Work session for the Rutherford County School District. We will be opening the meeting with a brief moment of silence or prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance to The United States Black. No one is required to participate or be present for any of these, and being in this portion of the meeting is completely voluntary. Mister Vaughn, I believe you're in charge. In charge. Join with me in a moment of personal reflection and silent prayer? Dear heavenly father, we thank you for the opportunity to begin of service to you
and our fellow man. We thank you for the many families represented here. We thank you for all the blessings. We thank you for a good start to the school system and continued safety for all our children. We ask that you give us discernment, guidance, wisdom to make the decisions you would have us to make. We ask all these things in your holy name. Amen. To the flag of The United States Of America, and to the Republic Of First
up, we have the agenda. Anyone have any comments or questions regarding the agenda? Next, we have the consent agenda. Any comments or questions regarding that? Okay. Okay. So we have no public count. It's Rutherford Brown will be on Thursday, I believe. Correct. Yes. Yes. So next up we have the Director of Schools Evaluation Tool, and we will be voting to approve it on Thursday. It's the same as it's been previously. It's the same as it's been previously. To create whatever year that was.
Any questions or comments? Okay. Next, we're having discussion for the five year plan. Alright. So there's gonna be a couple things. Everyone has a draft. We do not need to vote on a five year plan on Thursday. This is just kind of to get us discussing and looking towards what's next. And I'll mention this again on Thursday, but I thank the board and I thank our county commission because we have made a ton of progress the last thirty months. Over 350,000,000 that has been put into building programs. And so you will see this five year plan number is 398,000,000 compared to where
we were almost 800,000,000 year, year and a half ago. And so greatly appreciate that. You'll see some of these dates and all of this, of course, can be moved around. This was just a draft we looked at at our retreat back in March. Before we finalize it, I would advise we wait till enrollment settles a little bit and we see where students actually end up. I'll give an enrollment report here in just a little while, but they're still moving all over the place. And so you'll see the first is land for North End High School, and so
that is actually for consideration tonight. Then you'll see high school, Plainview, or North, and I just have them as placeholders because that'll be up for the board and based on enrollment, what we see to decide. That does say January, January 2026. To hit that opening of August '28, we'd probably try what date to you? We would need to start design in November and bid in June '26.
And that's I was I know that that is a large project, whichever, again, direction we decide to go Plainview or North. That is going to hit right in the middle of a county commission election. And so getting funding is All good. Gonna be a challenge. And so, again, this is best case scenario, but no. That's I don't know of any school project that's been funded right before a county commission election. So just want that to be out there. You'll see that we have these broken down over multiple years, so projects through June
'27. And these are we always like to be conservative, so that we have money available and never go have to go back and ask. So this is kind of your overall, this is for a high school of 1,500 students, but with a core that could hold up to 2,500. And so your auditorium, gymnasiums, cafeteria can hold up to 2,500 students, but to start off at fifteen hundred. So trying to go to go towards that smaller high school.
That has been the conversations that I've had with commissioners. As I said, we I think the board and myself wanna go smaller. They were interested in entertaining that as long as we built it so that future generations or future boards and county commissions could then go and add on if they so chose. We can we can stop right there and then we can go to the rest of it just a little while. So Okay. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. So you can't I mean, the I I side step right here. Just just a second if you don't care. You know, the though y'all know this.
For years, I've been in the real estate business and I've observed things that's happened, to Rutherford County over the years. And the reason I bring that up, every time we created a school zone that a child or family could stay in, K through 12, they loved it. And it really came to fruition I guess with the Segal and Blackman school zones, you know, and still to this day, they are both very, very popular locations for
families to locate to, and now it appears to be Rock Vale and Stewarts Creek, And so, with that thought in mind, the reason I bring this up, when we get into trying to design and build these high schools, or which comes first, the chicken or the egg, so to speak, How do we balance a, you know, 1,500 student in high school, 2,000 student in high school, 2,500 with a feeder middle school, a feeder elementary?
What what does that look like size wise? I guess it's Yeah. What I'm asking him. I don't know if Trey's do you and Trey have done this? Help me with that. In a perfect world, you'd want four to six elementary schools feeding into a middle school and then a middle two middle schools feeding into a high school. We are not set up that way outside of your triple campuses, and they're not direct feeders either. When the board looked at rezoning in first in the trying to remember the year, would have been the 2023.
The direct feeder patterns was not something that was gonna be feasible for the way we're set up currently. But if you're looking at a three school type site, you would want four to six elementary into two middle into one high school. And the reason I say that is there because one of my personal goals in getting on board was to try to set direction, you know, for the next twenty years really, not being hoggish or overbearing or anything, but just being you know far sighted, how can we incorporate all of that into those wishes?
Do we need to look at you know 1,500 students high school, 1,600 students high school, like 1,200 students middle school, two elementary schools at, what, seven, eight hundred. I'm trying to do the numbers in my head, but basically, you're looking at 400 students per grade. Right? Is that what I'm driving at? At a high school, yes, To get to that 15 to 16. So to do that, and so what does that what does that site look like? Because we all know this land is getting more and more scarce to kinda have
that concept. I've heard that from miss Sharp ever since I've been here. We've got to find land. We've got to find land. And and so looking, trying to determine where those sites are, they're getting fewer and fewer and fewer between, I guess I would say that. There are some sites out there I've identified and and may be able to share with y'all sometime in the next few months, kinda off the record a little bit about ideas or where this is headed, families that are, in estate planning sessions.
But that's I don't know. Just kinda wanted to throw that out there. What the is that achievable, first of all? Second of all, if it's not, then how do we, you know, help these parents, you know, pick where they raise their families as far as school zones are concerned? Because that's the worst thing that that and the books, that's the two worst things I've been through so far right now is rezoning in books. So, anyway, I didn't know if anybody else had any insight or preference there. Mister Tidwell. I've been looking at here at the high school.
It says high school Plainview or North, but we had talked about possibly doing a hybrid split. What is the difference in number? You got this 138,000,000 if we were to do a hybrid split, but one, a smaller high school in the North End, a smaller high school than a plain deal on property we already have. These would be smaller because the cost went higher because of having to make the core up to 2,500. And so when Trey and I first started looking out, we were trying to do ninety to a hundred and ten million overall. If the county commissions kinda had health and that and just discussions where we needed
to try to get that core bigger in case other and that's what major cost go up. And so we could definitely I mean, that's up to the board. If you wanna go smaller, I would definitely advocate for smaller. I think that's something I believe in wholeheartedly. Well, I think, the basis for my question is really, you know, we've been doing along the North and and there's no issue with that. That's where we've had a lot of high density issues, especially with capacity. But at some point, that overflows the the South End too. And if you're looking at the projections from our RSP, when it was doing all these, numbers, We gotta start making considerations down the South End as well.
I I would probably most likely be advocating for splitting up two small high schools and seeing what that difference would look like so that we are spreading out a little bit more cost. And look, I'm all for doing what's best for the county as a whole and not just sticking to my particular zone or anything like that. But this is a conversation we've had in the past. I think it's worthy of at least investigating a little bit deeper to see what that would look like. Not not only from, a balance of capacity, but also just knowing that the smaller
the high school is, typically the better these do with behavior, the less the better you have your teacher retention. Like, overall, the benefits are greater than building these huge high schools, which I know others on the board have advocated for smaller schools as well. But I just wanted to make sure that we're focusing in on that. So as we're discussing this five year plan, I would like to see what that difference would be when it comes to cost and capacity if we were to do a hybrid model between smaller high schools and split that into two rather than another
large high school on one end of the county. Mister let me get mister Vaughn. Okay. Yes, mister Vaughn. Richard of Shell is at smaller high school. The kids do better. More kids get to participate. And I guess if I had my way, every kid would be able to be be in participate in something. They just do better. And, you know, the cost may be a little higher to do a small high school compared to a comprehensive school. But, again, we've got to do what's best for the kids. And to me, there's really no comparison between the having large high school or small
one. I just I I don't think it I think it helps us too that you don't need as much land to build a small high school as you do a big one. Correct. And I just think the positives, far outweigh the need is and come on board and I see that. Miss Johnson. Thank you, madam chair. It's I guess it's been about three or four years ago now. Miss Rosales and I went to Warren County. We went to Kentucky. And what I would really this Plainview or the North End is gonna come down to land and we already have the land in Plainview.
As much as I want something up on the North End, it's probably gonna come down to us, have a plan. So that said, we do have more land at Plainview and the Warren County High School layout, I think, is a great layout. It's a v, and the junior high is on one side, and the high school is on the other side. So we could actually do a three grade band level at that school if we because it's smaller than what we typically do. I would really like to look into doing that. The community areas or the communal areas, the auditorium and the cafeteria and everything in
the middle and you know then we only have to have one football field. They share the football field and the baseball fields and everything like that. So we don't have to have more land like what we've had at Stewart's Creek and some of the other three campuses schools. And that's great but like mister Vaught said we are running out of land. So I would really like to look at that. I call it the Jack and Jill. I mister Lee I don't know what they call it but it's the b or whatever. Layout for Plainview because it would be smaller and we would be able to get
the middle school and the high school on that property. Mister Rosales. Yeah. So, doctor Solange, so I heard you right. It is a 100 the 138 the $138,000 I wish. For well, it's an estimate. Well, the I mean, sorry. Sorry. I meant to say $138,000,000 I'm sorry. I wish it cost cost. Well, back in the 1800s maybe. I don't know. Dollars 138,000,000, that is the cost for a smaller high school? 1,500 with capacity in your core area used to go up to 2,500.
So how how much are we saving to do a smaller versus a regular high school? You basically cut a wing of classrooms off. So how But like our last I mean, what did I'm trying to you wanna give a guess? So how much is that savings that we're looking at? Probably about 15 to 20,000,000. So the difference between a 1,500, high school versus a 2,500, is it $15,000,000 Because of your core areas being so much bigger. You have your same library, same auditorium, same two gyms, same cafeteria, same office, and
you have the same athletic complex. What what is missing is the classrooms for a thousand students. And I need to say that's the inexpensive space, because none of it's inexpensive. But comparatively speaking, that's the less expensive of the square footage. So, I mean, I wanna save money and save whatever we can. But thinking about what happened in Rockville that it was supposed to be the school that was gonna take care of all this overcrowding and within a year it did
not. And then what happened is that there was a lot of conversations of going back to the drawing board to rezone. And the last thing I want to do to save $15,000,000 to go from 1,500 to 2,500 is that we do this small school and then within a year or two they're already at capacity and they're overcrowded and then we're having to go back. So, I think before we make it my opinion, this is just one vote, that if before we go into thinking about what the size of a high school is
to look in to the area of where that's going and the growth because we're I know we have one property that we're looking at in Lee Road, but that area of where that school is situated is populated with new development. I mean, there's new development popping up, I feel like, almost every week. And so, I wanna save money, but at the same time, I also wanna be conscious of what the rapid growth and that impact so that we don't this board, whoever sits in my seat won't have to come back again and redo what was
done because we're having to bring portables because of what and have be caught in a similar situation that happened with Rockville. That's my 2¢. You'll be able to scale that gold cone. Oh, exactly. I was gonna say our issue is it takes schools three years to get built from when we start. And then by that point, you're rezoning like we've seen. We tried to rezone and give everybody a heads up, and then developments hit by the time that Mister Darby, you're saying here. Yes, mister Darby. One of the things that I do wanna address, and I think it hits a
little closer with Stewarts Creek in particular because those are all literally on the same piece of ground is some of the challenges we get into building the elementary, middle, and high altogether. And the traffic getting in and out, not just for the students and the parents, but also for the people that live in that vicinity when they're blocked in for over an hour in the morning and afternoon because traffic's not moving. So if we're going to continue to look at that model, I I think the
infrastructure is a big portion of that. We have a lot of people I know in La Verne, specifically, I don't know about Murfreesboro, but who are talking a lot about lack of infrastructure. And I just don't want the schools to compound that issue as we go down this. So I think it's important that we keep that in mind too. I will say close to me, like, even just having them not very far apart, like Rock Springs Middle and Rock Springs Elementary. Rock Springs Elementary gets a little bogged down, but I think that's because it's a
very large elementary school at this point too. But then being spread apart just a little bit that they are is helpful because it just helps disperse that traffic. So I think that's something that we also need to look into. And I do have concerns too. I don't know how deep in the weeds we wanna get on this conversation. But these older schools, I know mister Lee and I were talking, you know, some of them are are costing us a decent amount of money just to keep them going in the current state they're in. So I also think it's important that we keep that at the top of the
conversation too. Because if there's any way to move some of that up in the timeline, I think they would be greatly appreciative. And I've said this for a couple years now. If we don't start getting at least one school a year going on renovations, we're looking at a really big problem in ten, twenty years. Because we have over 50 schools, that means we're not renovating for a whole another fifty years that same school.
