##VIDEO ID:tIXD2h0Prc0## work session for the Rutherford County School Board first up we have our Pledge of Allegiance led by Miss Katie Derby alance 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 please bow your heads for a moment of silence thank [Music] you next we have the agenda theone like to take a look at the agenda and any questions or comments if not we can look at the U consent agenda okay next up we have buses that's all sorry not considered we have Miss Jean Saunders of the American Heart associ Association is here to present to the board with the youth Heart Ambassador so sorry about that thank you all so much for having us today I am thrilled to be here I'm excited um about our partnership every single year Rutherford County School goes above and beyond for the mission of the American Heart Association and I'm super excited today to have with me Bryant Noz um who is our youth Heart Ambassador and his mother Patty um who's goingon to share a little bit about his story um here in just a minute but um I passed out earlier um a an overview of our programs in the schools last year so I'm again it's amazing um the the partners that I get to work with in Rutherford County Schools um and your administrators and your PE teachers um across the district and so super excited to tell you that we had 28 schools that participated in either the kids heart challenge or the American Heart challenge last year and for those of you um who who may not know uh the kids heart Challenge and the American Heart challenge are programs of the American Heart Association that aim to teach students and family um not just just students but families as well about um nutrition and physical activity and um most importantly hands only CPR we want um all of our families to learn handson CPR and that is a very significant piece of the kids heart Challenge and the American Heart challenge um and so um as you see it in the schools um you'll hopefully learn more about um that piece of the program um but as I said we had 28 schools that participated last year um we had uh 2,911 students that actually took the online module and learned hands only CPR and again that's not just for our students but we're asking students to take that home and learn it at home as well um so super excited about the programs being in the schools Rutherford County Schools raised over $134,000 for the mission of the American Heart Association so thank you very much for that um we had I do want to recognize our top schools our top fundraising schools from last year we had mcfaden school of excellence that raised over $24,000 um it's the little school that could uh plane View Elementary also wanted to recognize them they raised over $21,000 for the American Heart Association and then Homer patard campus school um raised over $1,000 so I wanted to recognize those schools um that that that go above and beyond but once again all of our schools in Rutherford County it is a joy to work with them um I also wanted to bring your attention to um the the Ser legislation that was just passed that's the um the uh current Tennessee law that addresses sudden Cardiac Arrest we're um asking all of our schools to have um a cardiac response plan in place and so um this legislation kind of outlines what that looks like um so again I thank you all for um your assistance your support in and helping to make that happen across Rutherford County Schools again you're a a model of of what can be done in the school system um so with that I am going to ask um Caleb Tidwell who so I'm very excited um this past year has joined the American Heart Association board in Rutherford County and really has U been an influence in kind of that marriage of of what that American Heart Association board can impact in Rutherford County Schools so it's been a great honor to have him on board um and he actually has our heart of gold certificate that we would like to um present from the American Heart Association to Rutherford County Schools again this year Dr Sullivan we would love for you to accept this um on our behalf um and it just it just once again it says thank you to you all for being the support that you are for the work that we do because we couldn't do what we do without you so thank you for that um and I'm going to turn it over to to Caleb now um well I I appreciate that I appreciate you enlightening them a little bit about what's American Heart Association is doing on in our schools um at the reason I got involved is obviously the heart disease is the leading cause and death since 1950 it's all Races all ethnicities um and I had some close family members that uh that passed away from this and so when I was asked to join the board by the chairman uh who is a friend of mine um it was an honor to do so and I got to see on the inside some of the work that's being done in our schools it's just another one of the great things that Rutherford County does uh another one of the great programs for our community and the partnership between the American Heart Association and I know Dr Sullivan has been a big supporter of that as well uh this is a well-deserved reward this is the heart of gold 2024 top five fundraising District in Tennessee which is ruford county schools and we'd love to present this to you Dr [Applause] Sullivan and with that I'll turn it back over to e Jean thank you so once again thank you all um we couldn't do what we do without you and so I am super excited to have with me today uh Bryant who is our youth Heart Ambassador in wetherford County Schools this year um you know the kids heart challenge while it is an educational uh program it's also a chance to celebrate um the work that's being done and Brian is the face of that so I'm going to turn it over to hi good evening um I'm going to read just a little bu story of my special kiddo here and the impact the American hard Association has done in our lives briyan sweetheart Nas was diagnosed at Birth with tetrology of a low pulmonary stenosis and three ventricular septo defects which means three holes in his heart he was finally able to gain just enough weight at four months of age which was 15 pounds to be a candidate for his first open heart surgery see his tiny heart would burn calories so quickly making it difficult to gain the required weight medication was given to him since birth making him sleepy most of the time we were instructed to try anything we could to prevent him from crying which would burn calories quick quicker than usual do you know how hard it is to keep a baby