated out of or
they're not doing well in we want to make sure that they're leveled in the right place at all times have two follow questions one do you guys already have I know you said um nwaa as like the the The Benchmark Baseline do you already have you already chosen what you would
use for the progress monitoring piece yes we're looking at fast Bridge we we're looking to use fast bridge and the reason why is because they have both they have the the universal screeners uh it's like a magical world for testing uh but then also they have the academic and behavior tracks and we kind of want to
keep everything centralized so that we can um have some uh uniformity and the data uh pieces that we're looking at when we Implement these uh assessments and benchmarks one more question so um even though they are tier one how would you differentiate
the tier two versus the tier three interventions that are happening yes and so um we have what we have done is made sure that every day there there are 60 Minutes built into our schedule daily for RTI
and based on the and because of our sta Staffing model with a two educator classroom uh that does give us a few more educator in the building so we can maintain the ratios of one to one teacher to three students and then meet
uh the minimum number of minutes per day but then also increasing those minutes to provide a bit more IND uh individualized support with that direct instruction in those small groups but then the other part of it is is because we have increased uh minutes in our math
and Ela classes There's an opportunity for Blended learning intervention as well and so during the ELA in math blocks uh students will there's a portion of the day where students will get get back on their Blended learning intervention and they will be on their
pathway according to uh where they fall on the grade level so our tier tier one students will be on their grade level Pathways our tier two and tier three students will be on the pathways aligned to where their present level of performance is but they but every student is going to get tier one instruction doing direct instruction and
and small group instruction and then we get more individualized based on the needs thank you you're welcome all right we're going to ask you a few questions this is kind of the special populations uh section of the interview so myself and Dr Roston uh represent some of our special
populations and uh I'm going to ask you a few questions about English Learners so uh that's near and dear to our heart especially on the Northern end of the county where you guys are projecting to be um 10 years ago we started with about 2500 English Learners and we have
exploded not only as a total enrollment but specifically uh that population of student to where today we're a little over 8,700 um so really our first question is what will service models look like or how do you feel or or how do you project
to serve our English language Learners and so I can open this up but I'm going to invite some of our academics uh committee team members to the podium they can speak to this uh but because we see a high need for our e Learners and we um just in some
conversations that I've had with teachers and members of the Buford County team at large um just the need for more quality instruction and supports for our e Learners and so uh what we did is when we talked about the beginning strengthening our application
and really focusing on what we want to do to support our e Learners we uh really focused on one particular program and that's our Structured English immersion program and so uh again that allows us um and Dexter can speak more
to it about what the process looks like to for students to be in that program but we wanted to make sure that we picked a very strong program that one still gives students exposure to tier one instruction but then also focuses on their language development acquisition so even with that population we're
looking at um securing two eel teachers for the start of our school that way we'll have one that's going to push into their English class and give them that support and then we'll have one that'll be for our um um SE SEI class and we'll
have a teacher and residence in that class to also support so you'll have two push in teachers for that population to make sure that they're getting their needs met and also um learning the English language I know you mentioned the personnel there I guess my next question
would be how do you envision maintaining those ILS those individual learning plans for your English Lear owners yes so uh as we said we have two El teachers so those teachers will be responsible for maintaining those ilps and making sure they are stay staying up to date and our students are getting the
services and the data that we need to support their growth and just to provide oversight in the support of that we will have those licensed ESL teachers but our assistant principal of scholar access will be overseeing that process um our um
assistant principal scholar access is a license special education teacher and we'll be overseeing our special education program and so both on the uh e side and the special education side teachers will be responsible for uh for
maintaining the compliance of those uh I APS I APS and ilps um but um just making sure that those uh systems are in place to maintain compliance there will be oversight of that specifically to make sure that we're running our special education program uh the way that it's
meant to be run we talked about this a little bit before but you know with any state law it's constantly evolving we talked about that with the physical activity law earlier talk to us about within your application where did you draw that information as far as English Learners and what is um required of them
currently with the state of Tennessee so a couple of things so one thing that we learned that they did uh transition from the weda model to the ELA uh to the EPA standards and so we were very we made sure that we polished our understanding of those those types of things but then also we went to the Tennesseee
Department of education's website to look at the uh the manual uh for the uh e services and then also for our special education services across and so um specifically to eel we know that there are several programs that we could have
implemented but then when we looked at the data and to see like the types of students that we're going to receive and then also like interactions with families in the community we saw that our students need exposure to tier one content we've got to make sure that we
give them access that that's what it's all about and so that's why we chose the the the seci program uh to start there and but then also we're going to use data we're going to be driven by data uh uh within our school but then also we're going to constantly look at our programs
and make sure are we implementing the right program are we implementing the right curriculum and if we aren't what is it that what changes do we need to make to make sure that we get on track to get uh to the outcomes with our students Y and I also want to add to that we we will also make sure that
we're following idea 504 plans um the state models to ensure that our students are getting the required Services that's necessary thank you last question then I'll turn it over to Dr ralon so in our Smyrna and lever schools um and this is this is data that we've been watching very closely here recently the majority
of our schools both at the elementary and middle school level have over 50% of their families that speak another language other than English at home home um how do you envision giving that communication to those families representation matters and so
already I began having conversations with um possible uh staff members um I believe that students when they walk into a school they should see people who look like them um during my time as a principal at a charter school in
Nashville um I uh when I first got there my population was it my Hispanic population was growing but what I noticed is that that we don't have the internal infrastructure with our staffing to support the needs uh so when our Hispanic families come in the door