So Mister mister Vaughn, and then I have some comments. And I was she took some of my thunder right there, so I was glad somebody else was thinking of it. But along that line, almost to the point we're building a school a year, we need to renovate a school a year. Right? I mean, that's just kinda hand in hand, and so laying the this thing out. And and the the thing about infrastructure, you talk to anybody, you know, sitting in the school zone. We the school system complicates traffic.
Right? Shopping complicates it. School traffic complicates it. So that's another good point. So if you if if you end up if I think, you know, which comes which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Do we want to advocate for the three school complex? If we do, then we've got to be very specific about where we put them. And then the size of them really needs to be limited because of traffic. Right? And so if you come up with kind of a nimble way to hit and run, so to speak, and I'm fixing to say something.
I'm gonna tell y'all where I'm going. Is I'm I think right now, we need to move McFadden and Thurman Francis and Daniel McKee up right now, postpone the high school and build two, because you were kinda had I think you were heading down that road, Caleb, just a little bit of the smaller footprint high schools and build two of them two years from now or so. I don't know that it matters, but I know I know those three schools need
some attention. Smyrna West, Daniel McKee, Thurman Francis, and McFadden. That's what started this, and I see my good friend, doctor Blair, back there right now, so, which made me think about that. So if we could do these renovation pride projects right now and get on with them, I don't wanna take this away from Trey right now. He may have his heart set on building the high school right now, but, getting those renovation projects done and then maybe postponing the high school and building two high
schools at one time. That's just an idea. I I wanna agree with basically everybody what everybody's saying. I'm really proud of the fact that we really we got it in high gear. They had never done the number of projects that we've done in the last couple of years. After being in quicksand for two years and not being told, no, we can't do anything now, we can't do anything now, we can't do ground money. That's the new one. What we're doing now, we're the it hasn't slowed down. The growth is still coming, but we've gotta take care of our older schools too. I would say, I'm not only do I want us to go ahead and I'm
okay with postponing a high school for right now and going ahead. I know we can do these at the same time. We don't need to do one at a time. We we can do a couple of these and start them just like we proved we can do that. We we basically started Smyrna, Riverdale, and Oakland at the same time. And then we've got La Verne going now. So we can do this, and that's what I would like to do. But I would also when it comes to Thurman Francis, I have talked about us having another magnet school that's high school. I think now is the time to go ahead and expand it and make it
and make it through the high school because we don't have a fine arts magnet high school. Miss Umak, are you I'm sorry. One more time. You're after Okay. Go ahead. Oh. Well, I so, McFadden is at the bottom over here. Can we if we're if if the board is in agreement to postpone we go ahead and buy the land on the property. And if we're gonna postpone moving into building a high school and moving into renovating the older schools, then can we bump up McFadden as well?
At least start the process of I haven't forgotten how many, but they did start What would that what would that look like if we were going to do that along with all the other schools with McPherson. Daniel McKee, Smyrna West, and Thurman, for instance, because we have McFadden tentatively slated to open in '29. McFadden definitely needs attention. The timeline for McFadden is gonna take longer because it's in the city limits. You're also dealing with the historic issues. The other part, you're looking almost like a we renovated John Coleman and rebuilt, so
we're gonna have to those students have to have somewhere to go. So we'll have to start building behind it. So we need to acquire property first. I'm concerned about the traffic study that may happen there because of all the developments the city of Martinsborough is doing right there. And we've by McFadden in that hole just right across the railroad tracks, I would definitely want to do our fair share, but I don't believe it's the school and it's not the school system's responsibility to pay for the city of Murkreesboro's infrastructure around
that site either. And so there's that is not on their radar right now about McFadden. So I need to have some conversations with the city before that gets on their radar. Okay. So to that point where you're saying about buying property, so what if we were to start the process of buying the properties? So that when we're ready to build, we're not hanging on in trying to get the property scanned. If the holdup is partly because we need to buy this property, can we start that process? And, so last year, no, this past academic year, we were all all of the
board members not minus Dan and Butch because they were not Mr. Vaughn and Mr. Vaught because they were not on the board. We were invited to the their PTO presentation, and they had the presentation. But what potentially could look like if they were to buy the properties and how they can have expansion, grow, and increase the capacity so it won't be just at 240 kids. There's actually potential where they can grow and add more seats and so there's a lot more competition for kids to wanna come to a school that is, a magnet
school. So if the holdup is the buying these properties because it'll take a while, can we if if on Thursday, I don't know what the motions are gonna be. But on Thursday, could we do a motion where we can start that process along with this five year plan? Or, Yeah. I think you could do a motion to go and discuss with those tenants because you have tenants, you have lease, you don't know when the lease is gonna be up. So there's I would like to do that. I would like to make a motion on Thursday if the board pleases to authorize
miss Reed to go in, talking to those, property owners that are in the house in front of the school so we can at least get the ball rolling on that. And then the board, we can discuss and prioritize which of the other older schools we can potentially renovate as we're trying to get as we're trying to get the properties of the ground and and then because we're gonna need land to expand, that school. Okay. So Mister Tidwell, then miss Darby, and then mister Vaughn.
Well, there's a lot of discussion around this, and I think that's a good thing. I think that you can see how seriously every board member is taking this, and we're looking at all the options. And we're removing portables from the county for the first time, so we are making progress. So, on that note, I I agree with the discussions here about being our old schools and where these schools should fit. I think Michael Smith's probably having a heart attack right now if he's listening in to us trying to move all of these. Guaranteed. Yeah. To the front of the list. So we we may end up having to do some kind of priority or or
looking at the data and what the data supports as our need. I know we've talked about our alternative schools, Dan and Keith, Smyrna West. They haven't been addressed in, what, twenty years, and yet our growth has been exponential since then. So, I mean, it's hard to see those being moved much. As far as delaying the high school, I think that is gonna be a little bit of a challenge, simply because of the growth that we're having and how long it takes to build a high school. So it's a little bit different, than what we see with the middle school or
the elementary school as far as the timelines. So we don't wanna get if we were to delay it, we don't wanna get into a position to where we needed it. Had the opportunity to to build it and moving on some of these other options cause even a a greater hardship back on the high school level. So I'm very curious to see where the enrollment forecasted enrollment, is potentially what that split smaller high school. When I say smaller high schools, I mean, we're thinking of a smaller number.
I still think we're above a thousand at least, you know, maybe 1,200. Still, possibly, maybe with a little bit larger core, maybe not the 2,500 core on the smaller high schools, but still with the core there, to expand those as well. But but not I'm just not for leaving the high school portion. We know that the elementary school needed help. We've done that. It's we've seen what that has done for our capacity. It's been great with the the redistrict. We know what the middle school is gonna do whenever it comes in, how it's gonna help with our capacity. I don't think delaying the high school is in our best benefit two to three
years. And that's what we're doing. We're trying to forecast. Right? Trying to see what it's gonna look like three years now from now. I don't think it's in our best benefit to do that. That's, you know, just my opinion, but I'd love to see what the the numbers look like and what's possible and what's not. Miss Darling. Mister Lee, the figures that you have on here for McFadden for the rebuild, does that include the purchase of any of those properties? Like, just a general so it would be plus whatever that is. These are budgetary numbers based on a replacement for the building.
It doesn't take into account at this time because we don't know, land or how much additional is gonna be needed for traffic, What the city is gonna request that to look like? Can you, out of this the four schools that are listed here, in terms of how desperately they're needing a rebuild in conjunction with how much money keeping up with them is costing, what order would you put these four in?
They're the they're the top four. Right. But what order in the in those four like, if we had to split them up and do, like, two one year and two another year, which ones would have those top priority spots? RC. We've poured the most money into McFadden over the last five to seven years. We have poured money in it. You wanna think on it? Yeah. Okay. I I got a different idea than what yeah. I'll think on it. Okay. Touching on what you said, madam chair, as far as Thurman Francis, I'm a huge,
huge advocate for us to have a performing arts fine arts high school. I am not in favor of adding it onto Thurman Francis. And I will tell you it's because there is not a large enough footprint there to have the athletic facilities that would be needed for a high school. And I don't like the notion of telling arts kids that they can't also be athletes. Doctor. Sullivan and I have talked about this. The performing arts high school that I attended was a regular high school with a performing arts magnet school kind of built inside of it.
So you had to audition for those arts teachers to be accepted into that program. There was a performing arts building that housed the dance classes, the art classes, the theater classes. And I really love that idea because it gives those students the opportunity to still participate in the regular high school activities as well as fine tune their art skills, which I think is important at a high school level. A lot of those arts kids are looking at taking that on to college potentially or they're trying to figure out whether they wanna go an athletic route or an
arts route. I there's just kind of a weird connotation sometimes with the magnet school kids that they're we already hear with Central that they're not getting the same facilities that the other high schools are. So we have the number three school in the nation as of today. Congratulations, Central. But they don't have the same facilities that the rest of our high schools do. And I don't I I don't think that's fair. So nothing against Thurman Francis. It's one of my favorite schools. My kids have all gone there. I just don't think it's an adequate space to turn it into a k 12 school. I would rather see us put an arts magnet if we build this North End
High School right there so that it's close by, and kind of institute it more in that way so that they can participate in all the other high school activities. Okay. Butch. You know, if you go into all these buildings, which I've been in all of them and I'm sure y'all have too, the building is probably in the worst shape of the malls like that. And mister Lee said, you know, they've been throwing money in there. It's what you call it, throwing good money in there. And I don't know.
That building needs needs more help than anything. If I went over to see mister Blair, he carried down in the basement, and I'd be scared to death that sucker fall in because it's a it really needs to be replaced. And I you know, personally, I'd like to see it moved up above all the rest of these all the rest of them can probably last five more years. I'm not sure Mike Madden will. I mean, it's it's really in the that's where he went and put so much
money into it, I guess. But, you know, you're talking about schools and getting the same type of facilities and everything. But, Central Central Magnet School, if you're looking at comparable facilities with high schools, they're in need of another gym. You know, they, I don't know how they do all they do with just that one gym. But there's a lot of things that need to be done there.
Of course, we got a little bit of room to do that with. We need to need to look at that too, but I don't see any push in this back. I think it's just something we in order for us to catch up, we're gonna have to keep going. We put our foot on the gas and just keep going because we're behind now building schools. And we're not gonna catch up about putting things off. Miss miss Sharp and then mister Tipton. Okay. Y'all put the Sharp objects away. I'm gonna suggest something out of the box here.
