##VIDEO ID:_Wd4eGhSHeg## to the January 9th 2025 work session for the Rutherford County School Board first item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance led by Miss Francis Rosales I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all before we bow our heads for a moment of silence I would like everyone to think of the family of Keith Reed who is a was a custodian at Central magnet and has recently passed away bow your heads please thank you next we have the agenda you just everone a second to look at everything see if you have any questions comments if not we can move on to the uh consent agenda any questions or comments there okay we do have a speaker for this evening but he seems to be stuck in traffic so we will let him come up and speak when he gets here so we will move along uh yes Rosales he the speaker called me and said the speaker called me and said that he had something that he needed he had made a request for a copy I don't know Miss Williams did you receive a an email everybody okay perfect I just he had called and wanted to make sure that we got it thank you thank you so we will just move on uh there's no public comment uh number eight legal transfer student under discipline number one and we only have one this time the board's been requested to admit a transfer student under discipline from another school system under under discipline the student was expelled for intentional repeated harassment of school staff according to policy 6318 the board made deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student transfers another school system under suspension or expulsion director of school's recommendation is to deny number nine Human Resources Human Resources this is a request for one additional nursing staff due to increasing medical procedures at one of our larger high schools health and services department is requesting one new school nurse position uh we honestly probably need three additional but I need more Revenue to be able to do that so we really need four but this one is the most dire of the four okay any questions yes M what school would this be forland Oakland High School thank you okay number 10 number 10 is just continuing we do have a policy meeting next week but part of tsba board of distinction program recognizes School boards for their work school boards that seek this designation must meet specified requirements in four key areas planning policy promotion and board development attached in tab three is the fifth portion of our Schoolboard policy agenda which is personnel and one of the requirements to continue with tsb's Board of Distinction is an annual review and maintenance of the entire policy manual any the way we do our policy any board member at any point or staff member can move a any policy to the policy committee but this is just the official review of section five number 11 Charter Review Committee we received two letters is that right Mr mccan Dr mccan two letters can you tell us who they are when our next deadlines are if you don't mind okay so you have the Review Committee below and we are asking for approval that aligns with policy as well okay how many many parents did we actually have end up applying and then we do a lottery um yep rec number 12 engineering and construction poer Hill Elementary grading change order number two engineering construction is agreed to the final grading change request for demo plus construction par letter dated August 7th 2024 change order number two is to be for $35,800 this will complete the grading package contract for bid number 3711 number two eille soccer fieldwork request principal Tim Pedigo requesting to regrade the property adjacent to the school for a soccer field the grading Process Equipment and labor is being donated and the school will be responsible for the cost of the fuel needed estimated cost is 2,000 as part of the project the school will begin to raise funds on an irrigation system and the cost for the appropriate 2in tap meter and the 30,000 estimated for the field system this work will require to have tck approval the request is at no cost to the board engineering constructions reviewed the request and has no objection number three lever High School nutrition painting project School Nutrition department has been reviewing options to upgrade the appearance of the cafeteria serving lines for a couple of years currently they're requesting to begin a school serving line project with lever High School is the first one the cost for this project is $45,600 75 and will come for the fund balance and will not require additional funds the engineer and construction department has review the request and has no objection um for our new board members in fund 143 we have a large fund balance that we are only supposed to carry 6 months of operating funds in so we try to spend this down every year number four and I'm personally happy to see this Daniel mcke exterior and interior mural paint request principal Nicole sturban is requesting to allow the experienced Community Church to clean and paint the exterior of the building and paint the inter are murals in the interior total cost for the request is 19,300 is being funded by the church at no cost to the board engineering and construction reviewed the request and has no objection we want to thank experience Community Church which is probably the beginning of a a pretty good partnership with them yes they have a very big heart and a very nice congregation that really wants to help our school system very plad to have them M Maxwell yes uh how many different murals have they done I know they did one at Holloway that's the main one that I know of yeah okay it's awesome the only other mural that I know there are several that are sacred across the county I know smyna middle is one that is never to be touched I know that one outside of that one I don't know the other ones that are not to be touched anywhere got okay a okay number 13 resolutions fast growth stiens uh Mr Reed you want to come up with this one there's um there are two resolutions that the board has asked to consider for Thursday night the first of these is one related to fast growth funds that the state had adopted as a portion of the funding last year um as you know this um the state did set up um some funding for fast growth districts um in the last fiscal year though the funding was insufficient to fully fund that and the infrastructure component of the fast growth funding did not get funded at all because they used up all the funds for the Sens there was no money left over for the infrastructure portion of the growth of the fast growth component of Tissa so what this first resolution ask is asking the legislature to consider doing is increasing funding for fast growth stiens and fast growth infrastructure um in the next in this fiscal year so this first um uh resolution says whereas the rord County School Board of Education is a local government body representing a public education to the students of families of rord County Tennessee whereas according to the ruford County Chamber of Commerce the russer county has averaged an annual population growth rate of nearly 3.4% over the past 10 years as Rushford County schools has seen an average increase of nearly 2.3% in average daily membership from the 201819 year to the 2022 that's 2023 school year and whereas Tissa includes Provisions for additional funding for rapidly growing school districts such as ruford County Schools and whereas one such provision is the fast growth stien and whereas the fast growth stien is intended to provide additional funding to the districts whose Tisa allocations increased by more than 1.25% compared to the previous year and whereas while the fast growth stiens F Formula calculates the amount of additional funding a qualifying District should receive the total funding available for those stiens is limited by the fixed amount appropriated by the state of Tennessee each year and whereas ruford County School is one of the fastest growing school systems in Tennessee and would have received 7,557 1111 from the fast growth stien for the 2022 2024 fiscal year under the initial Tisa guidelines yet only received 6,864 189 in 2024 due to the large number of school systems qualifying for said said fast growth stien funds under the 1.25% growth r threshold for set funds and whereas fast growing districts in Tennessee qualified for approximately 38.5 million in fast growth funds in Tennessee in 2023 24 but there was only $35 million funded for fast growth schools in 2023 sl24 and whereas the fast growth funds in 2023 24 were planned to also include $10 million in funding for fast growth infrastructure but given that say $10 million was included within the $35 million overall fast growth funds none of the fast growth infrastructure could be funded in 2324 and whereas the state's current appropriation for fast growth stiens is insufficient to fully fund the calculated amounts for all eligible districts resulting in prr distributions that fall short of meeting the needs of rapidly growing districts such as ruford County schools and whereas the shortfall in Fort funding disproportionately impacts districts with sustain rapid growth leaving them unable to adequately address the increased demands for additional classrooms teachers and resources to support their growing student populations and whereas in the 2324 fiscal year approximately 48.5 million would have been needed to fully fund the fastco stiens stiens and fast growth infrastructure and whereas the given the rapid growth many portions of the State continue to experience it can be expected that $50 million will be necessary to fully fund the fast grow fast growth stiens and fast growth infrastructure components of Tissa for the 25 26 F fiscal year now therefore be it resolved by the rord County Board of Education that respectfully request the Tennessee General Assembly consider fully fully funding the fast growth statman and fast growth infrastructure components of the Tisa formula by appropriating the amount of 50 m for the 25 26 fiscal year to ensure that all eligible school districts receive the full value of their calculated stiens and for their percentage of fast growth infrastructure so that's the proposed resolution that Mr tidwell's kind of appoint person getting this this put together and and giving information um for for this proposed resolution he's worked hard on this um obviously they funded it was a good I think the legislature's heart was in the right place and trying to fund the fast growth funding that they provided for in the last fiscal year um just with a number of of systems that qualify for it there was not enough money to go around to fully fund that after all the systems met that 1.25% threshold so what this resolution does is requesting the legislature increase on the funding for that to possibly $50 million to hopefully provided sufficient funds to fund that for this upcoming fiscal year thank you you so that's the first resolution fast growth stiping funds can be used for just fund teachers employment positions General um school system expenses infrastructure is for Capital type improvements M Mr no go ahead he's probably going to explain what I was going to say the legisl allocated 10 million if there were 10 million available after fast growth infrastructure is available and there was not 10 million available but it would go it would go straight to infrastructure if it was so Dr salvan I think what he's trying to understand is why there's two different types of of funds so One Fund is based for the students is based on your enrollment of growth and that's where the stiens are and the other one is based on your infrastructure and the way this work is that the student t stiens growth will be um allocated first before the infrastructure stien so whatever amount is there is what going to be allocated for the students and whatever is left over is going to be for the INF based on the student enrollment of growth for that Academic Year and then whatever is left over is going to go towards infrastructure so that's why it's set up differently in that sense but the you're correct the funding can go for teachers and things like that but the way it works is based based on enrollment numbers as the year progresses how many new students are coming into the district is what determines that any other questions okay you want to go the second I'm going go on to the second resolution if that's okay go ahead the second resolution is a resolution supporting house bill 0022 regarding mandatory public comment periods at meetings