we don't have people who can have these conversations and and and make sure that we're properly supporting and so I had to rethink what our staffing model looked like and what it looks like to represent the students that are in our body and then also the experience uh the types of celebrations that we're having
in our school and so really it's really about making sure that um we hire to the needs of our of our students and families in our school and so of course uh we want the best of the best and we know that can sometimes come at a price
uh but then also uh beginning the process early almost the day after uh getting that stamp of approval uh really having conversations with people who are interested in working at at Nova smart academy and thinking about what it looks like to have staff members who are
bilingual but then also that are represent that represent the students that are members of our uh camper Community thank you all right oh you could probably stay up there because I'm I'm special education so yes we're friends yes yes
yes my heart all right there we go so um so I heard you say that one of in your model you are going to employ the contract with project play to provide services for special education what would those Services look like um during
the school day so um we we'll make sure we build our schedule around those students first of all right um making sure they they get their general education supports also um with those Services we'll have push-ins with uh special education teachers we're uh
planning on having two licens special education teacher one to um going to our English and math class to support our our students with special needs um also two um we will with that project play
we'll make sure that we uh work around the student schedule to support their Continuum Services making sure they get their OT if they needed their PT if they're needed will project play also uh provide you with a school psychologist because I'm worried about child find on a daily
basis right yes and okay so would that school psychologist work on a daily basis at Nova smart yes so the way that the contracts work uh with project play they they meet us kind of like in the middle in the Middle based on what our
needs are and what the needs of our students are they provide those Services based on the students that have been identified that need those service on a day-to-day basis and so what's true is is that our special education teachers are going to be providing those daily services but then if we need those
additional services from Project play they do have a representative from their organization that can be on our campus to provide those Services as needed and if it's as if it's on a daily basis then they will provide those those Services of course uh it also uh depends on
prices change of course because of that as well and so but we made sure that in our budget we were very in our budget we were very conservative but we did kind of make sure that we inflated it to make sure that we do account for uh the population that we are projecting to
have so we're hoping that we will come below what we've projected for in terms of those uh fees within our budget but we do make we will make sure that project play uh uh is aware of the needs and the necessity for their presence in our
school to provide those services on a daily basis you have any sort of backup plan in case project play cannot provide an SLP right off the bat at the beginning of the school year an OT a PT um for making sure that the students do receive all of the services that are listed in their IEP yes and so um of
course project play is one of our uh primary choices but then also we will consider other organizations that provide these same level of services as well um and then if those continue those vendors continue not to be our priority then again our goal is to go back to our
finance committee to say hey this is a need that we have at the school level what can we do to uh provide uh to to uh put this in the budget to hire for this position whether it be on a contracted level and depending on the need or the percentage of students that need those supports will decide that well we do
really need a full-time employee for this particular role or um um if if we don't need the full-time employee then we will transition to uh hiring someone on a consultancy basis to do that uh to do that work for us okay uh what about
the gifted Services what's the plan for providing those gifted Services similar plan um we want to hire a gifted teacher um once those needs arise we'll place in U put in the budget to hire a gifted teacher to make sure those students are getting service um also in the plan we
have where our um special education teacher will make sure they're monitoring those plans for those gifted students as well okay um with your special education teacher um how will you approach students that may have complex issues um and may be overwhelmed
by a large classroom so how will you accommodate that smaller type classroom bit more structured um in the school and so that's why we have in our model to have an additional special education teacher because we've already planned for there may be a student who needs to
be in a in a least restrictive environment they need to be in a smaller environment and so in cases like that we want to make sure that we have opportunities for those students to be in a smaller learning environment and so we also want to uh make sure that we partner with families to say hey these
are the things that we're experiencing in the classroom um before we push forward with this particular uh uh journey in their learning process who want to see what what are you noticing at home have those real real conversations Express uh some of the
concerns that we have and talk about what would be the most um appropriate um environment for our for this student to be within our school to make sure that they're contining their learning uh process uh in the on the right path
thank you yes if I may I just want to piggy back on on that discussion just just brief um and and let me let me give you a little bit of background on on why I'm asking this is you know we opened our first two charters that we authorize this year so we've had a good bit of
experience in working with Charters who utilize project Play services to assist with their special ed needs um and um it's in some cases been very successful and some not um and your your plan that you mentioned hey if they can't provide the services we're going to contract out we're going to we're going to hire
people that that seems a little bit reactive and talk to us about how you could be more proactive to ensure that those kids are getting those Services right off the bat um you know when if something happens in Project play cannot provide that absolutely and and so I think that's a great point and so that's
why we did not go to the table what traditionally what you may see in a charter application is you have one ESL teacher and one special education teacher in year one we we went ahead and made sure that we add in an additional ESL teacher and an additional special
education teacher so that one we have additional Staffing to support those needs that we did not plan for and so we definitely wanted to do that uh the other part of I just want to make it clear that project play is not the um the end result for us like they are
support we are the primary uh foundation for making sure that our students needs are met on a day-to-day basis uh they are coming in to provide those additional supports that are in place and of course uh to your point we want to make sure that uh that we are are um
tracking that success over time so um I am a bit of a for lack of a better termal control freak so so I'm going to have the conversations I'm going to meet with them and make sure that we do have those systems in place and if it's not working for our environment we will not