Mister Lee and I were talking earlier since Holloway is not full and we've got all the things that we have to deal with with the city and I'm gonna y'all know what we have to deal with. My thought would to be if we could move McFadden to Holloway and maybe put some portables there to supplements and that way we could just haze Holloway haze, McFadden and do it all at the same time and that way it would probably shorten
the building pro the building program because if we wouldn't have the other school to to be in the way and everything. Yes. On a temporary basis until the until the school was built. Since Holloway is not full, maybe we could move it. He's not listening. You know, maybe he's silent. He's he's probably making notes. But I I think that that's something, and I think maybe the historical and some of the other people that we're gonna have to deal with in dealing with building at McFadden, I think that that might help because it would shorten that window of
having this having a mess in traffic and all of that stuff over there. So that's just something something out of the box that mister Lee and I were talking about earlier. Who is that? Who is I think it's too. Interesting suggestion. Hadn't heard that. Trey, I just wanted to open floor. I've heard you start to say something, that you thought a little bit different, and we're all just talking opinions here. But you had the most knowledge and background, so I'd like to get your thoughts if you feel comfortable sharing.
I've been doing this a long time here, and I and I've dealt with a lot of county commissions. When you start talking to high school, you start you're talking two years. And if we start now, we're right at three. I don't see us as a district with the growth that I know is here now. And I'm not talking about anything that's not on the board or anything that's not in planning at this time. There's and and I realize we could be looking at I don't wanna use the term slow down. Fortunately, Rutherford County has always in the last fifteen years, and mister Baughton, you correct
me if you disagree, have have we weathered the storm a little better than the balance of our state. We may go flat for six months or a year or eighteen months, but we've typically not taken the downturn that the rest of the South has. And and I see that I don't see anything that I see differently coming forward. I say all that to say this. If you look at your high school, unless y'all wanna put portables back at Oakland, Riverdale, and Smyrna, and La Verne Two Years from now, I don't see you seeing
us being able to put the high school off for three years. One of them. I'm not saying both of them, but one of them. And I don't care where where where you wanna put it. That's y'all's decision. You've asked me to kinda step off in this. If you look at the smaller version, which allows us to expand, gives us the core, whether you call it a magnet, whether you have some incorporation that's a little bit different. You take that 138, you cut it in half. Because that's what your expenditures gonna roughly be per year.
So we're looking at and I'm gonna use the round term, 70 bill. That's a new elementary, or I mean, a new middle school. Close. County can in the past, has been able to swallow that kind of money. You start high school now. Pick one of these three. I don't care. McFadden. It's gonna be your larger chunk. It's gonna be your heaviest hitter. You can take Daniel McKee and Smyrna West and add them together. You're pretty close to McFadden. Attack the high school. Now attack either two, Smyrna West, Daniel McKee, Thurman Francis, McFadden, I don't care what
combination because they're all in need. I'm not gonna point I've dealt with all of them. Right now, I can now that I have gotten sewer to Daniel McKee and it doesn't I I have the kids the kids can't use the restroom every time it rains. They can they can do that now that we've got sewer there. I I'm a little more comfortable. Neither one of them have kitchens. They can't that that we satellite food in. So so so we're gonna continue to do that. Pick one. So if y'all want McFadden first, that's fine.
But you put McFadden with year one of the high school, then you pick either one or the other or both. Because Thurman Francis is gonna be a little more expensive unless we think outside the box and look at what maybe we do add another $2.03, 4,000,000 to this 1,500 to make it more I mean, it's an idea to think about. But you take the high school, stretch it over two years, you put one or
two projects the first year, one or two the next, And that keeps you in that $100,000,000 range, which is something in the past the county's been able to do. But I don't see us if if if we put off the high school, I'm gonna go fight the city to let them to let them keep us let I'll spit it out. Let them allow us to keep the portables at Oakland and Riverdale because we're gonna start needing them. And the portables that I moved at Smyrna, I'm gonna be right back next year
or the next moving them back. Beyond that, you go back to the go back to back to the high school the next and then at that point, you decide three years from now, do we still need that next high school? You leave it on there, you can use the same footprint. We if we look at designing what we've used for the last twenty years, our elementaries, our middles, and our highs have been prototypes, except for the last couple that we built. We built a couple of new prototypes, the elementary and the middle.
We can use those again. We can go forward with those. There we've got some that in our arsenal that we've got we can go back and reuse. And in three years, you revisit already today, they're eighteen months away from houses coming online. That buys us that two to three years, and then at that point, you look at, do I need a high school? Do I need a middle school? And you still probably got one of these smaller projects that's sitting out there that you do if nothing else. That's you've asked me, that's my 2¢.
I appreciate that that feedback. Yeah. And I would I I still think we're gonna need again, focusing on the numbers. Still think we're gonna need if we split this high school, one on the South End and one on the North End. I don't think it's possible, judging from all the numbers we've seen, to build to either not build a huge high school or larger high school or split these two. I'm not advocating that we just build one or the other just to be clear. But I do have one more follow-up question, about McFadden. So, obviously, we've built several I think everybody got emails today about McFadden, some of
the conditions there in the HVAC. Well, you made a statement that we've been pouring money into McFadden. So my follow-up question to that is, does that mean it is in better shape than, the other ones on this list at this point? Or are you saying it's still, money pit? Well, when I say we've been pouring money in it, Doctor Blair can correct me, I'll be off a couple of years, but I'm not gonna be off. In the last eighteen years, we've put new windows in it, that league.
We fought the brick that still continues. We've got it in pretty good shape now, but we still have been fighting it for the last few years. We've still got a few walls at central magnet that leak, and it's because of the type of construction. We've sprayed sealer on them, and the ultimate repair is hundreds of thousands of dollars to cut the border out and re tuck point. That's how you fix it. Roof, HVAC, all of these things have been put in, but what gets lost and
I was trying to get the age right. We're twelve to fifteen years on his new HVAC system. So his HVAC system is no longer new. We have and I'm sorry. Go for it. You're right. You asked, I answered doctor Sullivan's question today, what does our HVAC systems look like? There's a lot of talk about that also. We have 33 HVAC systems in our system that are over 12 to fifteen years old, all over and or beyond replacement.
I've got some that are 20. And if you remember the report that the guys did for us in 2021, they told us then, we don't know how y'all kept this stuff running. And I'm sorry, guys. We're still keeping them running, and we're gonna have to keep them running for a while longer. And I'm running out of rabbits, to to pull out of my hat. I say all that to say this, we don't have any fame new, other than our new facilities. And if you wanna think about it, I had a gentleman tell me the other
day, SEMA High School is one of our new high schools. They're 20 years old. They're not new anymore. That that's and I'm not pointing finger, I I I or saying anything. When I say we're pouring money in them, when you've got a building McFadden, I don't wanna cheat it. Now it's late in the days. Original building was built in 1938. '55, '65, and '78. That's when burnt, rebuilt, added on, whatever. Central Magnet School, 1948.
Christiana Elementary, 1948. Daniel McKee, 1950. Holloway High School, 1959. Simon Springs, we were all there recently, 1963. Just said McFadden. Smyrna Middle School, which was Smyrna High School, 1961. Smyrna Primary, 1963. Smyrna West, 1950. Thurman Francis Arts Academy, 1963. Been asked by a lot of people, give me your top three. I'm I'm not Solomon, and I've said this before. It's very difficult to split that, baby. And I'm a smart boy, but it's hard.
I look at this as a district. That's my job. So I'm sorry. I got off the line. Thank you for that feedback. Yes, miss Miss Maxwell? Let me go real quick. Okay. Miss miss Sharp and then mister Vaughn. I'm I'm I'm Okay. Sharpen, this is wrong. No. No. No. At this point, I can't remember something. Go ahead. Alright. Observation. I didn't forgive me. I didn't really mean about putting the high school law off. What I meant to say was, can we move the small projects on a time frame wise? I I I concur. I understand the the numbers with the high school. I I kinda like what Katie said, you know, we could we could take the
design, if if we get an agreement here to build two high schools, that maybe we could design part of the the North High School, a third of it as an arts academy. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what that looks like. You attended one that had a school within a school. I think that's what you're saying, so that could be a great possibility, so don't we need to get on with it, I just I know McFadden has been both my sons went there, and we patched back then.
We're still patching at at some point in time. And the observation I would give everybody is this, you you you've seen a lot of you know, the real estate business has been pretty good for three years here. All these investors came from out of town. And essentially what they have done is bought twenty, twenty five year old houses, come in, put new roofs, new cabinets, new bathrooms, new flooring, new light fixtures, new central heating and air unit. And the and the houses are 20 years old. And so they've made them modern, and they flipped them, and they've made money. And, essentially, that's what we have to do in the school business, is that these
buildings, when they get some age on them, I mean, your average Central Heat and Air Unit is fifteen, eighteen years old. Some of you have heard me say this. I've I've got about 50 rental houses right now. We buy three units a year. I just budget that. And so there's three or four roofs a year. And so I know those things, and I know Trey knows those things, but the average taxpayer, the average homeowner may not understand that from this large of system. You know, 52 schools. Hey. Odds are you got three or four central heating air units are gonna be out
every year. Right? Just just in just in sheer numbers, the luck of the draw. So, anyway, not my intention would keep on with the high school, but let's see if we can't get on with McFadden and maybe one of these other ones, Danny McKee or something, next year or this year, start this year. What what would it look like if we brought the ashtray to bring it back? You bring it back next month and let's kind of re you know, what what do we need to do to get it, to push it along? I know we've we've gotten to this point.
We've got the three, additions done, essentially, with Riverdale, Oakland, and Smyrna, but let's go on. Let's what's the next step, and let's keep pushing. Go ahead. I think the next step I've I think mister Rosales has suggested motion is perfectly fine because before we know what we can do with McFadden, we need to go ahead and acquire those properties. So to authorize mister Reed to go ahead and contact who the owners are, I think, Dan, I would wait until our enrollment numbers come back more towards October because
I'm gonna go over enrollment here in just a little while. We're following the same trend we had last year starting off kinda flat. And then September, October, we blew up. And so one year, we used RSP and they used September's numbers, and then we grew like 400 kids in the next month. And so I don't know if that's the people that move here in their districts are usually starting after Labor Day, and that's what the big growth is. And so I would hate to develop a plan and then have a ton more kids move in that I don't know about. Let's go We're gonna discuss this at our you're treating this well. Yep. This is gonna be a big portion of that tomorrow.
And then No. Miss She don't know. Sorry. Sorry. No. Sorry. Sorry. Miss Nance. Okay. So this is my last comment about this. So to Charlie's point about the need for the high school, if we remember correctly and the trend and the growth in how with the buildings that we have to hold all these kids that are coming and having seats available. Even with this, rezoning within the high school, it showed that I think it was either year 2829. We will be at capacity with even at single high school and that we will
desperately need a high school within that Sewer Creek zone area. And then it also talked about how within five years, we will need another high school within close to the Riverdale side area, Christiana, because of the growth. So I will agree that we will need to move forward with a high school on the North End. That's where we have the lead property. Hopefully, it works for that. But I will also like to and I'm just going to what to advocate is to add an older school, to renovate and we can look into, bumping up McFadden
by starting with the process of buying the property so that we can start, with renovations. And then we can also prioritize those older schools and how they might rank in in in priority list. So that's my 2¢ for that. I will say, one thing that I think that helped us in the past is once we voted and we got a plan together, we stuck together and we stuck to that plan. And, yes, we were a little pushy. I was a little pushy, but you have to. But I think that we have a very good relationship with the county commission. And I know we're we're always gonna have new ones coming in.