of governing bodies and this I'll first go back I I read the proposed House Bill 22 and House Bill 22 is a new proposed statute the house is is taking up and they're proposing that a governing body shall for each public meeting reserve a period for public comment to provide the public with the opportunity to comment on matters that are gerine to the items on the agenda for the meeting and on any matter that matter that is gerine to the jurisdiction of the governing body regardless of whether such matter is an item on the agenda for the meeting so that is the proposed um house bill which changes the law as it currently is because as the the statute currently reads the public comment could be restricted to only items on the agenda so this broadens um the right for people to make public comment to items that are gerain to other things that could have been on the agenda but may not necessarily be on the agenda okay so that's the house bill that's being proposed so this resolution says um whereas local school boards are charged with making decisions that impact students families Educators and communities and whereas the opportunity for members of the public to address School boards on matters of concern is a fundamental component of open and participatory government and whereas the ability of members of the public to voice their concerns offer insights and share diverse share diverse perspectives IV with school boards is essential to ensuring decisions are informed transparent and reflective of community needs and whereas the general assembly is considering house bill 0022 which seeks to enhance public engagement by requiring governing bodies to provide opportunities for public comment at their meetings and whereas the legislature underscores the importance of ensuring that citizens have a platform to share their thoughts with their local school board now there be be it resolved by the res County Schools Board of Education and that it expresses its support for the principles and intent of house bill 0022 which aims to promote greater public participation and uphold the values of transparency and accountability in governance that's the second resolution that will be presented onday okay yes Mr Paul whoops I'm supposed to turn that on Jeff in in the the original bill that public comment period bill is there an outline in it that says how many minutes is just whatever each body deems necessary is that how it's left each body makes their own separate rules with regard to that yes you know when we were when I was on PBA it you know maybe one person would show up once every six months so there's no obligation to say we're going to reserve 20 minutes or 15 minutes or an hour it's just whatever they leave that up to each individual they leave up to the body or body to do that correct okay correct M Maxwell yes Mr Rosales does this apply to the general assembly when they meet at the with the Committees um because right now it's just your name to the items on the agenda and like right now when we had when we brought up the whole thing about the ESL we couldn't show up at the capital and say hey there is something that it's happening down a local level with issues we can't just show up and then just sign up to speak unless if it's there and if they don't take the bill that addresses that concern then there's no way to talk about it in an open form an open public so I would like to add some in there that says that it's applicable with our legislator legislation assembly because the whole reason why they came out with this whole thing is because of what happened in 2023 I think it was 2023 with the whole Tennessee 3 so I would like to add that information well yeah that's fine the board wants that' be a motion to amend we could take out up on Thursday to add that to this proposed resolution okay Madam chair yes M Derby I think would that not be something that the sponsor and author of the bill would have to add into their bill or are you just wanting to add it to our resolution we're adding to our resolution to say that that is what we are taking to stand that if they're making the law about how our meetings should run then it should also apply to them as well because right now you cannot show up to the capital and it's a governing body in public comments you have to speak on the items of the agenda the only way to get anything to speak about is if you work with a legislator to create a bill so the conversation is there to be included so what we did yesterday to speak with our legislators about things that are happening in specifically to wetherford County the only way that we can talk to them in open public form is if it's in the agenda in equivalent to a bill so you cannot just show up and the whole reason what this all this started is because of what happened in 2023 with the whole Tennessee 3 because of the decorum and Order and that's what created all that I'm just trying to understand if you're wanting her to amend her bill to put that in the bill language or if you're wanting us to amend our resolution in asking that she do that through the resolution that's exactly correct what you just said which one what the lot part new resolution asking what because the whole thing with this resolution says is what you're taking a stand and saying what you want amend it in the bill as well so through this resolution is what we're asking is for them to also um make them in to be applicable to all governing bodies not just selecting a few and requiring a few governing bodies to do it it should be all governing bodies M Maxwell yes Mr Jee could you read that I think it's subset to again the change that's being made that the law itself yes so the um so the proposed change says a governing body shall for each public meeting reserve a period for public comment to provide the public with the opportunity to comment colon as one and two one of matters that are ger main to the items on the agenda for the meeting and two on any matter that is remain to the jurisdiction of the governing body regardless of whether such matter is an item on the agenda for the meeting do you see in there any specific carve out for the general assembly because they are a governing body there are different rules apply to General Assembly so I understand what M Rosales is saying whether governing body would include the legislature or not I can't give you an opinion I cannot tell you for sure on that today interesting on that without researching that because the legislature does have a set separate set of rules with respect to how they govern the House and Senate so if you're wanting to have a resolution to say we also think this same um these same principles should apply to the state legislature we can add that to the resolution if that's what the board wants to do and say you know basically we support the principles uh an intent of House Bill 22 for all the governing bodies in Tennessee including the state legislature if we want to make that change okay so if that's something you want to propose we can add that to this resolution okay well I I had brought this and the reason I brought this is because there was some vagueness uh that it was there was a particular policy brought up and it was just saying that we need to stick to items public comment must be directly to the items to the agenda which I disagreed with uh so I asked the representative just to bring Clarity to this and they added the line which you just read uh just saying that basically if it's gerain to the governing body under their jurisdiction of items then you can speak about public comment to that uh you know I can't come up here and talk about astrology and everything else but uh as far as anything Schoolboard related they could come chat about that I felt that was reasonable uh so I asked them if there's anything else I could do other than continue to push for it and they asked for a resolution so that's where we ended up here and that's where it affects us directly which is what I'm most concerned with but um I guess we need to look into whether or not the language is already in there I'm assuming governing body would include the general assembly but maybe it doesn't like you said maybe there's different rules that block just don't make the decision whether not qualifies enough I mean well the state legislature makes their laws so that's ultimately who makes I mean like here who makes the decision whether or not it's germine or those I do yeah what can we do to avoid do and pony ship just be respectful change the uh everyone should be respectful well the reason why these came out and the legisl the general assembly wrote about ger remaining to the items of the agenda it was because of the what happened in 2023 that it caused some of the session not to lose this decorum so they wanted to bring it back a little bit so that's great I think that's I'm all for deorum but if they're making decisions for how for us to conduct our meetings then it's and it's a governing body and we're included as a governing body then this bill this rule shall also apply to the general assembly because we can a con constituent cannot show up to the capital to speak about an item that's not on the agenda and the way it works right now is if it's a bill that's being presented that is going to be debated upon and even if that they have to go at a session just so that there can be some dialogue and debate Miss sharp thank you madam chair um happy New Year board members um it was my understanding this didn't have anything to do with the Memphis 3 it had everything to do with and that's why the it had everything to do with other bodies in the entire state of Tennessee not allowing their constituents to come and talk and that's why they felt they needed to clarify what they should be able to do they should be having um there should be minut we've got 30 minutes there should be 30 minutes for our constituents to come and speak to us there should be something on the agenda and it shouldn't have to be on the agenda so that's why when we talked to Elaine Davis and some of the other ones that sponsored the bill she wanted to write the bill and say hey all governing bodies in the state of Tennessee should offer this minimum where constituents can come and express their first amendment rights and it doesn't have to be on the agenda for you to talk about it that's what we were told when we first last year when we were talking about 1404 didn't have anything to do with the Memphis 3 it was because there were other governing bodies across the state city council you know just different bodies that were public bodies that were paid by taxpayers they were not allowed to come and address their board members City Council Members school board members it was just not to the school board it's to all governing bodies and I think that that's that's what it's saying all bodies should give because all bodies have an agenda they should give x amount of money x amount of time and x amount of people to be able to come and express their first amendment rights we haven't had that issue here we've always allowed public comment we've had 30 minutes since I've started watching them seven eight years ago I I don't know what they did 20 years ago but we've always enjoyed that and anyone can come and talk with us about anything they want to that has anything to do with school systems so um you know I do believe it was other systems it wasn't our system but um you know this is what the the the law is and I understand that you know we need they're asking us to support it and so are there any other questions okay thank you Mr Reed also uh our speaker just made it in I saw him sneaky in a minute ago so I would like to have Mr U Mike Sparks come represented Mike Sparks he's here to speak to us about something he's got coming up and he uh we did receive copies yes yes we did get copies got them we understand yes we do driving everything thanks sir thank [Music] you thank you chairman thank you board um you know one of the things that I've uh well let me first thank uh the board for last night having the great discussion we had I thought it was was was awesome we need more of it um a lot of Merit of issues that y'all are faced with the state's faced with County Commission faced with but one of those issues is shortage of school bus drivers and I didn't realize that a lot of folks here are drivers um is what I was told but um a few years ago we passed legislation where the minimum age was was 25 I'm proposing to take the 21 um I did get off the phone with uh Gary Lily with with toss and he said Dr Sullivan you were