continue those Services because we want what's best for our kids and want to deliver on those promises that we made to families and being a control freak was can be a good thing when you're a principal so yes not um and and U um I did note that in your application that
you you have done a really good job of making sure that you have allotted for um the correct certified positions to cover those critical areas which we don't always see um so good job with that thank you thank you and now let's move on to some Recruitment and marketing questions Mr
Rosales so my question to you is um how will you ensure the students from undeserved and disadvantaged families have an opportunity to attend your school especially these with special needs that's a great question so you
know as we see the growth the rapid growth in Rutherford County you know people have often said why don't you go to this community why don't you go there why don't you go there and it's like well these are communities that are building $500,000 homes $700,000 homes
and they are beautiful but the thing is is that when we talk what our mission talks about is is giving uh opportunity and access to all students and though those families too might choose Nova smart academy we realized that we wanted
to come to this community to serve those students who do not have access to some of the uh programs that you currently offer in this district and so I believe it would be a disservice to put a school in a community uh where there are $700,000 homes where those families may
choose us and we would love for them to choose us but I think we have to go where the need is and that's why we chose the lus marina communities because we see that there are uh underserved parts of this community and they need access to additional options to support
their needs and so that that's why we made that decision and I believe there's going to be a question here about Transportation absolutely because that's great but I think the other question which I'm not going to be someone's going to ask it here is going to be
about transportation cuz I agree with you in the sense that where you meet them in the needs where that you're wanting to serve there is going to be the question of how will they get there so um that's has to be part of the plan
in trying to serve those students so um so I'll be curious to hear the plan and even a backup plan and and possibly another backup plan that's a good question so yes we do plan to provide transportation of not only we uh put in
the budget to provide transportation for our students that have been identified in our economically disadvantaged population but we've also uh factored in providing transportation for special education students who need those uh transportation services as well um in my
uh years of being a charter school principal uh what I've seen in terms of of Transportation working in charter schools is of course going where the students are and so if that's uh putting bus routes in uh in specific residential
areas or within an apartment complex or maybe it's the Walmart on mboro road where families can get there uh so we've we've considered all of those uh things that have worked in other charter schools to make sure that families have access to Transportation I do remember
last year there was a question about well if you're providing Transportation you have a family from Murphysboro there's a time limit limit to how long a student can stay on a bus and of of course um these are all what if scenarios and of course we we will make
sure that we do our best to meet the needs of all the families that we that choose us and we're going to do that in the best way possible uh as we uh take this journey to open in our school but we are going to you uh once we go through our RFP process and choose our bus vendor they're going to help us uh
do a um uh the go with approach to decide what our bus routes are to be in the best beneficial way to get our students to school on a daily basis thank you and I may have jumped on the questionnaire so I apologize for
that why would parents want to enroll their students in your school I think it t we have to ask the parents first what was your experience in school what do you wish you would have been able to experience like Charles said earlier what is it that you
wish you would have had when you were in school that you want for your child and that's pretty pretty much what most of our conversations that's the way they start um and then also I think also you have to like listen to their stories uh families want to know that you care they
want to know that you aren't just trying to say come to this school they want to know why is this school so important why why should I choose this school what are you going to offer my child at this school that they can't get in any other school and we were very clear about
making sure that we don't just provide a different school with another name and do the exact same thing that's already being done like we said before there are some great schools in this community uh but every school every child can't get into Thurman Frances and so if we want to provide a Thurman Frances experience
for students uh we have to think about what is Therman for instance doing well and what can we do to to uh integrate some of those same experiences for families who are on waiting list or don't have the opportunity to be in some of those thriving schools there are in this
community and I think you said you have 23 letters or students who yes intend to okay um so then from a student perspective why would they want to enroll in your school well if um if I so there so I'll tell you a
little story there's a story of two little cousins they go to Little Miracles here in the community to the daycare there they're cousins and um one of the parents chose the school because because they know that their son does not like school they do not like daycare
and so just in my interactions with the child um and even going to the kindergarten fair and they and the day that I went to the kindergarten Fair he came out and he saw the tape he's like that's my school that's my school I'm going to that school and he told his daycare teacher I'm not coming back here
and so so the joy of that experience was amazing to me because I'm like yes you're coming uh but I think um just one you have to to like this is very important work as an adult but then also you have to like level with students and
so like when I'm talking to families I'm also interacting with students and I always leave them with something that they are going to remember and so we're thankful to have a partnership with an local organization that has donated tons of books to us and so uh when we
interact with families um and you know we have the conversations whether they choose us or not every child deserves a book and so I was like here choose a book they even get a snack they can get fruit snacks and he was like can I get fruit snacks and so he start grabbing all these snacks but then the other part of
it is the cousin um when the he told his cousin they're the same age he's like this is my school you can't go to this school and so there's like this little argument between the two of them and so then the mom's like no you're going to the school too so it's just the GE like no we're going to this school this is
our school and so I think it's one just like I said it's the conversation it's the interaction it's leaving them on something that they're going to remember rather than not just a flyer not just go to our website but giving them something tangible that you're not
just putting in the hand of the parent but you're also leaving something in the hand of the child and I think that's what's near and dear to me uh but then also uh some of the work that I've done in this community is I I volunteer like volunteering at the boys and girls club uh running their academics tutoring
program but then going to day care is doing the um read Across America week dressed up like the cat and hat read books and I didn't ask for anything I just wanted to read to the kids and and have a good time and so I think those moments matter and then when they see you again they're like hey I know who