I'm losing probably two of mine. But I think if we if we just stay determined, we can do this because we're not gonna be able to just to do one or two. She's right. Miss Rosales is right, and Mister Bond is right. We're gonna have to do multiple projects at one time. And so I I I think that we can get this done. We just need to make sure that we all are working as one voice as a board. I was gonna echo that. So for looking at our five year plan, whatever we decide, regardless of whatever the majority of the board vote is, that needs to be what the board's conversation is,
because, again, moving into a reelection year anything is gonna be tough. But if we're all unified, then it's gonna be much easier for me to push that. And it's also gonna be much easier to push two smaller high schools that represent the entire county during an election year than it would be once smaller or bigger high school in only one area. It's a lot easier to get the entire commission support of everybody's thinking. Like we did when we said Oakland and Riverdale, we're helping two areas, not just one. Yes, miss Sharp.
And then mister Thank you, madam chairman. The only thing the only problem that and I agree with everything. The only problem is we still need another high school in La Verne because the Lea Road is not gonna address the problems that we have in La Verne. So that's that's really a third one. It's really a third high school if you look at it because La Verne is already at capacity. And even with the annex, we've got to have something there and right there with Smyrna and everything. Because Lee Road is gonna take care of all that property that's coming the people
that are coming over on the West side of the interstate, and they're coming. It's gonna be huge. That Lee Road is not gonna do anything for La Verne. They're not gonna move anybody from La Verne over into that area. And with Stewart Street and everything already been full, we really need a high school. We do need one on the North End and the South End, but La Verne has got to have one as well. Yes. Mister Took, go ahead. So just to consolidate everything that we've talked about here, it it seems like the board is is considering, high school splitting this larger high school into two high schools,
one on the North End, one down near Plainview, and then additionally, potentially moving up to one of these items. That seems like madness is holding the reins here, but moving up one of these if we can, because this is on. It's it's we're having a vote on Thursday. Right? No. We're just No. We're not going to Just discussion. Well, then on that note, that still seems like the direction. So we can start getting ideas about that, but I would like to see the difference between acquiring properties and other than I reached out to Trey earlier today about McFadden and about what those properties would cost.
In comparison to miss Sharpe's, idea of utilizing Holloway and what that would look like, that's something that I heard for first time tonight. It's a unique idea. I'd love to see what the differences are to see if there's some savings there. It sounds like, unfortunately, this is, within Murfreesboro City's, district. So it's gonna be some challenging items there already. The less challenging we have, likely the less delays, the less we have to fight with the city. So let's, let's try to make that as easy as possible.
Miss Maxwell? Yes. Doctor. Sullivan, can we add can we modify the agenda or is it too late to add the motion to, authorize mister Reed to move forward with acquiring the properties on I would turn officially to mister Rivas since it's being discussed during a work session, I don't see any reason that it couldn't be added to the agenda. Yeah. Can we add that to agenda so that it can be a board agenda item that we can vote on Thursday and go ahead and start that pass process? That'll be great. Thank you. I will tell you, have you seen, mister Lee, have you seen the the mock
up that McFadden PTO showed us? Okay. Okay. I'd like you to see it. I have I'm I'm on a lot of, you know, my husband is on city council. So I have kind of briefly I've kind of talked about this behind the scenes, and the houses are not that expensive. And I think one owner of of has two of them. And, basically, they're looking at flipping flipping the front to what is now the back. And it does follow along with, you know, we are gonna need the city's help,
you know, and and but I do believe this does follow with what they're trying to do with the the beautification of that area and, the the downtown, project there where they're daylighting the old, string. So I I do think that they could be actually a better partner. And, I'm very optimistic. I always say I'm Miss Bassam? Yes. Mister Bassam? Principal is here, mister Blair, and I'd asked him earlier if he could resend those plans to everyone on the board.
So if they can send it to mister Lee and doctor Sullivan, that'd be great because they had that meeting. And I will request that we, the PTO, can have another meeting and invite the board members to talk about it as well. That'd be great. I will appreciate that. I don't know if there'll be other board members involved, but it'd be great to have that conversation. Yes, mister. Well, it sounds like we're all pretty open minded to looking at everything, so we're having a fall retreat. Mhmm. So it appears to me that cons school construction and renovation is gonna be the
topic. By that time, will you have updated enrollment numbers? Can we also ask for and I don't know how to do this other than the consultant, you know, looking at where the numbers are and say, okay. If you had a location here, what the zoning would be? Can we kinda play with that kind of stuff at the retreat? We've worked on it a little bit last year and I'll meet with them again tomorrow. So yes. Alright. Because, again, I I think I mentioned this earlier, there are several tracts of land
that are gonna come up for sale in the next couple of years for for state purposes. And so kind of knowing that on the front end, it might give us a or at least give you all the information to make some type of decision. Okay. Mister You know, going back to the MacVann situation, you know, we're looking at those houses, I think, to the east of them. I think that's where you're talking about. Another option, you know, I I think a lot of the people buy those houses
and then, they get pretty proud of them real quick. And, you know another thing that another option to look at is right beside there, there's a the recreation department has that building there. Uh-huh. And it may be a possibility we could talk to the city of Marshallboro and see if see if we could work out some kind of arrangement or deal or whatever you wanna call it. But maybe flipping that building and and, utilizing that area there.
So it's just I don't know. It's just thoughts. Funny you should say that. I've actually approached them about that. But but, yeah. That would be a I think a a good idea too. I wanna ask you one more question about the alternative schools. The price for redoing them, obviously, they're not as large, so it's not as high. Are we still looking at possibly doing that ourselves? That would not be outside of them, the county having to go provisioning to go get a bond for that? Or is that still They would. No. We'd have to get a bond for that much. Okay. For 21 and a half million, we would.
For sure. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So since we're gonna talk about the alternative schools, they're really to me they're really small compared to some of the other buildings that we've built. And if we have the land there, we need to think about since if we're gonna build there, we need to think about what other opportunities we could put on those locations and not just build to the same size that we had. We're for sure gonna add seats to alternative school, but I agree. What other options we need? Yeah. You know, maybe administrative or, you know, some kind I don't know. I don't really know how much they we have. Go yes, Michelle.
These budget those schools right now are about 10 to 12,000 square feet. These budgets are for 25,000. So it's the dump of them. Okay. Do do we have land of maybe a foot Yes. And they can stay in service. So we could We may have to relocate some portables, but we could still probably keep them there while we build them. Are we thinking about not just increasing the size and having more classroom space, but maybe adding a gym to each all. You would be pushing it probably.
For cost would increase But we can maybe look at we can look at it, but it's not included in the budget. Okay. Okay. I definitely would like to But budgets are you tell me what you want, and I'll give you a budget for it. In my end, I have, like, it's and and I can't remember what Smyrna West I've been out there before, but Daniel Keya, I know what that that footprint looks like. But I I was just hoping that we could, like, separate the middle school from the high school and, and maybe go even go up. Go two story. It'll lead to high school. It's two. That's what we discussed.
Okay. Let me throw a little monkey wrench in the deal. Years ago, we looked at the alternative school situation, And my recommendation at that time, mister Gill was the superintendent. We talked about maybe making the intermediate alternative school at Holloway. I put the frequent flyers and the guys that earned their earned their stripes at the, the hard court was at Danny McKee and the intermediate alternative school would be
for things that are non weapon or non drugs and therefore, you know, we don't utilize hallway is not near full and I think there's plenty of room there to add the intermediate alternative school, which you take the load off to in McKee. And I think it would be great for the for the, alternative schools to separate the, frequent flyers and the guys that earn their stripes compared to the people that
just there for other reasons. I mean, it's just the option. I understand what you're saying, and I and I think that that concept of separating the two. However, I do feel them feel like Holloway serves a purpose, and I I really like the fact that we've had that choice school for some of these kids. And it has been the right call for a lot of them who were drowning in our big larger schools. Yeah, I'm not talking about Illinois and hallway, I'm talking about they got they don't have very many students compared to the area they got, and I think you you
would have room to add that, intermediate alternative school to part of Oh, so just to put it, like, a part of it? Both of it. Okay. Okay. Madam chair? Yes, miss Darby. Just to touch on Holloway since it was brought up. I think I've talked to you about this before, doctor Sullivan. One of the things I'd really love to see us do is really kind of put a spotlight on Holloway. I know I don't know about the rest of you, but my experience has been that most people don't know it exists, and those that do know it exists have a misperception of what it is.
So I think we could do a much better job if we want more students in that building, exposing the district to what that school is and what it provides and kind of with our marketing team kind of getting some more information out to the district about that school. Because I've known several parents that either didn't know it existed or their perception of it wasn't what the school actually is. So if we need more students in that building, I'd love to see us work with marketing and maybe put something together to just try and raise awareness of that
school because they really do some amazing things and they provide an environment that a lot of our students, to what you just said, really truly need. I just think the majority of our district is unaware. I agree. We need to add more seats to the school. Absolutely. Yes, sir. I agree with you Claire. Holloway is special and I think McFadden is more in line with what they're doing at Holloway. We've all been out there every year, in January for lunch and see the students that, Holloway takes care of.
And, it's a life saving school. And I would I would like to see us continue that. Any other questions? Yeah. I almost Yes. This is Just a time line. So we have our November 4 is our fall retreat, and then we are scheduled to have our middle school rezoning meeting on November 6. The decision does not have to be made for rezoning on November 6. It's just the presentation, and then we would need to do a decision just like we did with high schools in the December board meetings, but that November 6.
Those maps are already published. We'll have to do some modifications just based on growth. I'll give you an example. Rockville Middle grew a 100 kids this year, and so that was that's tough. And we'll have to do some things with Oakland, Segal, just a couple shifts, but I don't expect large scale changes from what what we've already done. Doctor. Sullivan. I mean, madam chair. Yes, please. Thank you. Sorry. Talking about timeline. So I heard that if we were going to build a new high school, that we will need to start the design of November. So when will we need to make a decision as a board on this five
year plan so that the high school can begin? When will we need to I know everyone talked about we're gonna discuss this in the November meeting in the fall retreat that takes play in November. So when do we need to make a decision in November so that Trailhead can start the process of that design? Probably October, but the reality is there's no funding available for the design. So we're gonna have to ask the commission to design to pay for the design for this anyways. So when do you need to go before the county commissioners to ask for the
money for that design? October. October. So then, technically, we need to make a decision before. Because if we don't have a five year plan, how are we gonna authorize you to go before the county commissioners to ask for the design? In order for us to meet that deadline of having a new high school in twenty eighth, which is that's when If I'm speaking bluntly, I cannot imagine we have a high school ready by August. To me, it's August. It's just that's the reality. I don't if we were planning on opening a high school in '28, we probably
need to start last year in that Oh, well, then I'm going by what's written here. Yeah. That's and we changed this to try to get it open by August '29. So I guess my question is when do you need the board to make a decision so that you can be out of wanna try to operate it and get it open by August. I need to go to them in November at the very latest. So when does the board needs to make it October. October. So technically, we won't be able to talk about this from the fall during the break. So if we wanna move our fall retreat, we can move our fall retreat. I'm a favor That was the suggestion I was about to make.
Yeah. I would favor moving our fall break. Our our We're not gonna have all of our enrollment numbers back yet. So that's Can we have estimates at least? Yeah. We'll have some I think we can have at least estimates. Right? Yeah. Walter, we're trying to get the meeting tonight. November 4, nine to thirty. That is the way that we meet back here. Which month? We meet October 30. Yes. We meet October 30. So it'd be a week later. It'd be ten days later. You just have to move it on pretty fast. We'd have to vote on it in November, that first meeting in November.