his favorite um school superintendent across the state so he he seems to be in favor I've talked to others that seem to be in favor other states they're they allow drivers as young as 18 I don't want to go that far I'm just saying 21 and um I think this would help with uh the shortage give some young people an opportunity to um to find a career and um I'm always reminding Dr Sullivan may know this I was impressed with the school superintendent in Cleveland that was school superintendent and went and started driving the bus cuz they had no drivers what do you remember his name Russell Dy he's now in cville he took Gary Lou's place yeah just great guy and um I always thought that was very honorable for him to do that but that's just the the main piece of legislation I want to talk to you about and legal finally got that drafted another element that I I'm want feedback from y'all and feedback from drivers and owners is like a mentorship program that each each driver each new driver would have a mentor assigned to them I would think folks would like that um but also I'm wanting y'all's feedback and tsa's feedback and Tennessee Schoolboard association their their feedback as well um but I know drivers and owners are having a tough time and I know y'all are having a tough time of trying to balance a budget and build schools and deal with overcrowding um and that's the first issue that I've got on the second page I've got a couple other issues if you want me to go into them M Maxwell yes M can I have you expand a little bit on what you talking about as far as a mentor program I just what that might look like well I one of the the issues I hear is the childhood behavior issues I see where Wilson County is asking parents to be like bus monitors and if you had to go pay bus monitors there's no telling what that would that would cost um but you know I'm hearing the language barriers from drivers that are trying to tell kids to behave and sometimes kids don't understand them and um uh but I think the mentors ship whether even a driver is just having a stressful day maybe there's somebody he could reach out to or she could reach out to to just kind of decompress you know um I would say being a school bu is one of the hardest jobs I would dare say in in this County uh my my late father when he left uh the air force uh he became a driver um didn't last long put it that way as a you know he just couldn't deal with I don't think the kids but uh and kids were behavior-wise I would think Mr vaugh would would agree probably have the behavior problems you did 40 years ago like you do today but that's what I'm thinking of U Caleb yes sir something like that thank you thank you any other question just miss um representative Sparks just off the top of my head because I have a son that's 24 year old and I know the insurance is quite expensive on them do you expect to see an insurance if they if it is lower to 21 do you expect and maybe that maybe you're not the one to ask maybe it's the bus driver contractor maybe an owner or driver could speak to that because I I know that there is it's more expensive when they're younger any other questions for Mr represent Sparks thank you did you want to get in the next I've got two other captions I was just going to keep open for y'all if if you needed them um one is dealing with mental health and I think most would agree that I think we've got a mental health crisis we're seeing a uptick sadly of suicide and and sadly it seems like you know a lot of folks AR you know want to talk about it I've seen M issue we heard about it you know we had the conference at mlo College here recently and um had several speakers and y'all had some good representation there the chancellor came in for me and um you know some of the stories out here are really just just you know heart heartbreaking and I couldn't imagine a parent having to deal with um you know loss of a of a of a child so um and it's not just mental health with students I mean it's college students it's adults um so uh I just think I'll have a caption if if y'all have any ideas of what we can do I know the chancellor she's she's allocating about a half million dollars at just the university level at the community colleges um that sounds like a lot of money but in the scheme of a 7 million people across the state that's you know not much but but uh just like to get y'all's y'all's feedback and another caption I've got open is um and maybe it's a taser study that we could do with with yall support um just look at the overcrowding what could be done to free up seats um you I don't I know that y'all may not like the governor's education scholarship bill but not here to talk about that but you know maybe that free up seats maybe there's some Partnerships we could do with uh for for space maybe there's um um encouraging homeschooling you know I mean if we just freed up 2% incoming students that's a lot of students you know so I've got these captions open and would just like to get some kind of resolution from y'all to seems supportive I think B Torres with School Board Association I think he seems to be equally supportive as well yes M Mr I spent lot of last week and uh last Saturday deal with a close friend of mine whose son committed suicide early 40s left beautiful wife two beautiful kids good business no note and nobody really knows why but there's something that was missed and I'm like you I think that's one thing that we've got to really look into just to see what we we can do and and the way that they talk about this issues could could have started back in high scho he's in theary fors and some of stuff is generational or whatever but we've got to do something to help these kids break that ccle and overcome that and what that is I don't know I think it's will take all of us because I mean you know it it impacted the whole Community I mean it was just Saturday just hold his hugging his wife and she just crumbles in me arm you know she she just can't understand and know you know it just breaks your heart what do you how do you explain that to his [Music] so we need I was just going to say that um in the vein of what you were talking about I had a teacher reach out to me I think it's it's been a while maybe two or two months ago um to share about what you're talking about because apparently there was a student that had committed suicide it didn't happen in the school building but it was outside of the home and and impacted the kids themselves who are dealing with them and they were coming to her um room because she has a corner there where kids can come in and and just reflect and they can read inspirational books whatever but um it's not just the the family that's going through it but then our students are also impacted as well when it happens to one of their peers and so um I know Amy Baltimore I've been talking to her about it a little bit and I know that's some something that um she's been looking at to see if there's tools that we can provide teachers to prevent a child from doing exactly that saving a life you don't always see the signs it was this time last year I was at a school board meeting and I saw I had three Miss calls from a dear friend from high school and when I got on the phone she's crying and screaming and told me that her son had shot himself and there is a lot more you know we read that this person passed away this person a lot of the times when they're young parents you they you don't know that it was they took their own life they don't know the struggles they were because families they keep it close to their their hearts and it is an epidemic and but you're right it can start as a young person and they never can shake it and then it comes out when they get much older but it is something that I definitely support you Mike on this um it it's mental health issues have only been exacerbated ated since the shutdown and even though we really weren't shut down compared to other places of the country but Co did a number on our young people and our adults so I I support you in that yeah thank you yes M I appreciate you bringing it up at something as an educator and that's the lens I'll take from now I think unfortunately mental health sometimes gets stuck in the political realm and that's where where I I struggle with um is that we don't want to be students parents we want to be their Educators yes sir but we also spend time with our kids and realize sometimes when things aren't going the way they need to and we need support and the tools to be able to point kids and their parents in the right direction and what do we do if a parent is not involved just saying that oh well the parent not involved that's up to the parent you know if a kid takes their life because of that that's that's not okay yeah and so I I appreciate you trying to tackle this one thing that um I don't know there's a uh I think we have a real need with the system to hire a grant Rider this is just one area I think that I know that you're aware there's a tremendous amount of Grants to uh to help fight this epidemic and I I just think it's something that we could really benefit from to have somebody to to look at those grants because there's millions of dollars out there and the topic such as this because you know we don't know what the solution is and I really believe we could hire a gr writer could could really research it and find out anding us a lot of good programs in here that grants are free so I appreciate what you're doing because I know y'all are working at at state level too well I'm probably the least qualified person to talk about about the subject to be honest with you um you know we hosted I think most of yall have heard this this letter if I could read this letter chairman yes this is from the late Dr Linda Gilbert I think most y'all knew Linda Gilbert and um we hosted a mental health Town Hall at um my Church Parkway Baptist about four years ago and i' asked her after the conference I said what's the Silver Bullet what is there one thing we could do that could help and she wrote me this letter and she says I apologize being delayed in responding she said she goes on to say please thank represent Sparks reaching out yes more funding for counselors would certainly help in the social emotional areas uh that we're seeing another area social workers are vital and many districts cannot afford to fund them and she goes on to say I think it would be help helpful for him and other legislators to talk with superintendents about the issues we're seeing in very young children now this is what's alarming remember she wrote this four four years ago and then she says the behaviors of our six to n year olds are like some or like nothing we have ever seen before remember this is a 50-year educator that said this they are disord disruptive she said um they're aggressive and well we're having we're bringing all resources into play there's no place for these children to go be assessed and treated I feel very she said I do feel good about what the Department of Education is trying to do to accomplish the area the emphasis and I think this is the key I don't know much about mental health but here's what she says she says emphasis on the whole child she didn't say part child she didn't say fraction of child she said hope whole child then she goes on to say I'm hopeful the department of mental health and substance abuse will work alongs side with them to address the upper tier children for whom there seem to be no answers thanks again Linda and if folks didn't know Linda gilbertt she probably passed about two weeks after she sent me that that letter you know great way well thank you all for thank you for coming and I appreciate it and all right one more question for Mike I Mike I have one more question for you um the last one on the uh relative to early High School graduation yes ma'am the one that's you you ask about the early High School grad well you know I'm just thinking if you could free up some seats I know my oldest boy he's he put himself through night school during the summer and skipped and skipped a grade and I know Dr Su and I have talked about this I'm just saying what can we do creatively that could that could just free up some seats and maybe we could do a taster study but T I've done two taser studies they're hard to get through the general assembly because you know you're one of 99 asking for it and they're only going to maybe take up three Tas studies they've tooken up it took up one that I did for affordable housing two years ago and then or last year well two years ago now and then one on childhood sexual