from crying let me tell you it was hard but coffee got us through it a lot of it just one year after his first open heart surgery we noticed he had no interest in physical therapy especially when he was being taught to crawl as a mom I had a Hench it was a sternum wied used to close his chest after open heart surgery that was causing pain and discomfort his next intervention was done just a couple of months after we've had a crawler this mama's heart was so content that things were looking up knowing that we had just started our one-of-a-kind heart Journey life had just given us a new membership we never subscribed to but little did we know we were grateful for every second of it the American Heart Association is a distinguished organization that even though it does not do the actual procedures or surgeries it has funded 14 Nobel Prize winners several important medical Breakers CPR training the first artificial heart valve pacemakers stance among others it is difficult to explain what American Heart Association means to my my family and myself I will always be it will always be on top of our gratitude list the awareness we gain after belonging in the Heart Community will forever be carved in our hearts think about this on average a Super Bowl game lasts about 3 hours and 44 minutes with one infant born with congenital heart disease every 15 minutes during this year's game 15 families will learn that their child has a congenital heart disease our journey would have been a different route if American Heart Association would not have been there for us the support we have had through them since Bryant was born has been something I will not be able to be than thankful for in this lifetime when a child is born and diagnosed with any form of congenital heart disease it is quite common that multiple illnesses accompany it he was seen by numerous Specialists like a nephologist for his kidneys a pulmonologist for his asthma a neurologist for his brachy and plagio an eye specialist for his trismus and his ocular torticolis an orthopedist for his scoliosis missing ribs and Butterfly vertebra PT o speech and neut chrisan to reach his milestones and last but not least his cardiologist for his broken heart now he is 9 years old and more aware of the importance of keeping his heart as healthy as he can he is also aware that his heart condition will play a significant role in his life but he says they can coexist as a mom that breaks my own heart he has learned and has been through many medical settings no child should ever been to he is also honored to be the 24th 25th F youth Heart Ambassador and represent his beloved School Browns Chapel Elementary my mom heart is so proud of him and even more appreciative that our school participates in the American Heart Association kids heart challenge American Heart Association has impacted our lives for the better because we can connect with other families locally and nationally I am grateful to belong and represent the American Heart Association so now how can you support American Heart Association there are so many ways to help you can go directly online to sign up as a volunteer to donate your time you can fund raise make a one time or monthly donation or leave a legacy gift and I am his mother and this is Bri [Applause] so I want to say thank you again to to each and every one of you it's it's Bryant and his mother and his family that inspire me to do the work that I do every day um and so thank you for allowing us to do this in Rutherford County Schools um you will see uh events kicking off starting in February and so your schools that are participating I provided a list today um and if your school schools are participating tell them thank you for all that they're doing on our behalf we would appreciate that and so um again thank you for allowing us to do what we do in the schools thank you for allowing Bryant to be our youth Heart Ambassador this year uh and thank you for your time tonight thank you I think he wants us over there for e thank you'all there is no public comment that would be Thursday um Rutherford proud Communications report it's spiking right now there's active debate on our social channels if you'd like to entertainment there uh so we have a lot of stuff on Rutherford proud this week we have a ton of kids being recognized on Thursday so Dr San asked me to do this report tonight I'm not going to go over every piece of data but uh the Communications Department Milan back here who doesn't like attention but she helped put this report together this shows our December or on one side it shows our November to December growth in various platforms and some of our most popular popular posts so in December of course Oakland High School winning their state championship that was a very popular post the most on Facebook and one of the most shared um also the announcement about the Stewart Creek High School band being invited to the inauguration that was a largest post on Instagram and then you can see our our number of active users on our website these are just some highlights of pulling out but that was 880,000 users uh during the month of December and Remember December is a short month it's about two and a half to three weeks uh the top thing that was uh visited would be the high school resoning the academic calendar and available jobs so those were our most popular Pages we also wanted to highlight a few things in January even though this month is still of course active but um Dr Sullivan's funny snow video that he did a couple weeks ago that that was our most popular post across all platforms so far this month but that's pretty uh common when we have a snow closure as you can imagine that's a pretty popular thing and you see the numbers here all the arrows are pointing up so that's a it's a good sign better than pointing down so any questions about the communications report all right thank you as always thank you next we have the RCs strategic planed all right whoops this is just a review of our strategic plan this we discussed at our border treat back in October um this is one of the things that we are required to do once every two years for our state government but we like to do it every year just to make sure it is connected uh to what we are trying to achieve as a district our mission the mission of R County Schools is doing best in every student every day we updated that in November our vision um going with staying collaborative culture successful students empowered Educators proactive planning sorry I skipped over to