Right? We could. Yeah. We we could do it at the end and just Okay. Push it off. So that will give doctor Sullivan time to go before the county commissioners to ask for that money. I mean, I mean do it in November. Personally, I think he'd run it up the flagpole and let them know it's coming. Yes. Right. Right. That too. While it's being tested. Yeah. We vote on it and create the plan. You don't wanna go in there half cocked. So we'll vote on it in November, after the fall break. So after we meet in the fall, we meet in November 4. And then the following meeting, it'll be only Jan that forced to vote.
Yeah. This is November is our November meeting because you have Faller Creek Middle School rezoning and then TSP annual conference takes one week out. Yeah. So we have a meeting scheduled eighteenth and twentieth. Okay. So then it'll be on the board agenda for the November 8 the week of November 18. Would it not be better to put it on the October 30 agenda to vote on so that you're have time to get your stuff together for November? I will miss the health and ed for October by that October 30 meeting because
of the way the calendar falls. Right. But I just mean if we voted on it on the thirtieth, then you would know what you had to what you had to prepare with. You would have time to get stuff together for the November meeting. I'm worried if we push it to mid November, you're gonna be scrambling to get it all. I'll have it ready because that's what I've had to do every other time. It's our port votes and then usually, like, Health and Net is waiting on our Well, you you tell us. Yeah. 11/18/2020 is fine. It is? Okay. I don't again, my biggest concern is they don't have a way to fund it. They know it was coming.
We have communicated this was coming. So that's but it's our job to ask. That's fine. But I think for timelines purposes, we have to make decisions. Because the further we wait and delay, then the further this gets pushed back. Yeah. The November 18 So that's why I say that the urgency of when do we meet the board as a collectible needs to make decisions. At the latest November, if the board votes on it on the October, we will have missed the October Health and Ed meeting because it's the twenty eighth.
It's the same day as our board meeting. The next session is November 25 for Health and Ed, so we would hit that one. Hit the December 4 budget meeting and the December 11 county commission meeting. Okay. So the the question is, do you wanna back up the board retreat to the first week in October? That's what it sounds like. First week in October, Spaldberg? Yeah. Well, that first meet when when's our first meeting? I get it. I get it. October 14. If we if we had it to fourteenth, we could get it to Health Net. Yeah. On the twenty eighth would be Alright.
So when can we do the board retreat before the meeting on the fourteenth? Everybody look at their calendars? Well, they have it tentatively for November 4. But but see, we we we we're missing everything by month, Francis. That's what I'm trying to do is back it up a month. But not That's great. Yeah. But not getting everybody's fall break. Y'all not gonna give up your fall break to be with us. I don't blame you. Well, we have work session on the fourteenth. Do you wanna give up your Saturdays on the Yeah. Sunday, I Saturday, I will be selfish. November 4. My Saturdays are spoken for. I'll send we'll have Dawn send an email to me.
Oh, you you know us auctioneers. We just work one day a week. Okay? So that's my day. I'll have Dawn send an email about what I thought was going on. September 30. It's still a Tuesday. Yeah. It's before fall break. I'm all good, personally. Such Does Maxwell? Yes. I'm good if you wanna take a look and set it be on the spot. If y'all wanna tell me it was a couple of nights, send it out. Yeah. I'm very happy to be on the spot. Bumping it up. Yeah. Bump it up. We're all roll them out, and we could take a look at our calendars. I honestly don't have my calendar with me here, and I have a lot of stuff that my husband has penciled in into my calendar.
I need to make sure. Right. That yeah. I get it. Yeah. Yep. That sounds good. It's a family calendar. Okay. It's well, I'm getting this is kind of exciting. I like those. Yeah. We're getting excited. Okay. So is there any other questions that we can move on? Let's start all over. No. I'm just joking. Let's move on to instruction for the rest of Yeah. That's just a coop proposal between Oakland Middle and Central Magnet. It has to have board approval before we can Okay. Hear that. Next, we've got legal.
This is a transfer student under discipline. So this student has requested to, enter Rutherford County Schools from another school system under discipline. The student was remanded for possession of illegal drugs. And director of school's recommendations to deny. Okay. Next, we have got policy adoption first and final reading. So this is a request. We noticed it with many of our a couple of our vending machine vendors are no longer wanting to service the schools. And so we have our own CTE programs that are already running it.
In board policy, it says that it has to be run by a pending company. And so this is request is just to ask for the schools to continue to run these themselves since they're losing their ability. Talk with finance. The big request of finances to make sure it still has the accounting, goes through the school books, and an inventory control is kept because that's the only thing you really wanna make sure that you have is some type of inventory control. Are we talking about snacks? Are we talking about inventory? Yes. Both. Really? Yep. Both. It's not everybody. Depends on when somebody's contract is going out.
And so so the high school office thought of like a cash cow for them? I'd like to make a comment on that. Don't tell me it's gonna be they're gonna be shocked about, one or two things. How much money they're gonna make if you have it or sell it or how much cheaper you could sell that candy for what they charge in them. So, I mean, it may be a little bit of an effort for somebody, but I'm telling you, it's a little bit putting a little bit of dollars in the school's pocket to to spend on other things.
I'm getting a job that they're wanting. Did they say they want? Did they say they want? Did they say what? Did they wanna do? Mhmm. And as you have contracts to come open, you may not get the same benefit that you did previously, whether it's the same in each school as their own. So they may have a different percentage, and it makes more sense for the school to do it themselves. I know that Smyrna and Oklahoma and and I don't quote me, but those are the two schools that I know their vending company was interested in selling to them because they were getting out of it. So and I believe that's just too good. So good that they even, like, were willing to sponsor things at the schools and
Some are. Yeah. Yeah. I have to show days of scoreboard. But, yeah, those days are over there. Nobody's giving scoreboards anymore. And then we've got approval of two Yes. And so just request for us to go ahead and do this so that we don't have to wait for two motions so that the CTE programs can go ahead and operate it. Okay. Next, we have financial matters. Yeah. And so this is first one is benefits and insurance update. So we are looking, open enrollment, of course, will happen in October. We do not need to vote on this on Thursday, but a vote does need to happen by September 11.
There is an increase, 5.6% from the state department. And so, Jennifer, I'm not meaning to take your thunder. Go ahead and come on. Sorry. No. Sorry. You are good. Yeah. And we're blessed to have Jennifer. Jennifer was with the county for a while and ran the school systems portion of county insurance. Then you went and worked with, I've gone blank on their name. Gallagher. Gallagher. Jeez. The broker, and she's been back with us for over a year. And so this is just kind of an overview of medical plans. And before we start, because this is something we always hear from until you guys
can see nationwide insurance costs are going up. It's not fun, but it's it's nation costs are going up nationwide. And we always hear educators rightfully so say that, you know, the percentage of increase of my health insurance plan is more than the raise that I got. The percentage increase is on whatever that you were paying that premium to where your raise is based on what your average salary was. And so that's it's not true apples to apples when you're comparing those, but I definitely understand because that that's tough when you're like, it went up 5.6% and I got two and a half percent rates.
So it's it's tough. K. So this year, the, state has decided to make some plan changes to kinda bring down the cost. If they didn't do the plan changes, the increase was going to be higher. With that, they have increased what we call the buy up. So for the bigger networks, open access for Cigna, the network key for Blue Cross, for employee only tier and the employee and children tier, it's increased by $15 a month. And then for the other two tiers, $30 per month.
And then the next biggest change is going to be on the pharmacy. They are now doing a pharmacy cost share change. One the weight loss drugs, which are a big expense for a lot of plans. And then specialty medications, which is their next biggest expense. Currently, depending on what plan an employee is on, it could be a percentage or they could pay a co pay. Now it will be a percentage regardless of what plan the employee looks. Oh, yeah. What does that mean? In the ask or I asked. But what does that mean? Employee only and employee and then So those are two different tiers, and they've got
the same increase per month for that addition that bigger network. So if I'm paying 50 for a smaller network, but you want the bigger, they're adding that to I understand that. Is is that supposed to be, like, employer only, employee, or is it I guess it's sort of beyond employee only and employee because it to me it needs the same thing. No. It's employee only and then employee and children. So it depends on which coverage you're choosing. Depends on which coverage you're choosing. If you need it just for you or you and a child or you and your entire family, this is the wording the state uses for their plans.
Yeah. Okay. I've got a question on something. Yeah. Members will pay 25% coinsurance for weight loss of all plans. If, do you get 25% discount if you lose weight. No. That would I mean, that is a plan. That would kill two birds one stone. Yeah. Yeah. Because I can promise you, boy, it'd be people getting on the scales. Yeah. The bottom portion's big because especially the members will pay 30% for in network. Right now, it is connected to your out of pocket maximum for the year, and
there's gonna be a new pharmacy out of pocket maximum. So it truly is gonna matter which plan you get on because that is that's a big change. Yeah. There we did have Gallagher look at some different rate options for us. With that, there's some kind of points to keep in mind when you look at it. It is based on a calendar year and not our budget year. The chart that we have is done annually and for twelve kind of for the twelve month, but we do deductions typically. It is based off a snapshot of time. I gave them a report a few weeks ago of our current enrollments, and then
that's what they use to kind of figure out for the next year. It doesn't account for any migration to different plans during annual enrollment. And then they've assumed on retirees that it's certified thirty years or more because we don't know how many retirees what their years of service are. We just know how many we have enrolled. These are are the options. The very first one is our current. So that's where we're at now. And then it goes down the different employer contribution amounts. If we took a 100% of the increase, 75, fifty, twenty five, or if we
took none of the increase. And the proportional is doing it exactly as it is done now. For the 2025, we just apply that to 2026. And let me go over these just real quick so everybody sees because this is the tough part of the just conversation. We were at 10% of our entire budget went to health insurance two years ago. We are trending towards more of 11% already by covering just a small portion of it last year. If you look on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh column, that is what
we are paying as a district. So we've got a 560 something million dollar budget that is not in the deficit. And we are this year already paying $56,987,000, for medical insurance. That is what we have budgeted is is that number. So any of these other increases, we're gonna have to find additional revenue sources for. Now we will get a little bit because of outcome funding. We get about $4,000,000 for outcome funding. But Brian and I use that outcome funding to cover costs that we don't know
that exist throughout the year. We hire teachers on our average is twenty year bachelor's. If somebody comes up with a master's 25, we've gotta cover that somewhere. We have a position that needs to be filled that we didn't feel or sub rates are paid higher. So that that $4,000,000 is kind of a 1%, point 8% terrifying cushion that we operate on. So there is no budgeted expense for the $175.50 and even covering 25. I don't think that we need to cover I don't think it's realistic for us not to cover any of it.
And so my recommendation will be we try to cover 25% and we may have to cut spending later on in the year as we're watching some things to see where we are. I would love to cover all of it, but we we do not have $60,800,000 to cover medical insurance. And so that's just as you're looking at the cost and what the employer employee portion is. I know that current administration Washington's hope talked about trying to get some of these costs down, and I hope that occurs because there's there's gotta that's just like we
talked about two years ago, this isn't sustainable, for anybody. Not just us, but for anybody. This is the start. So are you recommending third column up from the bottom? Yes. And that's and I just want the board to understand that that's gonna be a push trying to find an extra million dollars. We were notified yesterday that we have about a million dollars less than TISA generating. So it's so I'm already at that 4,000,000. I'm already 2,000,000 out. And so it's Can you go by going Brian? I'm having a panic attack over here, but No.