you are and it's like yes and so it's just every interaction must be intentional U before you even ask a parent to consider um apply for our school and so that's where it starts touching the heart reaching out to the heart
thank you we're going to move on to some questions about your organizational plan of capacity now and the first question that I have for you again I'm going to uh reiterate the fact that we now have some background and experience in overseeing the opening of a charter school so I have a unique perspective on this question um but as the founding
director executive head of school principal all rolled in one that's a lot of responsibilities on one man's shoulders in the opening of a new school from the ground up I mean I've seen that first hand I mean I've opened a school from the ground up myself but nothing like this um so my question really is
for the board here how does the board plan to support Dr Sager in getting that school up and running as intended in the application yes that's a a great question uh Dr Sega as you guys can uh see from all the questions he's asked is
is really great as an administrative in the academics and education uh field um but there are some uh areas where he has been very transparent with us that he needs our our support um with respect to finance um he has recruited um um
Financial professionals to help um guide uh the financial prosperity uh of Nova smart academy into the into the future um and so we put together budgets and um and plan to uh with the use of edtech or
other uh Financial providers after we've you know put out rfps so forth and so on um and and and have provid uh and have selected an appropriate vendor um provide him support in that par particular respect uh with respect to uh finding facilities um U he has
brought on um uh a a real estate professional um and we have um with that particular real estate professional uh have gotten other um uh real estate uh relationships uh who uh he uh is is
using to to help go out and understand what are all of the the requirements he he he made mention earlier today of of him having nightmares about um storm shelters um well I don't think that happened but just because you know he
just happens to be weird about storm shelters um that happens because he's been thinking about that particular issue and it's not because that's his strong suit it's because uh somebody here on the board um has helped him understand that that's really important um and that that's going to be something
that he has to really think through and that we're going to have to have answers for you guys about at some point uh in this process um the the the other thing um uh that um we're going to end up having to to be uh is is development I
mean um you know while um we have uh throughout the you know being uh not being approved last year um we have been able to um uh get additional support uh over the
last year um um we still um uh have to as a board support him in that particular respect so while he loves putting on his uh Cat in the Hat suit um and reading to the kids so forth and so on he needs support uh out in the
community and so um you know while some of us uh on the board uh may not like to see our group text pinging and beinging at all manner times of the day we understand that as a board we have to be there to support him and in that particular respect um and when I'm
listening to you guys rattle off about all the education stuff I feel like I got the easy job um because um I do um I mean and then they might hear me talk about some of the the the legal stuff and then they think they've got the easy job I don't know um but um he
understands where his weaknesses are and I think as a leader uh it takes a very strong person to to know that and to say that um and then wherever uh he has those deficiencies that's where we're going to to support him as a board I think it was very instrumental uh this
time around as I've already um uh alluded to earlier uh that that board on track uh governance support uh that is that is going to be uh a game Cher um we did a test on that thing earlier um I
was aware of the open meeting law um but I think we did a test on it and we put like a test meeting in there and that thing was like binging us like hey you need to um file something so that it's um it's reported online I'm like no that
was just a test chill out um um but again these these are things uh that that where we are weak um we're going to be strong um I understand what our role is as a board um and he understands what his role is is going to be from the
operation side and I'm very confident that we're going to be able to provide these children uh these Scholars uh with with the uh um type of education that I wished I had when I was coming up in in New Jersey well I will say go ahead go ahead the only thing that I would add to
that he did a great job there was um with the expertise of uh Chris Hill as our real estate agent um you all may be familiar with Josh Fulmer Josh Fulmer was the real estate broker that was uh critical in supporting two of the charter schools that are open with their
facilities acquisition and process and with them understanding the laws and compliance and zoning and things about storm shelters uh he's been very influential he reached out to us and said I want to help you and support you in your facility search and process so he's definitely on our team and leading
the way to support Chris as we uh explore our facilities processes before I ask the next question I did want to say that board I do recognize um the positive changes you have made in the board this year over last year you've done a great job of finding people with that additional
expertise in both finance and really education particularly area of special populations that I think it would be very will be very beneficial to you um as a board and and assisting you Dr Sager in that so my next and my next question for the board is this okay you talked about how you're going to support
Dr Sager how are you going to evaluate his performance as the school leader what's your plan there I mean um ultimately we we have a um uh we we're going to have a a governance committee that we're going to to put together uh ultimately in the
um uh areas of of um School culture of of finance of you know we've identified several key performance indicators that we're going to meet uh engage uh Dr Sager on a monthly basis um um those uh
key performance indicators are going to be uh kept in our uh um um board on track you guys are going to continue to hear me say that because I'm just so excited about that tool um uh it's going to be U those key performance
indicators are going to be tracked there um and then on a monthly basis we'll we'll will uh get with those um our academic committee uh as far as the academics um the academic performance of Mr Sager um they will uh guide our
conversations there because um again a good leader knows where they um where their what their strengths are that is not my strength um the finance committee uh with our um back office provider um uh will will be keeping an eye on on our
money making sure that we are um where we need to be with respect to our finances and so again we understand uh that uh there are key metrics that we have to keep track of on a monthly basis
um and so as we meet um monthly or more frequently if necessary um we will be keeping track of those metrics and where necessary um um when um we need uh um Improvement or training uh I'm confident
that the uh new system uh that we have in in place uh we can get that training um and we won't have to make it up um and that's uh that's really um um encouraging uh that we'll have that uh support uh from board on track and um the continuing support from uh from bees
because I forgot about those guys earlier just to kind piggy back off of him with the evaluation from the academic standpoint um again using board on track uh creating a dashboard to kind of uh highlight uh for uh Dr Sager our
proposed executive director as well as the board kind of like the school health uh with all of those metrics uh being readily available in real time for us to be able to see as well as those student academic uh outcomes and from academics