trauma which is a serious issue there's a direct correlation between drug use alcohol use and prison the population but I'm just thinking of a taster study but um if I have y'all support it's easier to get it past than if I'm just up there as a Lone Ranger trying to get it done cuz I don't have a lobbyist I don't have five lobbyists standing behind me helping me with this kind of stuff quickly straight up if I may if I may um on behalf of Dr Su we do have graduates that graduate early and the the point with that I would like to make with that is they graduate early but we get in trouble for it's it's a derogatory mark on us yeah when they graduate early so if you want to change something that's why I'm looking then that that needs to be changed because the the creative students at Holloway there's a lot of them that move to Holloway so they can graduate early and um we we need some help with that because um Dr suan can tell you what happens when they do graduate earlier it is a ding the schools get in trouble yeah does it Dr Sullivan is that a federal issue with the graduation rate if we get dinged or is it a state your graduation rate as long as they it depends on what cohort they're in and we can get very technical um I can work with representative spks give because if it's something that we can do um to help with overcrowding get kids to grad and it doesn't ding uh ding the school that they're on then that that's that's very creative thinking outside the box and all of our high schools will be on a 4x4 starting next year so that's going to open up a lot more opportunities as well to get kids more credits to move them out okay yeah that'd be great discard that's what I was going to say not I was just going to say that at the same very point that we will be on a block schedule and there will be a lot more early graduates most likely starting next year quick update we have about 500 scheduled to graduate in the just did yeah yeah that's right we through December December happened Dr J it's already gone thank you sir thank you off for your time no thank you you know one other thing on Mental Health that they were kids for over 50 years like I have one of the biggest problems that I've seen Mike and and kids so many kids have no hope hope anymore mhm yeah and boy just devastates you to talk to kids and just see how how they've given up on life at such an early age like Mike's talking about and it's getting to be younger and younger but these kids have no hope and well that's a that's a hard road to go down I'm telling you I mean I can't even imagine you know yeah things may be bad but gosh we have we we can find Hope but these kids have no place to look thank you number 14 which is moving into the bus contract read at the last meeting we had back in December there's discussion there about having maybe a separate work session to take up the bus contract that be coming up coming up here for expiration the end of this act this fiscal year that will be June 30th so we have had historically fouryear term contracts so um so every four years we have a new contract coming before the board for approval so um I think it was kind of contemplated that we may have some comments from some of the bus contractors today so this if that's acceptable to the board we might want to give the bus contractors a chance to speak um before the board during this port portion of the meeting and voice any um thoughts that they have in regard regards to the upcoming contract um I'll say this you know the current contract we have expires June 30th um usually we do a four-year contract so I expect we do the same thing again um the bus contractors have been good partners of our school system you know not every County in Tennessee does operates our buses the way we do some systems own their own buses some systems contract with third parties provide Global Bus Transportation throughout the entire County our county has always had a number of Independent Business people who operate their own buses and operate their routes on behalf of our school system that system has worked pretty well over the years and um we have a very reliable safe Dependable bus system in the county um so I don't think there's any idea that that's going to be changed or thrown that system be thrown away I know there were some um rfps that was done to cover some routes that the school system has had trouble getting anyone to be willing to take um but overall I think the plan from from the system level is to go ahead and continue another four-year contract with the contractors and to continue to work with them in partnership with regard to the bus operations here in ruford County now having said that there'll be there are some new issues that we'll have to take up um with respect to this new new bus contract that we'll be getting into um one of those is Insurance um we have had a change in state legislation uh that requires bus contractors to carry their own liability insurance up until this law has come to effect the county has always ensured our bus contractors and provid provided liability insurance coverage for the bus contractors and the and the drivers and that's the way that's been for decades but with the new legislation that's been adopted by the state we're both the bus contractors and we as school system are oblig obligated now to require the bus contractors to take on the obligation of purchasing their own liability insurance now many of the contractors would have already had property casually kind of replacement insurance to cover them in the event they have a wreck a tornado things like that where there's damage to the actual bus property damage type insurance so many of our bus contractors would have had that in place already many of them may have already had their own liability policies in place if they had several buses some of our bigger contractors May indeed have already had that in place just for their own protection um if something did go wrong but with this new legislation all bus contractors will be required by virtue of this change in state law to purchase their own liability insurance so I don't um and I know uh our transportation department kind of has looked at some cost on this and it it may we may see if we can shop it around see what the cost of the insurance policy will be and that's something something our B our our bus contractors should do too to see that they can get the best bank for their buck with respect to what insurance they can buy at what price um but one of the major terms that we'll have to add to this contract that we've not had before is the requirement that contractors carry this liability insurance this liability insurance under the state law is not only required to ensure the bus contractor but also has to ensure the school system so so the what liability policy that these bus contractors have will have to have a provision by which the school system is an and the county is an additional insured so in the event there is a wreck that involves a bus whenever that bus owner gets sued then that point if they do get sued that policy will cover the school system the county and the bus contractor so that will be a requirement with respect to the to the insurance that the contractor has to purchase so that's one of the major issues that will have to be new to this contract the other issues that um are things we've dealt with before that we may want to adjust is um the fuel Index right now we have a fuel index for diesel fuel so the price of fuel goes over a certain index price we pay a additional premium to the bus contractors so in previous years we had have had big fluctuations in fuel prices and if diesel went up really high before we had this system with the fuel index we had recurring issues with having to come back and renegotiate contracts with bus contractors every few months or every year to deal with price adjustments because the the market and Diesel pricing was just going crazy so since we've implemented this but fuel index there's been much more stability respect to for the bus contractors because they know at that point if the price of diesel goes over a certain threshold that school system will pay them additional money to pay for that additional fuel cost that they have to run their their buses there has been thought about possibly adding U indexes for gasoline because right now the only index we have is diesel so there have been there's been thought about adding some indexes for gasoline and possibly even propane I don't think propane's used that much but it may be something we want to consider doing as well so that's another kind of major issue we might may want to take up this in this contract the third thing that staff has kind of suggested with respect to the contract is maybe implementing some sort of infraction system I think Hamilton Hamilton County has a system by which if there's some repeated problem that a bus um contractor has that the school system has to address such as the bus contractor not properly running their route not properly properly providing for a replacement bus um not providing for replacement drivers things like that that may maybe there's some sort of warning system by which that contractor gets a warning but if they don't if they have recurring issues with this after two or three times at some point they get fined $50 or $100 or something like that for an incident at some point to motivate the bus contractor to to try to rectify that situation so that's something our transportation department has suggested might be something to work into this this contract the other fourth maybe major the major issue with respect to the bus contract will be the seat rates and mileage rates this is always the major discussion in bus in the bus contract because this is what actually pays the bus contractors to operate their buses and allow them to operate it in a manner that pays their drivers and hopefully pays for the buses and hopefully end after all that they have a little bit money left over for themselves to pay their household expenses and and make this a an occupation for them which they can actually support their families the buses are not cheap um like anything else buses have become very expensive so these Investments that the bus drivers are make contractors are making in the buses are $100,000 $150,000 Investments maybe even more now for some of these buses as these are major commitments that they had to you sometimes they borrow money to buy these buses so they're signing a loan to purchase these buses often times by which um they need to make sure they have a stream of revenue from the bus system from the school system to to pay the buses uh pay off the buses with so um so we need to keep that in mind with respect to bus contractors because the service they're providing to the school system is important to us but it does present some Financial Obligations on their part that they have to meet so they have to have enough enough Revenue coming in to pay for the their driver pay for their fuel pay for their maintenance expenses pay for insurance now and then also pay for the buses themselves um to keep those up and operational and reliable for the school system so one of the major discussions we'll always have with respect to the renewals of these contracts is what is this what's the school board able to do with respect to mileage rates and seat rates what sort of increase do you want accommodate for that um if any and typically the school board has increase mileage rates and seat rates when these contracts have come up so um so it's those are big issues from a broad standpoint that will be brought up in the bus contract that we have to address now having said that I do know there's they they do have a group of the bus contractors have kind of assembled together and have some organization they they form between themselves that represents a fair I think more than a majority of the bus contractors they do have an attorney I think Gabriel ragdale who has U Been retained to represent that group I did talk to him he would like to kind of just make some some general points with respect to issues uh that the bus contractors would like to see addressed in the contract and their General thoughts in regards to it and there could be additional bus contractors who may want to voice their thoughts with regard to the bus contract and if so I think we want to open the forum for them to do that tonight and if for members have any questions certainly you could ask questions of Mr gabri of Mr ragdale or any of the bus contractors as they're they raised any points they