And another consideration is is with our paid parental leave. Great point. Yes. The the legislature did not fund the subs that is required for those paid parental leave, qualifiers. So we're we as a district have to pick up that full amount of the subs that's required. And then last year, I think we went over that 2 or $300,000 just for subs that we had to pull from our outcomes funding or our growth funding in order to be able to cover those. So that's another consideration that you're gonna have to throw in there that probably will
be the same because we don't know how many paper rental lead, qualifiers we're gonna have throughout the year. And just a real quick one. The city passed two years ago that we pay for teachers and, and their spouse to be able to take a certain amount of time that's paid. They covered the portion to pay the teacher, the state did. They did not cover the portion to pay for the sub in the classroom. And so we're having to eat that cost of covering the sub in the classroom. And we didn't we're trying to figure out this year of what in the world hit us so hard on subs.
Why do we go over and it was paid parental leave because there's no reimbursement. So Mister Law. So we've got a lot of new kids being born in the district? What do you mean? Well, you said you had parental leave. Yes. We do. Trying to be a little funny right there. Yes. You didn't catch my I did because our kindergarten numbers aren't where I want right now. Well, they will be six they will be five years of bandages. You got a number. Right. Yes. The question is, this is not exclusive to the, district's employees. Right? This would be county general.
Well, this is just district employers. County haven't had an increase in a couple years since we left, which I know that we have we've talked about. I know that you talked to, our finance director about that, the county. I do not know what the county is doing. Do you? Last, I thought was 6%. So we'll be a little bit less then. They have it. See That's good. That's what they're looking at is 6%. For each plan, the hours is 5% aggregate. Theirs is 6% across all. What are they gonna do? That makes it easier to swallow when it's theirs compared to Yeah. The last couple years they haven't had any experience and that was done.
What will a Canada General Fund do? They control their say. Yeah. They control their funding and they can add revenue. Well, I'm just asking, are they gonna pay half of it? Are they gonna pay a quarter of it? Does anybody hurt any rumors? I don't know. They do have a little bit more options than we do because they administer their plan. They can pull a a different they they can change deductibles. They can change co pays. They can change what's happening with the site. So Yeah. Even if they say we're covering, they can they've got a little bit more movement than we do on that. But it's still a cost. They've got they've they've got a cost also.
So I would be curious as to what the County General Fund employees end up with. I'm trying to find out before September 11. That would be great. Mister Ball. Retired years of service is unknown. The last thing right there, that's getting pretty close to home. You know, we're planning to, all those old folks on fixed income. And I tell you, insurance is a big thing. And I tell you, I have no complaints about our current insurance. I think it's I don't know if any way it could be any better.
But we just can't we can't afford to on the people that have retired and all, you know, we just can't put that extra financial burden on because, Social Security, a lot of them, you know, just doesn't doesn't quite keep up with the cost of living. So, you know, I I think that's one thing we definitely need to keep in mind because y'all all be there on these days, so you'll understand what we're talking about. Any other question? Thank you.
Alright. Thank you so much. Again, I know that's not a fun discussion, but we've we've gotta make a decision. I know the million dollars is is gonna be extremely tough to swallow. He say that before we left, the one of the reasons why I left, it was getting all 17%. Oh, yeah. Some of the yeah. They were huge. It was yep. Astronomical. We're coming off. It's not great, but we're still I'm glad we do we do want to get him. I'll tell you down the highway, the insurance is health insurance is gonna be a tremendous challenge. Yes. But so is building. Okay. We're just gonna move on now to engineering and construction.
This is a request for Blackman Middle School. Their CDC fence request. Principal Jessica Jackson is requesting to install approximately 100 feet of fence to enclose the CDC area. You'll see the anticipated budget for this is $7,830, and engineering has reviewed the request and has no objections. It is coming from the Siegel grant. Sorry. Okay. Number two, madam chair? Yes, sir. Doctor Sullivan? Yep. When we are spending grant money, do we have to go out for bed? Do you wanna Especially Through one of our vendors. Typically, it's through one of their vendors.
But they have a they don't if it's under 15, they don't have to go out for a bid. If it's over 15, do they? I know, but if it's over 15, do they? They do. They can get three prices. Okay. Yep. Three actual quotes. And then once you get over 50,000, then it has to go out to public bid. Okay. Yep. Number two. This is 5405 Lee Property Road Review. So we have all of our reports in for the property at 5405 Lee Road. And so we can, read Trey who's going over these. Alright. Okay. Okay.
I've just selected certain pages from the various reports. I'm gonna call it hitting that 20,000 foot level. The first, thing you have is the survey. The main thing is to gather from the survey. Surveyed acres and the actual survey on the ground is a 161 o seven acres. The rest, we did some, topography that would be useful for us in the future, but we did not if you'll notice on that front page, and I'm gonna try
and use this pointer. This area right here, we did not do a complete survey of. It's not needed at this time. That's the field. Yeah. What's the acres are those in the area that we didn't survey? Ma'am? How many acres is does that represent the area that we did not survey? Probably about 45 or 50. Is there a reason we're not saving money? When we there's a potential that we could use that for, materials to be used on the site if we were to purchase it.
And at that time, we would go back and survey it at that time as part of our construction cost. But there's not a there was not a need at this time. Is that across the street? No, ma'am. We didn't have the property across the street. It's all part of the same property. There is Okay. Thank you. There is no property across the street. Okay. No. That's that's true. I know that when we were looking at it, there was property on one side and then another property across the street. Property previous to this one. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Good. Yes, ma'am. Is the 45 to 50 acres on the hill part of the Hundred And 61?
Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Yes. The next page, that we have is the geotechnical report. It's, 68 pages. There's individual reports, but I would refer you to page two. What I have highlighted, soil test boring location, just this is just, there again, general information. The locations for 43 soil test borings identified borings b one through b 43 were established by overlaying the proposed building locations and boring locations into juke Google Earth, transferring
the data into commercial grade handheld GPS systems, which were used to drill the holes in the field. We also drilled 22 test holes through the woods that we did not survey. There is an actual report attached to that for each one of these holes. We drill down to determine the dirt and where when we hit rock, which is fairly typical. The next thing is on page three, site conditions. Bedrock underlying the site contains carbonate rock, which is what we call limestone, typical for
this area. Test point drilled at the site did not encounter open voids or other signs of in separate sinkhole conditions. They have reviewed the USGS quadrangle map for this area. The map does not show pattern of closed depressions that would indicate past sinkhole activity in the near proximity of this site. Therefore, it is opinion that the proposed construction will generally not increase the risk of sinkhole development. That's just standard things. Residual materials, Carter's Limestone, Lebanon Limestone, and the Ridley Limestone formation, that's pretty much the
vast majority of Rutherford County. So that's just highlights of not, didn't find anything we didn't expect to. Average depth to rock is anywhere from, two feet to 14 feet. Site assessment, which is on page five, five point two. Based on the, subsurface conditions encountered during this exploration, the subject site is adaptable for the planned construction. Any questions on the GEO report?
There again, you can read all about each exciting every test hope. If you have any questions between now and Thursday, be sure and let me know. Phase one environmental is our next test, And it is to determine if we have anything out there, that could be a potential hazard. Page one in the executive summary, the evidence, what they did, and this is not
unusual for a farm that's been in the farming community since 1900. They did find evidence of vehicular or tractor repair on the ground surface in one of the barns. I don't think that's anything that would be uncommon in any barn that we would find in the area that they would find some diesel fuel, some brake pads, some old oil. Ma'am? I didn't hear the question. Didn't we have a dump truck in La Verne? There was was there maybe not our property, but there was one found. Found.
Yes. Yes. There's no, what's called VEC, that's any chemical releases or chemical large chemical spills that have happened in the area. One thing that they did, you'll notice if you read through this report, they talk about HMAs, which is hazardous material assessment. Based on the fact that the home that's on this property was built in 1900 and the fact that they found this, tractor repair going on in the barn, they did recommend that we have an HMA done, which we have, I got I don't
have the report for you to review. I have the executive summary. Basically, what it says, there's no asbestos in the house. There is some lead paint on the building and that there, you know, some, as old asbestos brake pads and a little bit of fuel around the barn. Other than that, nothing of any substance to dope phase one. They talk about on page two, the goal of the phase one is to identify pursuant, recognize environmental conditions in connection with the subject property.
Just said we other than the barn, which if you go to page 18, the conclusion based on the results of the phase one at ESA, the historical vehicle and or tractor repair operations, something needs to be reviewed and there's no BECs for this property, meaning we're pretty clear from an environmental standpoint. Any questions on the phase one environment? Next, we have the jurisdictional water determination report.
Gonna go to page one. In the executive summary, they tell you about the property, a little bit about what they see, the creek we knew about. We'll get to some pictures here in a minute. The hillside's got some natural drainages, two small ponds, and that's about it. And it's recommended that the project be referred for reference to to the jurisdictional water report be reviewed by the appropriate regulatory agency, and a concurrence letter be acquired from
that agency. That's TDEC and the core of engineers and I have started that process. And basically all that means is is they read the report, review the findings from this report, and they either concur with it and issue us a letter or they don't and they come back with something they see that, was incorrect in the report. I don't see that happening for us. If you look at page four, there's some pictures of what they find. That's Olive Branch. That's the stream that traverses through the property.
It's pretty much a rock bottom. What right now, there's not much water in it. There's three, four, five pages of different things. The main page, what do you have next, John? I just got lost. Make sure keep going. Yeah. Two streams, four wetland areas, two ponds, four wet weather conveyances were identified on the property. The main thing for us, if you remember from plain view, we found some additional wetlands that we were unable to use. The purpose of this was to determine that upfront based on everything they found were
just, a hair over one acre, but it's scattered out. In our, construction reports, we're allowed to disturb up to a half acre. So if there's anything that we had to deal with TDEC on, at the most, it would be a half an acre. Basically, the property is free and clear from any jurisdictional waters other than the creek. And we knew the creek was there. We discussed building a box culvert or a bridge over it when we looked at it to begin with. So no no surprises in the jurisdictional water report.
Mister Lee? Yes, sir. I don't know if it's like in the middle, we looked at, having to supply water for the athletic fields, and it's gonna cost us fortune. We decided to dig a well, and it it waters all the, all the athletic fields at the mill is good. This seems like the, everything points to having a good water seal, water source at the water table, which I would think wells would be pretty, a given in this
area. Do y'all utilize that very often to take care of the water and the fields? Would we have a sustainable, predictable ground water table? Yes, sir. We do. We have it we have a well at Stewart's Creek for the and it does about half the fields. They get enough flow to do half the fields and we buy the water for the other end. Yeah. Or it'd be be nice to pick the water mom. They don't have enough pressure. That that becomes the problem. There's so many wells around now that the water table is there, but the pressure
is not. So it it we typically can determine that when we do our geothermal wells. That helps us determine have what the depth of the water is, and what our pressure looks like. It helps us determine whether or not a a well would work for us for athletic fields or not. But we do look at that. Mr. Lee I'm maybe jumping ahead here. I'm on the last page of figure to the site detail map How much? You mentioned that we can disturb up to a half acre and I'm seeing, you know, pond one pond to some wetland areas How much non usable space are we
are we looking at including the creek crossing here? You know, on each side, is there like a little small flood plain that we're not able to The the the the creek itself, which we can't get in in the flood plain, is probably about eight to 10 acres. Okay. And then if we're don't use the acreage in the front between the creek and the road for building something, There's probably five to seven acres there. And then the wetlands is one acre, if you add them all together. And the business And it's usable.
We just don't have it in our current layout. But we don't if we needed to use some of that land in the front of the creek, we can. Yes. That's yeah. That's the question I was going for. This the the places where the wetlands are, we can still disturb it and use it if we need to. It's not preventing us from future changes. Adds a little bit of cost, but at a half an acre is very minimal. Yeah. Very good. Very minimal. Any other questions? Miss Estelle Fells. Alright. Have you gone through all of the reports you wanted to go through? No, ma'am.