committee uh standpoint if we see that things are fall trained with academics then we uh as a board will an academics committee will get with Dr Sager as well and create an uh corrective action plan for us to progress monitor bi-weekly and
then again monthly to report out to the uh board of directors thank you and my name is tson um in the finance perspective we want to ensure that we keep Seer um in check in terms of keeping the budget in line uh we will
have uh two meeting um on a consistent basis the monthly uh meeting that is ensuring that the numbers stay in in track but also the uh yearly budget that sets the me and as well as the long range projections so that will uh ensure
that we we stay in budget but the the second part which is the financial control ensuring that public control not only in having um a rigorous way of spending money but also to know who our vendors are and how our the money is
being uh uh spent so it's it's it's important for us that our children are well educated but we know that education comes at a cost and that cost sometimes takes the the name of of of money and we want to make sure that it's properly
taken care of right thanks what opportunities or Avenues will be will there be for Parental involvement and input in the school's governance sorry okay so we already have a parent representative a founding
parent on our team um uh Andrea Coleman uh she is an educator and uh her scholar will be a founding kindergartner and so we we already have that person on our team but then also uh our assistant principle of community engagement and uh
School culture will uh oversee our parent organization uh where we will have a family advisory Council an engagement we're going to call it the face of novas um and so we will meet with our families on a monthly basis we
want to one give them the state of the school Community how are we doing it with academics our culture our attendance all those things that matter we want to celebrate our students but then also we want to make sure that we give them an opportunity to voice any
challenges that they're experiencing with being in our community and of course uh we want to make sure that they understand that while we're going to do our best to make sure that we address those challenges that there are just some things that are going to be maintain within our school Community
that's align with our mission but our goal is to always make sure that we have an open door policies for our families and address any concerns that they have by the way I apologize I should have said this from the beginning but if anybody needs to take a restroom break there's restrooms right outside the door
and to the left just feel free to feel free to visit that we're going to stay on the the subject of leadership for just a little bit longer Miss Barnes hey there I have two questions my first what makes the school CEO founder principal man of all the hats over there uniquely qualified to lead the
school um are you was that was that question D directed with me okay yes okay all right so um I think um I think one is experience um just to be transparent I had two opportunities before I actually decided uh to to
enroll in the bees program to do this work and uh one of the times that I was invited to be a bees fellow was during the middle of my doctoral program and what I realized is that I know how incredibly hard this work is to start a school and um it's like doing five
dissertations at one time and so what I wanted to do is to make sure one that I do this in a space where I am I can give it 100% of my myself but then also I wanted to do it with credibility and so I wanted to make sure that I have had
experience as a a a quality teacher in the classroom I taught Ela I also wanted to make sure that uh I had experience with being an instructional leader because it's important to be a strong instructional leader and so I participated in programs like the relay
Graduate School of Education um to make sure that I have strengthened my processes processes of being an instructional leader uh but then also um also wanted to make sure that one I had success as a principal under my belt uh
I think that it was really important one thing I want to name is that I did going into a failing charter school and in one school year we were able to move that Charter School to a level from a level one to a level five with reward School status and it was because I went in with a very strong vision of Excellence for
what it should look like for every stakeholder within our building um it took a lot of hard work a lot of heart work but when you build a very strategic uh model and you think about building a high impact team you I believe you can
uh achieve anything and so I believe my experiences in doing that work and coming with that credibility is essential and so and I want to be able to sit before you and say I've done the work that I want to put in place for the students here at Nova smart academy but then the other part of it is making sure
that I commit to my own uh growth and development over time like I mentioned before I do realize that I have gaps and certainly just I can I can run a school with my eyes closed but when it comes to organizational development that's why I have this powerful team of people behind me to uh make sure that we are meeting
certain demands because if it was up to me you would get a car you every kid would leave the school with a car uh but you know I know my uh finance committee is not going to let that happen so so just making sure that one I have people on the team that one understand our
mission but then also understand that the decisions that we make M must be intentional strategic and get to the outcomes for our kids and so th those are the things that are near and dear to me that I believe that make me incredibly uh ready to do this work but
then also um with Beyond board on track and uh follow uh bees following support just my Partnerships with some of the uh charter schools that uh are successful within our local community like purpose prep academy uh I did a a a two-e
residency there they're like in the top 5% performing they have the two teacher model in their classrooms and so what you're going to see at Nova smart academy as model behind some of these high performing charter schools in our communities that I've visited and um actually uh have parnerships and
mentorship from some of their leaders and I guess my next question um you were talking about that you took that Charter from a level one to level five um what experience do you have with that doing with the lower elementary especially uh like kindergarten So transparently currently right now I am a
uh Elementary School principal at a virtual school um and um the school um just to be transparent is on the priority list um and what I've done is I've come in and I've really focused on
creating a data driven instruction uh model for the school and what we've seen is by looking at the data that uh you know we have a data driven culture and what we've seen is is by implementing U more strategic interim assessments uh looking at our iady data making sure
that we have very strong RTI program and small groups models for instruction and we also implement the project coach uh evaluation model so that we have uh more strategic uh evaluations and observations feedback cycles for for
students and so what we've seen in grades three through five specifically um because that's my focus area especially with Ela with the ELA reading test making sure that we close the gaps there what I've seen is that there is more investment from the teacher to use data to drive their instruction but then
also to close those gaps more aggressively to meet students needs and so I I wanted to and and like I said to Dr mccan earlier nothing just happens so I'm actually thankful for an additional year because it's afforded me the opportunity to be in a elementary school
principal space uh where I can learn and grow and to say these experiences will carry me and transition me into what uh you know an effective effective and efficient school program can look like for Nova smart academy let's talk a little bit about