want to make this is the be beginning stage of this so what I would Envision is from the conversation we hear tonight we would go back and formulate a a draft contract that we would then propose and present to the bus contractors for the review and look at and that will ultimately come back to the board for you to look at and to make decisions with respect to what you want to do on the bus contract so this is just the beginning stages of this and um so we're take all the comments we're hearing tonight and try to incorporate those into a draft and then bring that back to the board and the contractors for each's consideration Dr s Mr re can I ask you a a question just for organization stance um I know we normally don't have audience discussed but I know this is a little bit different we had talked about I Mr AR brought up doing it at the end after our work session I think it's perfectly fine if that's what the board wants to do right now what I just want to make sure we don't do is that when we have controversial topics like library books I don't want to start then having librar everyone else come up during all that so I just don't want to start that precedent as long as we're all under the agreement of if bus contractors come up and discuss under an agenda item on the work session that we don't start doing that for other items I think it was your request how we started it I don't mind would you rather we wait until afterwards and gabble out I think we should gabble out and then we can gavel back in because our last meeting we had talked about doing it as like a separate specifically for this subject so okay yeah okay that's what we'll do then great so we're gel out the meeting and then we'll have that work session with the B yeah yes thank you thank you yes Mr vau help me first Go Round right here so the listening to what you addressed and you would I think Jeff be a lot more knowledgeable than I than I but um the the liability insurance thing logically in my mind if the County's been paying it for them there's a line item in the budget somewhere already is is it in our budget or is it in the county county count County fund somewhere under their risk assessment it's been covered under the County's general liability insurance so it's been on their side of The Ledger and not on ours well that that's an accounting thing in my mind would I I'm looking to you to agree with that but to me it's there the cost is already there so it's just transferring over into a different budget area the County's already doing it right now so that's yeah I'm not I'm not not sure it's going to be Apples to Apples it's probably not I I I gathered that so I think the real num maybe the real number we have to look at would be the difference between what the County's spending now and what the bus drivers will have to speak yeah do that make any sense it does and I think their concern is going to be anything they move I'd want to talk to Michael because anything they move is going to increase maintenance of effort which I know they don't want to do so that right so this begins so there's a accounting issues right here and how does it affect us with funding elsewhere and all that kind of stuff so that was one point I wanted to make the second one was you said it's a four-year contract I can remember years ago it used to be year to year two years that kind of thing is there a is there a minimum or a maximum we can do and the reason I asked that again the cost of the buses are so high and I know Passenger cars now you know used to be financed 3 years then four years and you know now there's seven eight years I'm not sure how long a capital purchase like this could be financed but if there was a better guarantee is there a minimum or a maximum on the contract the minimum there's no minimum okay been maximum four years there is a maximum of four years is that state state statute yes I would also assume that our funding body has to ratify the contract because they are the funding body not they don't we did last time as a because this contract includes raises every year that has a fiscal note last time we did this contract Mr Lee put it before the County Commission so that they were aware of this is what you're agreeing to in the past we've had a possible multi-year but there was only the one year that was set and then each year we would the board would set the rate um increase if there was one some years there wasn't any but they would as each budget cycle went through they would establish what the increase if there was one for that year was this one was the first one that we had a multi-year with all four years guaranteed okay cuz up front my my question would be that the funding body would have to enter in kind of guarantee it somehow yes and that's why we carried it to them because they had never seen a contract that had four years guaranteed okay okay that's I just want to get that straight in my mind thank you Mr re you you may not know that why did the law change the liability you have any idea I have no idea it's not anything the school system here was involved with um we U learned of It kind through back channels okay when we were in uh Tampa there were some people there that were asking us if we owned our buses or not and they were said they're about to change the law and I don't think they changed it then but they now have soon after any other questions until and we will pick this up after the meeting next we go to library books Dr Chastain you ready I believe you have a few things in front of you that will reference throughout um and for anybody at home this will be attached to the agenda as well the presentation you should have a handout that looks like this with some headers and then you should also have the individual reviews that are also attached as part of the agenda so I had to start with something like this so for every um meeting that we do with curriculum instruction we start with our our Mantra of every student every day and this is no different I think I'd also be remiss if I didn't kind of put a through line with students finding spaces and libraries are an important part of that so just kind of helping that frame the entire discussion uh and it's nice to be in a place where everybody is focused on our students no matter where these discussions end okay so why are we talking about this here's a uh quick timeline for kind of how we got here specifically with our district review on November 11th there were approximately 160 books challenged um on the 14th the board authorized a district level review and we'll talk about that ad hoc Committee in a second uh we started pretty quickly so Librarians were pulled for interest and the first books were being read on November 20th the district Review Committee is an ad hoc committee so it is is serving this purpose alone we had more than 22 volunteers to serve however because the the books all resided in middle and high school libraries in those collections we started with just middle and high school library media Specialists if if the challenge were to evolve in any way we would we would look for librarians that serve those students as well uh I am pleased to say that all of our comprehensive high schools are represented and uh good representation of schools across our district so incredibly thankful for the people that have volunteered to do this some details and at the end I'm happy to answer any questions if you want to go into any more detail um so there are at least two readers per title to try to get some sort of consensus in recommendation and to to not give the impr that any one individual is responsible for a recommendation that has to in their minds a heavy outcome if there is not a consensus in that recommendation so for instance if one reader or reviewer said to remove and one said to retain we would then gather a third reader it would be a blind gather so they wouldn't know that they were a tiebreaker in any way um if that were the case and that's not the case on any of the reviews we have tonight but if it were that would be specific Ally noted and you as the board would would know that there was um a lack of consensus on that first review we've gotten a third review and you would see that specifically outlined in terms of how we ordered these and why you see these 10 tonight and is there any purpose behind those 10 there there truly is not um the committee kind of asked if there was any order they should take and we took the approach of you know what let's focus on just you choose so they chose based on what's in their colle ctions uh it was Anonymous for all intents and purposes we assigned numbers uh so there was there is no Rhyme or Reason to the books that are before you tonight uh it was based on the ones that they decided they wanted to read first the expectations based on the numbers uh are approximately 13 books per reader so again some may have additional books to read if there's not a consensus but about 13 books per reader and our goal is to have these done by the end of May so the end of the school year here this is a district commitment this is also a personal commitment uh we are committed to a review process that is transparent and honest and I'm going to call out a few of the things that um I hope speak to that tonight it's multifaceted so it's gone it's thorough uh and hopefully informative as far as the transparency uh the titles will always be posted on the board agenda we will do our best to give uh the board an update if we you know want to chunk certain titles so I don't know what the magic number is is you know do you want to do this every board meeting would you rather you know so we're we are open to feedback from you on how we how we kind of organize those but regardless the titles will be posted the public will know what books will be discussed also the summary reviews like that are posted for the those titles tonight are also on the board agenda they will always be posted on the board agenda and again any discrepancies or concerns that were noted in the review or are something that maybe our reviewers didn't even know about if there was an inconsistency that will also be explicitly stated in the summary review so as far as the tiered approach um we kind of looked at three categories and all of these things will feel familiar to the board uh as will they will feel familiar to anybody that's been following kind of the library book discussion at large so we've got three categories the Miller test um TCA 391 17901 that is the obscenity law so that's not the education piece of the age appropriateness but that's the obscenity law and then just general age appropriateness and we'll kind of tease those apart a little bit and again this is the same handout um that we went through with our committee so they kind of received a similar over View and we answer questions as we went through this but we've got three categories and you can see that they're kind of split apart there the first category in the first tier is the Miller test if a book were to pass that Miller test it would automatically be we would stop the process so if it is found to be obscene based on the Miller test it would not we would not move forward in the review so if for instance it's if it's taken as a whole to be specifically to that purian interest and meets all three of those categories we're not moving forward that book automatically it's already out of circulation but we would obviously make a note of that to make sure we never purchase that book again I am that's step one that's obscene step two if it if we if it fails the Miller test essentially it is not considered obscene so then we move on to the next kind of bucket of definitions we spent quite a bit of time I'm kind of talking through these both internally and you all have spoken about this in a public form but these are the definitions that were referenced in the age appropriate Amendment so that's how they kind of came back into that conversation this year with the whole or import so you'll see that at the very top under column two where the descriptions or depiction in whole or in part and then you've got those definition so that was kind of the change that caused a lot of this to be discussed so we're going talk about one specifically as an example and we've talked about this previously the board kind of charged us with looking at a kind of umbrella term of sexually explicit we clarified some additional expectations in that meeting but this isn't this is one particular term that we talked about at some length with our committee so sexual conduct this is the definition