Two minutes. Go ahead. Finish. The next one is the c u location from CUD in the 12 inch waterline. This is just there again, it's information you've had before, but I don't wanna lose sight of this. To have the fire flow that is required for the school, this is CUD's proposed, waterline, upgrade. They are in the process of getting ready to begin this work because of some of these other subdivisions. So it would be a sharing, split cost. So John, if you go to the next page, there is the breakdown.
Our cost right now, they call us the potential additional site, surround a million dollars, would be our portion for the shared upgrades. A 2 and a half million dollar upgrade, CUDs paying, you know, you see their portion and then the other developers along the way are paying their portion to pay depend upon how long the line is to get them where they need. So it's a it's a sharing opportunity. We did a similar thing in Plainview. But I wanted to keep that out there that that is still there.
And then last, we have this is a preliminary conclusion for the off-site traffic improvements. I will have their entire report, which is multiple pages. I got this today. They're they were rushing trying to meet our deadline. So I'll be able to send that to you a little bit later. But basically, three things, things that we already knew pretty much that, in front of the school would need left turn, right turns, different traffic amenities.
Cook's Rocky Fork and Lee Road, there's been some conversation with the city about it and also what we could do, but their their proposal is there does need to be some remediation there. And instead of a signal based on the geometry of the roads that we would probably be looking at around about with high school drivers. I figured some of them would just go and start there. I know. It's just man. The one that kind of surprised me is based on the current numbers is that Cooks Cooks Lane and Lee Road didn't require something.
But I guess there's not enough neighborhoods out there yet. It's almost at the county line. However, that large green section between, Cooks Lane and the first yellow dot that says expect to operate ex acceptably under projected conditions, they're fit they've started that project, and there's about five or 600 homes in it. Oh, wow. They started knocking down trees and putting up silk fence in the last couple of weeks. So that's probably gonna change.
Ma'am? Is it on the Lee Road side? It's between Lee Road and Rocky Ford. Between the gas line and us. It's kind of halfway between Cooks Lane and the property that we're looking at. There's a 500 acre swatch right there, and miraculously, they've started construction. And pretty much, that's all of the reports. We did not have anything that came back that really surprised us. Everything is fairly typical for this area. The wetland study was what I was, hate to say, most interested in, but it
came back very favorable to have a creek running through it. But I'll be glad to answer any questions and anything that you'd like to see more between now and Thursday or have a question on the report, just let me know and I'll be glad to answer it for you. Miss Maxwell? Yes, mister Rose. Okay. Thank you. So just to compare apples to apples in regards to, the tests that were done, what is considered the phase one environmental standard to log geological testing. So you you presented subsurface exploration.
That's the geom. Yes, ma'am. The the we got a overview of what the traffic traffic study is, but we're gonna receive the report later on, like, soon. Are we going we have this the the c u the letter, for the CUD CUD, what was what is proposed. So my question is, are we gonna have a letter to Tennessee Electric to work with them like we did with the Bailey property? Middle Tennessee Electric? Mhmm. Or whoever is the They already they already have the power there. Okay. They have no problem servicing us there.
Okay. Perfect. So then we've got the property survey and the wetland survey. So that's all of the testings that we did. Correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So could we vote on this on Thursday? We wanted to move forward with purchasing this land that we could sign it or we're gonna wait till There's a new owner. Or I mean, that will be the next step was will be to decide whether we're gonna buy this purchase this property or not. Right? That is The motion is to move forward with Oh, okay. There's I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. Great. That Awesome.
Any other questions? Okay. Let's move on. Point of time. So something, let's go ahead and do these two, and I'll connect it during the director's time. Okay. Okay. Next is Woodworth Buchanan middle pavilion request. CTE and principal Liberals need are submitting approval for the construction of an open air pavilion Rutherford County Schools Career and Technical Education Department. Proposing the purchase of a 130 by 24 pavilion for Whitworth Buchanan Middle School. Cost of pavilion is $92,544 and will be funded by the CTE department using the Tennessee Innovative Schools model grant. Engineering construction reviewed their project and has no objections.
Engineering will work with the school on the proposed location. Okay. They're wanting to use the pavilion for? Outside activities. Just out of classrooms. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Madam chair? Yes. Doctor Sullivan, do you know if that one went out for bid? You check. It has nothing as yet because we're just trying to get approval to do it first. So once the board approves that Oh, because it mentioned who was gonna be doing it. Oh, did it in this one? In the tab. It's they provided that, so I'm assuming that they did put it out for bid. If they did not, it would have to be. Yeah. Because it's over the threshold. And then they'd have their own internal audit finding too.
So, yes, so they they know what they have to follow as well. Oh, I was just curious because I that's why I was it it just raised the question because I thought, I wonder if we even have to do that when we're using grant money. I don't know if that's They even they wouldn't have reason grant money because then you have more oversight. The the only way they could get away with it if it's an omnia bid, one of the brokers that's already been bid that's approved by the state. There are vendors. There are we call them bi bid boards. If if if they were looking at one of them, then and it's on that, then they could utilize it. Okay. Next.
So Rockvale bus route, really just where we are in general with our bus routes. Trey, you got us an update on this one too? This is the Trey Lee Show today. Okay. Rockville open routes, bus 184, bus 272, bus 320. We've sent out all call twice. No takers. Bus 156, has no driver. It's being covered by two other contractors. They do have a driver that's been training and is supposed to the driver is
supposed to test on the twenty first. Where's that route? Is that route Rockville? Yes, sir. These are those are all Rockville. Next area is Blackburn. We have one open route there, bus 59. It has had an all call, no takers. We currently have it covered by two other contractors. La Verne open routes, we have bus 112317. Special education open routes, bus 94, which is a La VerneSperna area, it's being covered by two over the buses. Bus two eighty two is a single route covered by two other buses.
Bus one forty five is a single route. It's covered by other buses. We may have an option to work it out sometime later this week if the driver clears. We have a total of nine open routes, six regular education buses, three special education buses. We currently have overloads that we are working to address and get routes readjusted in Stewards Creek, Rock Springs Middle.
Making sure I get them all. And we're working on some timing issues at. Following buses are without current drivers, meaning their the route is taken, but they don't currently have someone to drive. Bus one 61 has an afternoon driver only, morning routes being covered by others. Bus 125, which is a Luverne area bus waiting on a driver to pass the test. Bus156 is a Rockwell area waiting on the driver to pass the test.
Bus306, the driver broke their arm and currently no driver to cover. Currently, we are still operating under the old rules that on awarding routes, the old system goes away technically on Friday August 29. At that point, we could we have we would have two options if nobody takes the routes that are currently sitting out there. We would have the option to bring in a new contractor that meets our regulations,
or we do what nobody wants to talk about. We buy a bus and try and hire our home driver. That would be our two options at that point. Do we have swaddlers coming in? I don't know, sir. We haven't been able to make that offer because we haven't been able to offer it to them. But come the twenty ninth, if these buses remain open, I'm gonna ask our purchasing department to put something out there to see if there is someone that's here to advertise it.
Until then, I'm not able to offer them anything because the way the our current contract reads, we can't bring in an outside contractor. But can we buy our own buses? Can we buy new buses? Especially if we can find one right now, it would probably be a used one. I I haven't I haven't looked for anything. I don't know what's available. I know the buses that were available to us have been acquired. So I have not reached out to the two vendors to see if they have anything in April. Yes, mister Ball.
Question. Would a policy change now related to experience and license help us? And what I'm getting at under the thunder, you know, you gotta drive for us for two years. And I had mentioned last month, and and I feel That goes away on the twenty ninth. Right. I feel pretty strongly about that, that if you got a CDL a or b endorsement, why why couldn't we if we if you had anybody approach you that does
not meet that first criteria? What do you mean by that? Well, that is not driven for us for two years. We've talked to one contractor out of Hamilton County that's kinda interested to see what it looks like. But no I mean, no other individual within Have I had an individual who's only been driving or never drove for us, walked up and said, hey, on the twenty ninth, can I drive for you? The answer is no. And that's what you're saying, go to marketing, go to purchasing and and put that Put it out that way. Let let people know that we now can if you've got a bus and you've got a driver that meets qualifications, technically, you could drive first.
Okay. Now we're gonna have a form that you have to fill out. There's gonna be a vetting process. I don't want the public to think we're just gonna take anybody that walks in. But the answer to your question is, on September 2, we can start doing business with someone who's not in the old under the old system. Right. And that's what I was getting at. What what do we need to do to be proactive about that? I'm getting there. And I don't know that today I mean, it's we're we're a week and a
half or two weeks away. Right. And and and which leads me to the next thing. You were talking about, well, if we had the buses, but the buses aren't the problem as much as finding a qualified driver. True. Right? Yes. Because if we started hiring drivers, they they but in all likelihood, they would come from some of the contractors we have now. And they'd probably bring a bus for us to buy. And and and we would be right back to somebody. Be right back, but they may have a route that someone would be interested in. Right. And that's what But you don't know that to me. I I kinda want everybody to be open minded about this.
And that's what I'm saying. We're we're in two weeks, we'll have another option. And I don't know. Maybe somebody will or won't take them between now and then, or we'll continue to do the best we can to cover them with other routes. When you cover them with other routes, what do you do? Split the pay or something? Yes, sir. Well, the simplified version is we take the contractors that are on both sides and have them come closer to the middle. Right. Right. Right. And then whatever portion that is, they get paid that portion of that truck.
That really makes that bus and that driver extremely efficient as far as return on the vehicle. The problem becomes we start running into time problems and we start running into overloading, which is what we got in Rock Vale. Even though they're covered, it's taking longer to run them. So then there's your two dilemmas. They're late. They're late for hours. They're late every day, the traffic varies, or Or they're late every day. They're overcrowded and I have to they have to leave nine kids standing there and go run and drop 10 or 15 kid children off and come back and pick
the sign up and go back out again. They're trying you can't gauge the traffic. That's the problem. And the time the time factor is what really gets us in the Rockville area. Because the traffic is so I'm gonna use the term horrendous. Not like it. Anywhere else, but it's it's worse at all. Out there. You don't have many ways to get around it. Yeah. You don't have you've got to get back to Veterans Parkway. You can't Armstrong Valley doesn't help you. Nothing nothing helps you there. It's an island unto itself.
Yes, sir. That's the reason you're having trouble picking up. The drivers just don't wanna They don't find the traffic. Alright. Thank you. You know, the the problem is personnel. It's not about buses. You know, I think that I think it'd be very beneficial to us to look at possibility of the, us hiring bus drivers to work for the county and to give them an option of, you know, if they wanna go ahead and work out
the forty hour week to be custodians for the down period, you know, I think that, you know, to have those people, and get them, I think it would be more attractive, and I think you'd get a lot of people that would be willing to do that. Well, we've looked at that. Doctor Sullivan sent an email to the Rockville schools and said, hey, if you got anybody who wants to drive, let us know.
I got one email from mister Luker. He has one driver that wants to. The problem is, it's gonna be difficult to tell a contractor that we're gonna tell him who's gonna put on his bus with him carrying the insurance. Now I'm not saying that this person is a bad driver. Wait a minute. What was that? Close-up again. We would have right now, we don't have a bus to run them ourselves. So they would have to drive for one of the contractors that don't have a driver. If we want to utilize our staff, we gotta have the bus.