about your staff Miss gamble um yes so so what kinds of teachers do you need to implement your program program well and what's your plan for recruiting them that's a good question and I have someone from our team that's going to come up and and uh provide some
additional context but we need teachers who have an a growth mindset and so I do believe that you know um we we we there are some unicorns out there we want to hire those teachers that and you know some of those unicorns come at a high
price uh because they have the the doctoral degree and they've been teaching for 20 years and so it's like we want to hire those teachers but then also understanding that we have a conservative budget we also have to think about what that looks like in terms of maintaining the uh Financial Integrity of our school program and so
when I think about what it looks like to hire high quality teachers it may look like hiring teachers who are straight out of college those are teachers who who have um not to say that we don't want uh experienced teachers because any opportunity that we have to hire experienced teacher I'm going to go to
my finance committee and say heyy let's let's let's make this happen let's how we can make this happen but in a way that really makes sense for our budget but the other part of that is is like with our Partnerships um uh with relay uh Graduate School of Education uh TFA
but then also with MTSU TSU the teacher education programs partnering with these op uh organizations to like really um explore the the P pipelines to get those high quality teachers into our program but then also make make sure that we're
very strategic with how we are providing professional Learning and Development for our teachers if you could see in our application we are proposed to have 17 days of full day uh professional Learning and Development at the beginning of the school year to make sure that our teachers are not just sitting and getting information but
we're going to actually assimilate what it looks like to go through an entire day at Nova smart academy also we're going to have scholar orientation so that students can experience our experience what it's like to be a student at our school and teachers can actually experience that uh that experience with their students as well
and so we have it fully mapped out also with uh Wednesdays being uh additional professional learning development so just like we have this whole school this whole whole group small group individualized instructional model for our students the same is true for our
teachers it's whole group PD then we do small group PD based on these and then we uh go into an individualized based on what teachers need on a one-on Bas basis and if I can add to the conversation what I'd like to say is uh Nova smart academy and the team and the board uh we
are taking a proactive approach uh in the event and hope uh that we are approved and so with that what we want to do is we are going to be proactive in soliciting and engaging uh our local universities uh with education programs
Teach for America uh the Nashville teacher residency uh and others in terms of soliciting a high quality teachers uh but what I will say is that the the the proposed executive director uh will take the lead in hiring uh all teachers uh
School leaders and staff members for year one of operation and that's really to aim to finalize uh all of those offers if we are approved uh in hopes of that uh with a timeline if I can by May of 2026 uh and so we're looking to uh
really take a proactive approach in in that area uh don't move one next question he's going away okay it's probably for you I'm now with that so the budget indicates that all teachers will be salaried at starting levels how do you plan to pay for experience and what
incentives will you have it's a great question okay all right so with that uh what we believe uh in terms of ensuring that there are retention uh and that there are good employee benefits uh what
we do believe in is ensuring that there is a base salary and we do have that as a compet we want to be competitive with that uh because we recognize what's taking place in the economy uh but we also believe uh in teachers being uh paid for the value uh and the quality of
work uh that they do we don't want them to be overworked and underpaid uh and so with that uh we have the understanding that attracting and retaining uh high- performing teachers and school leaders is essential uh to the mission and so the minimum qualification for all
teachers will be a bachelor's degree an instructional based uh leadership uh and those those persons must hold a master's degree uh with an administrative lenser uh and now when you speak about uh licensed teacher and specifics in terms
of uh base salaries this is what we are uh proactively working on and have confirmed is that a base salary for a teacher would be that of 55,000 okay with a and and for that that's for um our licensed teacher now
licensed teacher with a master's degree uh we're proposing and have confirmed uh a starting salary for a master's degree of $59,000 uh ,000 even uh our educational specialist uh 63 uh and for doctoral uh
is 67 uh and that's with a 2% annual increase uh and so we we do look at that and so our salary schedules uh ensure competitive uh compens for teachers by exceeding the lake the local and state averages while the base salaries for
licensed teachers in Tennessee start at 40,000 and so uh that's a little bit about our licensed teacher in the level in which we're looking to do and just to add to that we um in terms of our budget uh the way that we create our budget we made sure that as
we're adding years that we also provided this step for each year as we follow teachers one thing that also that we want to call out we hope to uh retain all of our teachers uh throughout each school year however if a teacher should
leave us uh at a step different from where they came in um then um one of the things that we want to do is of course we want to give everybody a fair opportunity to go through the interview process but from a a financial um from a
mature uh perspective what we would like to do is like make sure that we if we can hire uh teacher uh that could start at a lower uh step level uh and then bring them in with the onboarding process to provide them with that professional Learning and Development to kind of make sure that we
have some Wile room should we need to hire a unicorn somewhere else uh during the school year or during the summer we want to make sure that we do that to be uh fiscally responsible okay thank you and we do feel like your your your your two two
adult two teacher model um is definitely a plus for your application and for your school itself we like that that structure uh to reduce your pup teacher ratios um although I'm curious I know the plan and you clarified this Force um last year some too is that that that you know one of the teachers will be a
licensed certified teacher and the other one will be a a teacher and residents who hopefully is participating in a teacher preparedness program is probably already degreed hopefully um um so what are the contingency plans though if you are not able to secure enough people that are willing to go through that that
teacher and res St process to provide that second person you know cuz sometimes EA or assistants don't want to pursue a teacher license and that's a good question and so what we wanted to be very clear about that we weren't clear about last year in our application is that our teacher and Resident
position uh comes with options and choice so you may come in and say I want to be a teacher in Residence but somewhere down the line you may say in year two you know what actually I want to come a I want to become a licensed teach teacher so we're going to so you
you might have the opportunity to go ahead and get your alternative certification and if there's an opening for you to be a licensed teacher then we will provide you with the opportunity because you now have a license and working towards that uh full that fully