as in 3917 901 I have bolded patently offensive that is not bolded in the law I bolded that for explanation purposes but you can see where this is going to be something that is a little more nuanced and why we were anxious to have Librarians put on record their thoughts about this about these particular definitions so if a title for instance I'm sorry that we're but if a title for instance as you read and review that book if it gives any sort of depiction uh or appearance of ultimate sex sex acts anal oral genital those are considered under that sexual conduct definition we have to back up and say is it just a description or is it patently offensive the definition for patently offensive is also in TCA 391 17901 that which goes substantially Beyond customary limits of cander and describing or representing such matters again I know the board is well aware of these definitions but just kind of to to frame how we were going through this review if you see in a title that you have read or look at an excerpt and you see a depiction of a sexual act and it said did not meet the definition of 391 17901 if it's something under that sexual conduct umbrella for instance it it's likely that they didn't find it patently offensive and you'll probably see a note so then that gets us to the final column which is really where our Librarians spend most of their time and I'm hoping that we can have further discussions about the opportunities of kind of moving books and making decisions based on age appropriate considerations so these are General age appropriate considerations this is how collections are managed if you see we'll talk about some numbers and and titles on the list that are no longer in circulation or in our libraries it's because a lot of these titles were weeded um naturally through the age appropriate considerations that Librarians and media Specialists are going through month to month year to year so that's just which grade band is this most appropriate for based on you know X factors which we'll kind of look at so the reviews that you have before you you'll see them they have they all follow kind of a similar template at the top you'll see really District specific information so every review will have the title obviously the author then it has current Holdings so this will be the grade band and then number of copies so if it's currently in middle and high schools you would see it say middle and high schools um you'll have that for every title you will then have tier review findings so if for instance there was one that the reviewers said you know what this this passes the Miller test therefore it is obscene you would only see that mention and then we would we would stop the review but in these cases you have three tiers of review filled out gives some basic overall information and then the ultimate recommendation um in these cases they were all um unanimous in terms of both reviewers agreed with the recommendation they both happen to put the same recommendation I say that there has not been a discussion between them uh and because they don't know who else is reading the book I will I will point that out um so that's the recommendation if there was a recommendation that there was conflict in that that you would see that noted right there where if let's say one said to put it in middle school and up and one said High School only you would see some of those considerations highlighted and then You' got some just relevant notes from the reviews at the bottom under notes from District reviewers you also have some additional contexts this won't be the same for every book but these are some things that it may include you'll have per peer- review journal recommendations publisher age recommendations any national awards that the book has received uh and then other context so is it a part of a series were there movies that ended up being made you know just some social context okay so now let's get back to the the list and kind of talk about where we are in terms of numbers uh and progress so you the no longer in catalog is going to have a little bit of discussion on the next slide as well because that's where we found some uh errors in how we originally reported those to you on what was and was not in the catalog so a little more on that in a second but reasons that these books may have appeared on that list and are no longer in our catalog um depending on when those titles may have been searched or not the they can be removed as just part of regular collection management the title could have just been lost or it could have been removed per previous District policy removals so if something got challenged through a different avenue follow that process the book gets removed from the shelves that would have been removed um so we've kind of made note for those on the next slide we also added there was that list of 150 and we had another list of 10 from October 17th we cut the board agreed to merge those lists together so where we got that 160 we currently counting these 10 have 91 titles being actively reviewed meaning at least one Reviewer is reading that book so you can see making I feel like really steady progress so here are some explanations for why you you're going to see a um discrepancy in what was sent to the board before the meeting and tonight so we have called um every school where these titles may have been uh and double triple checked in some cases more than that acceptance a memoir we or thought was out of our district because we have learned that when you search in our uh catalog if you don't put a space after the it will look as if it doesn't appear so I will say that's a if you are searching for books it is sensitive to spaces and spellings and all that so it has to be specific so once we realized it in fact was there we have put that back on the review um forever for a year when we had the large kind of push to let's go ahead and pull all these books the 160 books got pulled from the shelves we've never done a kind of process like that and and to do it that quickly we didn't realize we needed specific language and we and I will give our team credit that they adjusted very quickly but within those first that first hour or so when they removed them some people deleted it from the record uh so in good faith but then it got deleted from the record and we thought it was gone so upon further calls we realized those are still they got removed but they're on the they're on the back shelf for lack of a better word behind the counter uh so those forever for a year and our own private Universe are back on the review list and the strange Truth uh there was a confusion that that is actually not a book title that is a series title so we just assumed we didn't have it but upon further review um so we may have some questions for which books are being challenged but that's for another day so those are the ones uh that leaves us with those 12 that we can confirm are not in District cataloges and with the four being put back on the review hope that made sense and that gets us here so what you have before you in your stack reviews and what the public has as attachment to the agenda are the summary reviews for the 10 titles that you will be considering on Thursday and we are happy to answer or attempt to address any questions or if you want any more detail happy to help Miss Maxell yes missel um thank you Dr and everyone for all the hard work um I want to talk about just really quick quickly by the books that were not showing the catalog um the process that it was done through the filet fallet fallet sorry um in the database uh because when I did the research it was under a school and it looked like it had a record of that title but I couldn't determine if there was a copy within the school system um and I had the list of the schools that had it but when you say they were never in the catalog that's where it get a little confusing because there the way I interpreted in doing my research there was a profile or I guess I want to call it a record or profile of it that shows up for the book it doesn't say no results found because if for me I will think that no results results means it's not in dat but it's not in the system it can depend on how it's marked and again we've learned more than we knew we were going to learn about this but depending on how it's marked um if it's going to be in that kind of removed because of one of those categories where it's typical collection procedures that will still retain the record but will show that it was removed for one of these things the district policy is one of those um that's how we would like them to start being you know cataloged in terms of so we know that it was removed for that reason as opposed to just deleted so they can be deleted I will also say that um some of these we have taken the approach of the review process does not in any way limit the librarian or school's ability to make decisions so if they saw a book and let's and I don't know this but let's say that there was the one copy in the district happened to be at my school I still as the librarian can go through and look at that give it a closer look and be like you know what this hasn't been that they can make that professional decision to remove the book from their circulation and that could have happened with some of these books as well and and we uh we actually do have a list of each book on this on this list and kind of what what happened uh but so I'm happy to provide as much detail as the board wants but that there's several reasons why it would look like could have shown up in a search and then when we go 5 days later it may not be there uh in some of these cases it was because we didn't have a space but it's that finicky but these have all been triple checked so I guess my question is and and and this may be technical thing and it's just interesting to me because that's I worked in technology and understanding database um so if the record is there does it mean that there's inventory for for it or not or will it there could be a record but no inventory for the book or does it keep up with both I would say it keeps up in multiple ways and I we can chase this rabbit if you would like well I'm just saying if that's the case what can we do to clean up the system so that and and that and I think I will I will say that um we have looked at several different options for how to instruct our our group better on when when something like this happens here's specifically how it gets marked so that we don't end up in the situation again I think that's the whole I think that's what you're after is how does a record completely get deleted yes and it doesn't show up in the search results because it gives the impression that there is inventory for it correct it doesn't talk about the copies anywhere it just gives because it's a data management inventory system it gives impression that there is inventory so I guess I'm trying to understand how can we clean up it doesn't mean that there was an error made in the original list either I mean it really could be that that decisions on how to remove those titles while we were reviewing and that's why we went back and looked item by item to make sure but and I just want to preface this that I'm not suing this because I want books Bann it's just that I work in the tech and the this whole thing about cleanup systems and that's like that's that's just my thing and so it's just like oh how can I help you to clean up the system like it makes me really like I don't want to say happy to talk about systems that's the only reason why I'm talking about this so I just want I'm going to bring if if Miss Benitas can speak really quickly on the the software itself sure hi there I don't know where to put you so so sometimes in our catalog you will see a mark record um for a book but then beside that book you will see number of copies and sometimes s that will say zero so the mark record itself exists but when that book enters one of our school's cataloges they would have to go to the right side of the catalog and hit add copy and that static record is brought to that home location so there is a chance that you saw Mark record that wasn't specifically assigned to a school even though it showed up within the database of one particular school system it's possible but it would have said zero copies and in terms of cleaning up um before my time here we paid fallet to clean up a series of Mark records that were still laying around but didn't have any copies tied to them or um duplicate entries for the same book um and we're looking into doing that again um because