Right. Now, here's the problem, and we've looked at it, and I don't have a perfect solution, maybe everybody else can. I have a high school teacher or custodian that wants to work. Custodian's a little bit easier because we could make their shift flexible, because they're gonna have to drive an hour to get to run the elementary run. They start an hour ahead of the high school. So they're gonna be working an hour and a half before they start their day at the high school. They bring the high school kids to school, let them off, park the bus, go
to work. No problem. They're gonna have to leave an hour and a half early, which not is gonna knock out a coach or a teacher or something like that that wants to help because they've got to go run the elementary route. Can that person drive bus one sixty one? They need a morning driver. That would be great. If we could find one in that, you know, that area, if it works. It's because you have one offs, it's difficult. It sounds easy. We used to have, four or five contractors that worked in our nutrition department and
work custodians. Right. And we allow them to have flexible hours, like the nutrition staff would be a five and a half hour person because they finish after the students eat. They were able to leave that high school, go run their elementary route because they were off for the day. So there are one offs that do work and we would be willing to work with them if we had our own bus. And if they had their own bus, it would that's what these were. These were contractors who actually worked for us, and it worked.
If it works, we're all for it. We have no objection to it. We've done it in the past. Yes, mister Vaughn, and then just start Oops. I'm you said about I was gonna say, in this marketing campaign or trying to come up with ideas, would it do any good to put out, some type of solicitation to our current employees. And with that idea, I see what you're getting at. If you had the same driver trying to drive mornings and afternoons, that messes it
up. But what if you had a team situation? If you you know, one one teacher drives in the morning, one teacher drives in the afternoon. I may be asking for trouble right there, but I'm trying to be creative. And I'm all for creative. The problem is I got to have that driver in that zone. In other words, that teacher's gotta work in those at those two industries. Right. It would have to be you know, there was a there was a concept here years ago, team teaching. Right. You know, that kind of work. I don't know if we can team bus driver here. I don't know if that would work or not, but I'm just in your due
diligence, I'm wondering if you, you know, poll your, I would say, custodians, maintenance workers, any that work in a particular area that stay pretty close. I don't know. Just trying to help you figure it out. Rockwell, we threw it out to all the schools there. We had one that was willing to consider. Not much takers then. Now in the beginning, you have to bribe them. We're willing to be creative. We are. That's fine. Mister Starr. Have we talked to our current contractors to see if anybody has buses and just
doesn't have drivers besides the ones that we're aware of? And have we thought about putting out that information to the custodians, to the nutrition workers to say, hey, these contractors are looking for drivers. If you're interested, they have buses. We've had two kinda like match them up. One reached out to James Evans, and one reached out to us that they were looking to be a driver. One of them lived in the Christiana area. We sent that person's information to all the drivers that are looking contractors that are
looking for drivers. We send them their phone number and contact information. If somebody contacts us looking to be a driver, we're sending them their way. Right. I just mean there could be somebody in nutrition that hasn't really thought about it before and didn't know that it could work with their schedule. So I'm just wondering, trying to be proactive out of the box a little bit, would it be beneficial to just kind of send those positions within our district that would work well with them also being a driver to just say, hey, if you've
never thought about it, maybe think about it. We could send that out, and then we could send the information to the contractors, because ultimately, it's up to them whether they employ them or Right. But yes, we could. You know, if we could hire, if we could hire them with the benefits, that they would get to me would be a big a big draw, you know. I just I just think that that'd be a big asset. At the vast Go ahead. No. I was gonna say so. I don't know about the rest of the board, but I've been included in, threads
of parents that have not, understand the complexities of why we're in a situation where we are, especially in the Rockville area. And so, thank you for sharing all this information, Trey. So my question to you is, is if we have these non open routes, and then we've got options on August 29, and if we open it up, for the contractors and they don't take any they don't take up any of these contracts, when
are you putting that for bid to see if we can or I guess what options can we have about buying buses if we have to? What will be the timeline for that decision so that we can cover ourselves? Because I will tell you, they're parents that I've gotten that I've been part of text messages and in emails that they're frustrated because of this especially in the Rockville area. That's where I'm getting a lot of a lot of complaints for. And so they understand this whole thirty day contract, the ex what expired, the new
thing. Like, none of that really factors in. All they're seeing is that their child is taking forever to get home, it's taking longer, and they're just voices their concerns. Ask them if they're willing to drive the bus. Yes. Absolutely. That's right. That is a part of it. So I think my question would be so that they can see that we're moving and we're doing making decisions and there's traction to fix this issue. So what would the timeline would be if we were to buy buses so that we could have the buses to operate ourselves if we have.
If it ends up being that after opening up to everybody, they don't take up the contract contractors don't that's if the contractors do not pick up these routes, then we're still having to figure out how they're gonna be how do we drive these routes? So I mean ultimately it will be buying buses. Yeah. I don't disagree with you. It's very frustrating to be the director of schools and know that there's a problem and not have the tools to be able to solve them. And I don't have the tools to solve it. Yeah. So I mean buying the buses is the right idea. I don't know until the twenty ninth.
And I know it's not a good answer, but that's Right. So I I understand that. The twenty ninth is deadline. Alright. I understand. But we don't meet again till, like, officially as a board meeting September. From what? So from the thirtieth to the ninth, there's no board decision action for Trey Lee or you to move forward in what are the options other than waiting and see. So if you if we see that there's nothing, I don't know why we're gonna wait till September 9 to make a decision when we can make preliminary decisions in
the event of something where it that there's no contractors are taking those routes and we're being proactive. And then parents can see that we are being proactive instead of just waiting and then it delays everything till September 9 because if ultimately, we're gonna have to make some hard decisions. And I'm because ultimately, we're gonna have to make some hard decisions. And I'd rather do that now that we're meeting, knowing that we know this information than waiting to September 9. Mister Tudor. On August 29, I mean, to to allow the the discussion here, the the best
thing to do, doctor Sullivan, correct me if I'm wrong here, but the best decision at this time is just to let these parents know, hey, Well, our hands are tied until the twenty ninth is part of the contract. But there are gonna be some options that may open up at the twenty ninth. And as far as purchasing or anything, if we were to go down some route like that, we would you still need time to collect and see what options there are. So that's not gonna be something we can just turn over and grant you permission ahead of time for. But as as far as the current options, letting parents know, hey.
We're doing the best what we can. Hopefully, some drivers come in, snag these things. If they don't, by the twenty ninth, we'll have a few more tools at our disposal at that point, and then you'll have information to follow back up with us. Is that a fair assessment of how that's gonna go? Currently, yes, sir. Okay. Yes. We should start slow. I know we talked about the negative. I do wanna thank our contractors because we started off June with two and three hundred open routes. And so we're we're talking about nine out of 350. And so I know that's not I know it's too many.
One is too many, but it's not out of the norm of how we're normally operating here. How many do we have open last year throughout the year? 10? I think we discussed ten, twelve? Probably about the same number that, it was a lot quieter because they were in areas where it was one offs. They were scattered, you know, one in La Verne, one we've got three in the Rockwell area, which makes it even harder. We've got the overcrowding. There's two or three in the same place. I mean, that that's what makes it hard. And the fact that nobody is taking the routes is kind of unusual too, but
they don't wanna get in that traffic. The only other thing I'll say about Rockville train, I met last week. We are looking at changing some adding some extra spot for the buses to be able to turn, just making some modifications to the campus to be able to help. I don't and then we, know that mister Luther is meeting, with representative from the sheriff's department to look at another crossing guard in a back part of the campus. So we're we're trying everything that we possibly can to get it with us. We do have one thing that we're doing that's trying to and it's it's slow,
and the drivers are frustrated. I can't help them. We're it's the permanent process for 99 and getting that outbound lane added going back toward Murfreesboro so that they don't have to stop traffic so far back so that the buses can make the right hand turn coming out of there without having to get into the turning lane. So we're working through some of those things along with the internal changes as well. Mister Lee, the person that reached out about driving to you, are they only wanting
to drive for the district and they're against driving for a contractor? They're not against driving for the contractor. Okay. So it wouldn't make a difference whether it was for the district or a contractor. Okay. Because I do know and just so that anyone who's watching the public is aware, I do know there have been issues with the third party testers that drivers that are waiting to be tested have to test through. They have had several people leave and it's delayed things and there's been all kinds of stuff there. So there are some extenuating circumstances, I think, that have made the process a little
more difficult for everybody. So there are things going on. I think the best thing we can do, which I know mister Lee and, Wanda have been working on, is making sure we stay on top of our communication to the parents just so that they're kind of kept in the loop. I think as long as they know that we are diligently working on it, it helps to definitely ease that. Most of our parents are understanding as long as they have time and information to kind of make alternate arrangements if necessary. So appreciate everybody's work on that. Okay. Yeah. Just a couple of things, director's update.
So enrollments and so that's my only concern with the potential September date is we talked about in the beginning, we're not gonna have all enrollment solidified yet. So if we make decisions with our building plan, just know that we're gonna have more students that aren't really we don't know that they're there yet, to the big sur because RSP is using our October enrollment. I can ask him to use September's enrollment, but it doesn't show all of our students yet. So just be aware of that. Our enrollment is same date.
So the seventh day of school last year, we were at fifty one one zero six, and this is just our students. So just k 12, not pre k, not our two authorized charter schools. This is just k 12, doesn't include pre k. Fifty one one zero six, today we're at fifty one one hundred at the time I checked it. So down six students. Very similar to last year, we grew several 100 throughout the year as students continue to add it. We had a big jump from August to October, so I would anticipate that.
Our biggest drop right now is in kindergarten, and so kindergarten is is strange. We're still trying to figure that out. It's kind of a statewide thing right now. This time last year we had 2,798 kindergarteners, and right now we have 2,645, A little bit over a 150 kindergartners down. Twelfth grade is up 45 kids. So it's just some fluctuations kinda throughout. We were last year funded on $51.05 89, and so that gives you an idea kind as the year goes on. It's an average of your funding periods.
So we're continuing to add students, especially at the high school level. High school is where we're staying. The biggest growth in middle and high school, which has kind of been our trend last year. Talk more about that on Thursday. The biggest concern that I have is and something we very well may do in the next couple days, is Brown's Chapel and Stewards Creek. So Brown's Chapel was under 600 students, And Stewards Creek Elementary, I mentioned this the last time, is that today was at 11:46. Which one? 11:46. Poplar Hill is within where we thought there's some about a 150 kids roughly that
should be at Brown's Chapel that are at Stewart's Creek still based on the projections. And so we've got to do some investigation to see where did those students go. I know Stewart's Creek is still growing, where the Brown's Chapel students go. And we're probably going to Thursday, ask for volunteers if anybody wants to go from Stewarts Creek to Brown's Chapel to smaller school, I don't know that we'll have many takers. But you can always kinda offer that as an option if you wanna go to a smaller school, potentially a smaller class size and try to get some students at Stewarts Creek before we can address that zoning.
So that's just kinda that's the one. You know, we do a district wide rezone. I don't like that we have any, but to have one. It's kinda where we are right now. Those it's it's a strange zone. Mister, doctor Sullivan, are we still capped at Storch Creek in the same moment? So we can always put that back in place too. We need to do that. Yeah. Probably. Any other questions? Okay. General discussion. Anyone have anything? Yes. I'd just like to say, US News and World Report came out with a rating of high schools in the country.
Central Maine was number one high school in the state of Tennessee and third nationally. So, I mean, that's that's pretty high pretty high It's all because of that. It's all it's really all it's really all because of the history of that building. You know, the the spirits in that building have stayed over the years, and it just fell on John Ash when he took notes. And he's listening and watching, so all good as to him.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I'd like to say thank you for the longer mic stands. Very nice. That's all. I just wanna say that, the Riverdale ribbon cutting was very nice. So was the Smith Springs community ribbon cutting. That was very, very nice. And so it was well done. Thank you. Really excited to be able to help. They're both doing really, really well. And I was a proud graduate and we're beyond. I'm glad to be part of that. Thank you for everyone for being here and we are adjourned.