licensed uh status however if a teacher in residents decides that you know I just want to be the teaching residents I don't want to be uh a licensed teacher they will remain in that that particular role and they will remain on that pay scale during their duration of
employment with us and do do you have a specific teacher preparedness program that you plan to put those um or enroll those teachers and residents in and how will those costs be covered sure so we do want to partner with um the teacher the Teach for America program and with
the relay Graduate School of Education and then of course uh those um students and then we know we'll have some students who will come to us uh like you know you may have someone that's beginning uh their second career and they and so the conversation may be you need to enroll in a teacher education
program at a college or university or considered TFA or or um a relay graduate school education program and so we will provide them with those external um uh opportunities that they can choose but then internally because I've uh worked
with teachers who have struggled I I've worked with some amazing teachers who have struggled to pass the practice and so uh making sure that uh we as as a leadership team uh that we can provide some internal uh supports for those teachers based on of our experiences with those practice
exams thank you let's talk a little bit about facilities now Mr Lee turn the microphone on um you've identified a couple of locations for your preferred facility and I assume you're still looking at the church on
Ridley Street downtown Smur um fairly um extensive breakout on your construction budget but I guess my main question is if that is still your primary
target um what what what in the ways what in the way of improvements do you see that it's going to need that's a good question and and Chris may want to come up and uh share more with that as well but um uh in May
in in in May of last year we our facilities task force did a walkthrough of the facility and so in terms of classroom space the classroom space um is appropriate for the needs that we have for our students um in terms there
are infrastructures in place for security but there um and there is an entry point where there is a secured entry where you enter but then you can't get to the classroom space and so um it's just a matter of working with our
uh vendor there as with that collocation to see what would be the entry point that would be appropriate for them and so we've already uh factoring the fact that if they don't want us to use the entry point that would allow us to have it as it stands then we would have to do
some in uh some improvements to add that entry point at the other side of the building uh which is factored into the cost that we have we also know that this facility does not have a storm shelter um and we factor in and there are some options that Chris uh will speak speak
about but um we we do believe that they do have the security infrastructure in place it does need to be upgraded uh and we've worked with unlimited security that was a part of our facilities walk through um and um they uh know exactly
what it would take to provide the updates to that security system to meet code um there are some Ada uh requirements that are up to code as well and so it's a solid facility but we do know that it's going to take uh the that
our timeline that is in our application is based on what it's going to take to get that facility um up to code and ready for occupancy for day one uh in August of 20 in 20126 correct so as uh Dr Sager said we
have found found a facility that does meet the qualifications that we're looking for and we do understand that modifications are needed so with those modifications that we've already kind of found out and what we've seen we know storm Bo storm shelters is going to be a part of that so when we think about what
that looks like that can be either a storm box that we can have that can be brought to the facility and added to uh that area of the facility and there's also a possibility for at least within 1,000 ft of that area do we have another facility that's safe enough for us to create that as a storm shelter as well so those are some of the things that
we've been looking into but we also have an architect who is on our staff as well and we also have of course Josh Fulmer to make sure that we know exactly what are some of the needs that we have when we need to do these modifications and anytime that we have a modification that is necessary we do add that into that
space But figuring out what that facility looks like and making sure that that's for sure our facility then we'll make that decision on what those uh needs are and modifications can be okay um The budget's Fairly specific and laid
out for like HVAC and traffic and those kind of things so have you already identified things in this facility or are these just general working points in working with um our architect and uh working to do a feasibility study these
are some of the things that our architect and even Josh Fulmer our uh uh broker who has partnered with us have put these contingencies in uh conservative uh prices in place uh based on market value and so we understand that the prices could fluctuate
depending on when we begin these projects but just conservatively speaking these were some of the numbers that they we were provided with and consider to move forward our facili for improvements question said we do have some experience
now with a couple of facilities opening now uh one of your contingency plans was fairly unique for me is collocation with American Classical Academy R uh in l that's kind of unique if you that's one
of your contingency plans I'd like to hear what that plan is and so we are in a space where we've kind of ended that conversation um and so our goal is to move forward with either option one or
option two and we are still aggressively on a daily daily basis considering other options based on what becomes available in the community okay yes Miss Madison I think they answered the question about storm shelter already so we can skip that one we can talk more
about it if you want oh please we do have a question about Transportation though to just to touch base on that again is there anything else Mr Lee we want to ask yeah and I'm glad you remembered the time frame that we discussed last time you were here so it makes me feel pretty good the the the
main question for me is I know you have some budget bued dollar amounts for regular education and special education based on the area that you're targeting there's a real possibility that those numbers could be light um
what it what would be your uh plan to uh step that up based on your enrollment and so one of the things is that we use and we factored in the 22 schools that are existing in the community already and based on that average number of students who likely would need
uh transportation we notice that there are some schools where there's above 50% Transportation need versus some schools that are like maybe in the in the upper teams and so our goal is to one we projected that number but of course if we see that there's an additional need
for uh more Transportation then we are going to uh move forward with uh putting those things into place for our uh for our students uh again uh that goes back to working with our finance committee to see what uh contingencies or what plans
that we can put in place to make sure that we can add that that additional uh those additional bus routes and Transportation uh needs to to our uh program to ensure that we uh support our families uh but then also uh when we did
our self assessment with within board on track one of the things that we saw as a need for capacity is strengthening our development committee and so we want to make sure that as a development committee we do want to to get to the point where we can Thrive uh based on
our enrollment numbers and then any uh development campaign funding that we rece that we receive will be just additional money that we can put away and reserve for a rainy day or you know any emergencies that we have so we are working to strengthen what fundraising