our catalog system does need clean up through those duplicates and leftover records Max thank you for that presentation um I have a similar question about uh some of the titles that are not located in the district uh mainly it's the last three uh and all had the all three of those were three that I'd submitted and they all have three different kind of interesting outcomes so one was submitted back in February and it was removed uh which is we are the ants YOLO was submitted back in April it was retained and then from blood and Ash was submitted in this latest run October 16th but it's not in the system now uh my you've kind of answered a little bit of the question that I had was no longer in the catalog may be weeded as part of the collection management uh could have been lost or removed per District policy the previous year which that kind of catches some of that my question is is there going to be notations with these books to prevent a research ulation back into and that's those specific three because I know those three have been reviewed but looking at the ones that were not located in our district looking at the rest of this list excusing the four that you've already covered to the acceptance forever uh private universe and strange truth but the others left on that um are those still going to be reviewed so they can be notated as to whether they can recirculate back into our system as well or are we then like I'm just wondering how we're going to cross that pathway if they were submitted currently even though it's currently not in our district are we going to do anything on the front end or we just going to still act on the back side this brings up an interesting point um and I will so I'm I'm I'm open to what the board has to say um we obviously don't want to preemptively review all books that exist so these books that aren't currently in our catalog are not in our catalog for a reason just like sure just like items that as our Librarians choose collections they're items that would never be in our catalog because of that process obviously these would be some of those that whether they were never in there to start with um we are the ants was removed per District policy that's been noted uh the Yolo from blood and Ash also removed it per just general collection development so that a case of a librarian taking a closer look at those titles and being like this I as the librarian choose to remove this from our collection we could discuss how to my my concern in need this I don't ever want to overpromise something on behalf of librarians even though it's sensible like it is sensible to me to sure we can have notations of all this this is already noted on our Li on our our home Library removal page so my concern isn't necessarily about these books it's about any book yeah you know I think I think that's the the main concern but we can certainly notate any of these that are are on this list not currently in our collections those will remain noted on our library Pages where we have removed titles if that makes sense that that does make sense um you know I was primarily concerned obviously with the three that I submitted to see that the outcome that you've kind of answered that uh so I guess and of course the board decisions here can uh give guidance if they choose to go to different route but I'm just that's a consideration uh that I'd like to give a little more thought to to determine what that looks like I'm with you I don't think that we should just review every book that never ended our system um so I understand that that portion I'm just wondering if it's a smaller scale so I obviously I think there should be a lot of due diligence done on the front end before we just start throwing books at you guys but with that regard on the smaller scale of having what looks like maybe eight eight other books because four of those were end up being in the system you mentioned in the search different um those eight or 10 books left I don't think that that's too much a stretch to go ahead and just rework that but to the second question I don't know either that's why I'm throwing it out there and I I think I'm following your TR thought too in which reviews are helpful to to start creating some sorts of understanding about what the Librarians may be seeing in those books that they decided to remove sure I I think we'll see some of that incoming titles that come before you I think I think the farther we get along so if you are if and I we can kind of just dis discuss this and then if there's a motion at some point I don't know that there would need to be but if you're okay with let's take these and as we if we find others We'll add them to this list let's go through the reviews of the things that currently are in a collection um and then if we have outstanding questions about maybe why these were removed we can certainly move move to that phase of the review if that I'm good with that I think that's sufficient uh my my next question uh to the chair are we voting on these on Thursday on Thursday okay and are we going is it going to be a like we've done individual individual vot and we will do a roll call vote for all right thank you Dr Chine I'm not trying to be picky or anything but you said that you had um challenge the book for example yellow so I went on the library removed Library materials and I looked at the books that were removed and that particular book and and I didn't hear the other two wasn't on the list so I didn't know it was challenged and it was removed because it wasn't on this list so I looked for books that were not that made it on the on the removed Library materials we have additional information on that specific any of the titles but that okay great well that's why it made it on my list is because that so I just want to give an explanation to that so I can speak to the specific book that you mentioned um that book was reviewed last school year um through the lens of the law at that time um as of July 1st we know that law changed so um we would still be reviewing that through a new lens however even though that book was retained last year we had one copy in the district and through regular collection development they looked at that book and said it hasn't circulated in five or six years um it's you know not part of our literary canon it doesn't align with content standards we're going to go ahead and weed that book so there are circumstances where books may have been retained for one reason but may have been weeded out of our collection for another reason that makes sense but I just didn't know that there was already books that were already challenged because I was just going by the list that we and it is my sincere hope that having this conversation gives more faith in the process that our Librarians are already going through um and like I said we will we will go to whatever level of detail the board wants to this is going to be a transparent process if there are questions about what's on this list or any future list we will we will hunt down an answer and be honest about what has happened M max Mr Tidwell I think we are the ants is on the list though that was the one of the the third ones I have on record that we are the ants was removed from our district cataloges on March 1st 2024 well I apologize I missed that book but um there were I did reference this list before I just submitted it and that one book is not on and but I miss one so I apologize for that any other question discussion okay okay bar we can move to the financial report yeah so uh a couple things um thank you Miss Benitas Dr just very very nice job a couple things and I'll have a handout for everyone on Thursday because we are starting our budget process so uh first our budget for this year is perfectly fine so as I go over all these numbers I don't want anybody to panic and think our budget for this year is in Jeopardy our budget for this year is perfectly fine um but I did just want to give everybody a a couple just percentages of when we talk about our budget and it does connect a bus contract um and our teacher salaries uh that's why this is a beginning stage every as part of our budget is connected last year and I'm not talking about charter school or anything this is just strictly our operational cost was five or is 538 mil 434 $434,550 so that is our overall budget is 538 million 400,000 or 400 mil 800,000 of that is salary so of the 538 million 400,000 or 400 milon 800,000 is salary so right at 74% salary and benefits that does not include health benefits health insurance is 50, 79,000 so health benefits comes in a little bit over 9% % so just in salary and health benefits and all our other benefits we're at 83.4% of our budget which is pretty typical somewhere between 80 and 85% is where you want to be then I just wanted to cover a little bit of some of our other costs um transportation with our bus contractors is 27 million1 69,4 4 so right at 5% of our budget what is unique um and unique may not be the right word we allware our general assembly did a great job in funding Tisa but Tisa does not provide funds for transportation and I think that's very good for all bus contractors to be aware of it it doesn't provide funds for transportation so there's no incentive for districts to provide transportation for a district like toah who does not provide any transportation they get the same amount of funding per student that retherford County does um that is different under B and so I asked Mr run here just a minute ago you may have seen me word to him I was like please check your email um in 2223 the last year before Tissa you just sent it to me and I wrote it down what did we receive for transportation it was approximately 8.7 million we received from the state 8.7 million and so that is a hard pill to swallow yes Tissa gave you extra funding but districts that don't provide transportation are definitely an advantage we always are going to provide transportation retherford County that that's who we are but I just think that's good for everyone and being transparent to know that is that's what we're working with um it is not Apples to Apples across the state so 27 million 5% utilities are 20.5 million so 3.8% so we're now a little bit over 92% of our budget is gone in salary Health transportation and utilities uh we haven't got to anything with instruction yet um we haven't paid my favorite one is the trustee so we pay the trustee a little bit over $3.5 million to collect money for us so a little bit under a half a percent just a couple other ones instruction our budget's 4 and a half million so amazing job for what we do for less than 1% of our budget Subs are 5 and a 5.4 million the trustees three and a half workers comps 526,000 legals under a million liability insurance um custodial supplies 1 8 so I say all that to say we don't have a lot of things to cut in our budget uh we have been able to have a balanced budget the last two years we have said for the last two years this would be the year that that isn't going to be possible and and that's truly what we're going into so and looking at next year we've got a a couple things and again this year's budget's perfectly fine so I don't want anybody to lose their mind and think we're going to be in trouble this year this year's budget's fine that ends June 30th next year what we're looking at there's a couple changes in state revenue that is going to impact us one is the we'll start with the positives there should be an increase in Tisa allocations last year the governor increased at a little bit of about 3% if the governor increases T allocations 3% that should bring us a little bit over 8 million I would say 10 million but without getting too technical it's a 7030 split between the state and local so it gives us about $8 million extra dollar the hard part is there's been a change in coding for economically disadvantaged and so we're going to lose somewhere between three to 5 million of what we received this year what so that is a a change in how students were coded uh and I don't think it's not anything the state has done incorrectly it went back to how students were coded during the co years and I think multiple States coded them one way and that's not the way they are coded any longer and so they don't account for economically disadvantaged we are noticing the same thing with free introduced lunch percentages they are dropping substantially but they made a change last Academic Year to code them differently if they received Medicaid correct correct and that's no longer the case and so then they took that away from because then that