and campaigning looks like so that we can make sure that we meet the demands of our families as it relates to Transportation okay you've already talked a little bit about secur of of the facility itself and I I just have one question on that I noticed in your budget it looks like you're counting on the provision of the state's um SRO
Grant to to fund an SRO for your school um and and and in all likelihood that that that that's likely to happen um but is there a fallback plan in the event that for some reason that Grant goes away or you don't get that Grant how you going to provide security Personnel yes so regardless if that Grant is in place
or not we are planning to have a a full-time SRO on our campus at all times and then as we continue to grow and develop over time you'll see that that number increases to uh having two on our campus and so we factored that in and
with us um having a positive in funding balance uh we're able to uh make sure that we do not fall in U A a financial deficit uh when that time comes thank you all right now for the fun part let's talk about the financial plan just a little bit you've already
addressed this a good bit but there's just a few other questions Miss kwood okay sorry that I have to be the bad guy in the first three years what parts of the budget depend on grants and other supplemental funding not yet
secured so I'm going to invite our Dynamic Finance team members to the podium uh but we have uh in year zero we have secured um there's 515,000 $515,000 that we uh have secured uh that
post authorization that we will have access to um we currently right now are uh projecting to receive an additional uh $1 million um we we apply for the new schools Venture fund Grant it's uh
$250,000 we are in the process of that by the end of March we will find out where we are in the process and the process is very lengthy uh so um it the next step I believe is a video interview uh the other part of it is is um Building Hope Has uh committed to
$250,000 for facility support and acquisition but then they are willing to support with the development of our entire facilities plan based on us meeting certain criteria and then of course there is the charge school facilities grant that we can apply for
after uh uh authorization and that they are guaranteeing well that they're they they are committing to up to $500,000 and so those are funds that have not been secured but uh the other expenditures uh Daniel can speak to as well yeah I think just to summarize uh
the different F funds that we secure can be broken into three categories the one already secured I think Dr Seager mentioned uh the 551 15,000 uh already secured there is fund
also in planning which means we waiting for the authorization to get to the next level of it I think we have up to 1 million of it within the first 3 years and the remaining from the different grants we talked about from the CSF
Grant or some others that we're looking into so uh I think when you look at the overall length of our fiveyear plan from year six years from year Z to year five uh I think it's pretty laid out that uh
we have uh contingency plan based on grants already secured and what's coming up uh next after post authorization thank you I have another question for you your plan indicates being able to
operate in the event enrollment Falls as much as 25% below projections but our current RCS authorized Charter Schools fell between 27 and 35% below projections what is the plan for achieving Financial
sustainability so we we understand that currently from year one we have 192 which is our goal and we strongly believe that we'll get to 150% of it based on all the community engagement that's been done already I think uh we
talk about the community uh engagement test that will be formed post authorization Etc but the budget uh also take into consideration that um up to 173 or 90% of it so that we can operate
within that uh that Financial uh shortfall uh if the case of what you mentioned hypothetically speaking that we get to um significantly below that there is adjustment that we can take as
a last result to to adjust the budget accordingly and making sure that uh the mission is not affected by the shortfall uh within enrollment and I don't know if anyone want to add more to it I think
you're spot on and so um of course one one other contingency that we will put in place is of course our community engagement task forces as we're tracking our enrollment over time we will make sure that our um our hiring processes
are in alignment to making sure that we don't overhire and have to release uh employees but as a last resort any cuts that we're going to make but then start with any operational expenses that we can reduce first uh because we do not
want to M we do not want to uh change or or make any adjustments to the model that we promised to our families okay thanks I think they've answered that last question um for us miss kwood pretty well already I do have
one final question that's not related to finance um but I noticed and this this has cropped up for us as an issue this year just based on our experience of opening to new Charter Schools um you know it's noted in your application that your plan is to use the power school student information system as your main
sis um are you open to converting and using the same sis as ruford County Schools uses or are you are you committed to power school and so um those systems can be an utter headache so so of course those are
things that of course the partnership I want us to explore and have conversations about um I think one we want to make sure that we're very clear about the systems that we want to use in track over time but if there's a way to make processes more efficient that works
for both of us in this partnership then we will explore those options so we're not necessarily merried to that but then also we want to make sure that we are doing our due diligence from the aspect of supporting Nova smart academy to make sure that our systems are in place with our own checks and B balances internally
certainly thank you anybody else on the on the committee have any other additional questions anything we have't ask that you want to know anything from your team that you want to ask us before I go over the next steps um not necessarily a question but I just want to say thank you for the
opportunity again I know this is our second round uh again we just want to make it very clear that we believe in Rutherford County schools and we want to partner with Rutherford County Schools uh and um we're willing to do the work that it takes to provide the families uh
the mission and vision that we promise um and um let's just make it happen right well the next the next steps will be that um our committee will gather again our next meeting is April the 7th to discuss the things that we learned from you in our capacity interview today
and and develop our final scores and develop a final recommendation to make to the Board of Education here which we know ultimately it's their responsibility to vote on approval or denial um and it rests solely on their shoulders regardless of what we recommend to them um and the plan right
now is I will make that presentation to the board of what our recommendation is at the work session of April 22nd that's a Tuesday at 5:30 uh with the hopes that they're ready to vote um on on their decision two days later on Thursday um
April 24th that will get us within that that 90-day time frame and and give us some chance to to make sure we we we fully vet all of your answers today okay anything else from you guys that you want to know no just wanted to uh again thank
you all for your consideration of our application for a second go round uh hope we uh were able to answer all of the uh lingering questions that you might have had and uh hope that uh uh we are able to partner with you going forward well again thank you all so much for your time today again it's been a
pleasure talking with you Dr Sager and your team um it's always an honor to see you uh in our facility here so thank you very much and committee thank you so much for your time today as well