changed all of our numbers with free and reduce and then economic challeng social economic so then they changed that and then now if they even regardless if they received Medicaid or not then they're coded how are they coded now they would not be counted unless they had something else that tanif and snap funds so they'd have to be a direct serve Medicaid would not qualify them as economically disadvantaged so for our district and we've done a great job in going back and checking and I know this is really nerdy to our bus contractors and I'm sorry but it's just the funding portion of it but for us we had about 8,500 economically disadvantaged students oh the first run this year was a little bit over 5,300 we don't we're not able to go back and change those the state locks them at the 15th of every month but we have updated we're a little bit over 7,500 now that's still a loss of about a th students and so 1,000 students it's a 25% increase you're looking at or 25% weight you're looking at about $25 million plus the extra 2,000 we didn't have the first couple months and I know you don't I I know I I always talk about bad meal debt but but um how are we looking at with our free and reduce because they're coded socially economic as well um it's lower I'll get the numbers for you by Thursday yeah is it low because of them it's lower because of this it automatically drops students so and that's a change not just in Tennessee that's Nationwide just a change in coding so but it definitely does and it's a Statewide there are districts that I talk to other um I hate to say it's good that our poverty level stayed higher that doesn't sound like a good thing to say our poverty level did stay higher and that's probably to do with the lack of affordable housing um in our County there are other districts that lost three and 4,000 students and they're losing $9 and10 million I don't know what they will do and so all that to say we are looking right now to get to a 2 and a half% raise will be what I present to get to the $50,000 threshold with the governor requests so that'll be same we did the year before 2 and a half% uh we have to open poer hill we will transfer the largest majority of our positions where we open schools and we will have to hire like p teachers music teachers front office that'll be about a $2 million estimate in Staffing we have increased utility fees uh our Property and Casualty Insurance went up $700,000 last year I imagine it'll go up again this year uh I estimate right now being about5 to $20 million in the hole as we move to towards next year without additional revenue and so that Inc that does include some additional um bus Contracting things um so and looking at our bus contract just kind of some some numbers uh every 5% raise roughly that you look at a 5% increase you're looking at about 1.3 or 1.4 million and then the liability insurance is about 1.3 million as well and so that's 7 million is roughly all of our staff for 2 and a half% bus contractors every 5% you increase is about 1.3 to 1.4 and liability is about 1.3 for what we are guessing right now but again that's very early and I just wanted to bring that up so that all of our bus contracts everybody knew exactly what we were working with I do still think that ultimate will be okay uh we have budgeted in the deficit many many years before ultimately it comes down to just a philosophy uh for example Williamson County keeps their fund balance very low they increase their maintenance of effort but their fund balance stays 16 to 20 million different philosophy our fund balance stays at about 100 million but our maintenance of effort doesn't increase different accounting philosophy not sure one's right or one's wrong the last couple years we've still been putting funding into our um fund balance or savings if you will even though we had a a balanced budget so do I think we're in the deficit it moving into next year's budget yes so one of the things I have to talk to principles about we don't plan on having very many growth positions we haven't grown as much either we're down to to give you an example of what we grew this last year I hate to say not much compared to where we've been this doesn't seem like much but from from May till December we only grew 564 kids but to the years we grew 2200 I'll take 564 only in 6 months um and then from December till May we added 442 so right at a th000 but at least it's not 2200 yeah so I'll have a much better print out for everybody I was just over here crunching numbers and want everybody know kind of what we were looking at as we start the the whole budget conversation yes Mr tid Dr can you send us all the figures You' listed I was writing them down I will I had Don made onein earlier and then I was going crazy on Excel today and then I said never mind I'll do a different one so y thank you any other questions comments we'll move on to the director's update um if parents are watching and then bus drivers as well I definitely would watch weather on Friday um something that I've tried to do a good job as well as be at least in my 10 years being director of school is try to make the decision as quickly as possible I I I will never be perfect and I will always mess up at some point but if we ever get to a a point where a decision looks like it definitely needs to be made the night before I try very hard to make that decision the night before um if we send out an anonymous poll to bus contractors I would appreciate your vote that you would like for me to call instead of James Evans I'm doing anything I can to get votes the staff voted me down and said they like James better so I'm still heard about it but I would take any support I can get I didn't I didn't do a survey this year because I didn't want to hurt his feelings further but we all know the truth it's fine thank you Friday um parents if you're watching I would definitely as the forecast looks I'd go ahead and start making alternative plans just in case not looking good not looking promising okay General discussion does anybody have anything they'd like to bring tonight chair yes Mr v um I'd like to say you know this time of year in all my years in education dealing with the there's one group of people that really we need to recognize because I don't know the holidays Michael Walls and his people in the maintenance department they go and check on all these schools all throughout the holidays and when you got freezing weather like this they go around to all the schools and well they do a tremendous job we get a lot of buying for our money for most people I'm telling you they they don't get recognized enough and we really you know I just like to Pat them on the back for the job they do because I know when I was at Oakland and the roof KD out there and it flooded and the the library was just almost ankled Deep in water uh well the maintenance department just the whole group came and just helped and uh but they're just a special group of people and consider and uh you know the demands and all that they do you know we we need to give them a lot more respect and a lot more recognition and thanks for what they do cuz I'm telling you without them we couldn't we couldn't open schools Dr yeah I wanted to quickly thank Mr Reed I know that he uh we have spent more time the last six weeks together than I think um any director and School Board attorney should ever spend together uh but we and then Mr Evans and Dr Martin as well and then our technology team but I thought it was going to it slowed down a little bit over Christmas but we talked 23rd the 20 the only day I don't think we spoke was actually Christmas Day and so I appreciate you Mr Reed it was a good partnership so hate that we had to do it but it was a good partnership so thank you yes M thank you thank you madam chair I'd like to um school board members got the announcement for the Smyrna anex ribon cutting but parents want to make a note of it it's going to be January 28th 11 to 12:00 at smna high school and if you haven't seen um the athletic facilities you need to go and see them they're some kind of incredible uh and we thank Sam ready miix for worthy trip that money because they they donated a lot of money and D Smith that area doesn't even look like the same area anymore the old brick um side is still there but they've added other things to it and you need to you need to go look at it it's it's like nworth it's beautiful John Paul to Catholic School um there's a lot of there's a lot of universities don't have facilities like that you're right right so absolutely um before we gabble out and we're going to come back in five minutes um I there's everyone should have a copy of this this isn't hard and stone if if you don't like where you're positioned for the gns radio spot just let me know and we'll we'll switch around and and I can take your spot if you need to or or Mr vau can as well so I one yes Mr um one thing I think it was brought to my attention and I don't know who really needs to check about this legal department whatever but the other night when we talked about the reone and we let certain groups choose have dual zone and we felt like everybody were here that was here um got approval but there's other groups that weren't here that were left out of the mix that and to be fair and equal to everybody I think we really need to look at that and give these other people the same option just because of being fair because I mean I I just leave being fair to everybody and we did it for a few if we do it for a few we should do it for all so I wish someh another we could take a look at that and find out uh I know that we approved the ones that were here you know I'm talking about the deal Zone deal where they could Pi can choose where they stayed or where they went to the new Zone schools but some of the places because of the Zone they weren't given that du Zone option and I just think that they need to be given the same opportunity I know it's a lot of headache the way it is now I think we created a an animal and a lot of workload for the principles of the schools involved because they don't know who's coming who's not and they'll know probably by the end of January but still there's no determining Factor but I just I feel like it's just unfair to allow a few to do it and not allow everybody to do it involved so thank you yes Mr tedwall uh I would just like to I was going to say something about Stewart Creek high schools band uh if you or you know any good friends that would like to donate toward their historic trip they will be playing at the inauguration uh we invite you to do so we want to put that out as much as possible uh but secondly to Butch's point I think his heart's in the right place uh on the resoning uh for me I don't think if you just if you just show up that you're just going to get what you want um that particular night I took it further than what I initially would have thought was necessary because my understanding of the rezone is that it is to the purpose of it is to fill the seats and the more dual zones that we have the the greater it is more restrictive is on the initial goal which is to spread out the students of the seats so there was a couple zones that made sense I think the Eagleville one the Blackman and The Rock Val made the most sense to me but I was willing to kind of compromise to to get it p uh on the additional I'm just concerned if we continue down that road we're going to end up have having really pretty much wasted a two years worth of information collecting from parents from data and everything else to end up with a result that we could have just Sav $300,000 and did our S I agree um resoning is tricky but having a bunch of duels zones is even trickier because you don't get those students back immediately and then you do have this the teachers don't know who's coming and who's not going it was what we needed to do at that night but I don't encourage this I encourage this board not to keep doing that because it doesn't it's not a win-win we we all lose we can undo it can we go back and just undo it and everybody go where they go no no but you know it's it's it's not fair to do it for one group not do it for other uh if there's nothing else I do have a question um the form for the dual zone is it on the website I got asked about that it is it'll be in a it'll be as release and also I mean I'm sure we do every recording of our Sunday message directly on Sunday but I mean hypothetically it's probably in the Sunday message that may have already been recorded as well but we are going to gabble out and we return in 5 minutes