page three I should have just stayed with us sorry um looking at our first just our cover page our Communications team did a great job of making this an attractive document to be able to look at so that we can hand it out and show everyone what we're doing as a district and where we're moving towards you'll see our table of contents which outlines our different areas and departments we have our leadership and governance with our leadership team and our Board of Education then we moved into our Mission Vision our objectives uh we have five objectives provide early interventions that address student needs and support the whole child and these have not changed I think our board created these three and a half for three years ago that have really fit our district well to be able to focus on what our needs are for our growing District increase achievement for all students by providing a high quality and actual education recruit retain and support high quality effective employees for our growing diverse student population create efficient operations to optimize the investment in our students and then ensure all facilities provide a safe and equable space for our district to learn and grow then you just have a page of about Rutherford County Schools where we're over 52,000 students provide 51 schools for 2425 with our new Elementary School opening in 25 we ran our newest employee number so we're over 6,600 employees really about 67 but over 6600 with 3,800 certified of course our updated academic performance of 32 level five schools our career Pathways and then our excellence and extra career activities then we move into our objectives and the way that we uh kind of organize this is your objective is across the top so I'm on page five now and an objective May cover multiple pages so you'll see that first objective provide early interventions to address students needs and supports the whole child covers page five and six and then um it covers two goals so it may it covers a goal of provide early interventions but then also support the whole child and not going to read all of these I just wanted to kind of go over organization then we move into our next objective on page seven increase achievement for all students our goal is to address student needs we of course have that as an action step that we have our high does low tutoring which is part of the third grade retention we also have that through Power Hour and our summer camps uh we are a very data hungry and data Rich District all the way from our teachers to our instructional coaches to to our principles to our district office looking at where our students are and intervening to make sure they understand where we are on our standards the next page is increasing academic supports for our students taking that data and our benchmarks that we give and making sure that we understand again intervening where they need it you flip over to page nine we're still on that same objective the second one increasing achievement for all students aligning highquality materials to ensure all students receive appropriate grade level instruction the last couple years we've really focused highly on our instructional materials with Ela adoption math adoption making sure our curriculum guides and our instruction team working with our curriculum leads to really align our instruction I think our performance shows that continuing on to page 10 again that same objective increase achievement for all students build and maintain structures that focus on measured outcomes and success of all students we haven't had for a district R size a whole lot of turnover really in our central office at all in our instruction team not much whatsoever in our principal leadership and not really for a district to our size and our highly effective teachers and so I think that shows the way that we continue to operate we then move into our next objective which is on page 11 so objective three recruit retain and support highly effective employees continuing to provide that competitive pay plan to attract and retain high quality employees committing resources to branding marketing we're we're continuing to finish that portion for provide training support for employees who wish to become future teachers administrators we just launched our future teacher or future principal application we continually do that with our administrators our assistant principles and our principles or people that want to become principles next page is the create efficient operations to optimize the investment in our students so now we're getting more three focused on academics and now we're getting towards operations uh our payroll transition system is pretty accurate we are right now in the the process of moving some of our HR information over to a different system so that we can start with teacher payroll starting in August we've mentioned that a little bit and that eventually will get us towards to where we could potentially Pay Teachers twice a month but the first step is to get them paid in August and so that has already started that transition for us to pay teachers so that they're not waiting nine weeks once they start with us August 1st and not getting paid till September so happy that that is is working next page page 13 again that fourth objective create efficient operations to optimize the investment in our students align and dedicate resources to efficient business model uh we talk about our current Staffing structures we were supposed to have a principal's meeting tomorrow instead we'll move that to next Thursday so I'll email principles once we're done and Dr Chastain has one of those uh as one of our agenda items going over our staffing models we kind of have like the branches of government here for Staffing models we have split I budget the positions Dr chastang grants the positions Dr Anthony posts the positions and without one of the three of us the positions can't be posted and so uh the we we're going over our staffing models with our principal so that they know how we're Staffing our schools then going over on page 14 continually looking at fiscal training for our buildings and I think that helped we had no audit findings this year our board knows that but that is public to make sure that our employees are constantly aware of how we operate as a district we move into the page 15 being known the the premier provider of prek 12 education and our action steps is really making sure brand recognition and showcasing what all we do as a district then ensure legal compliance continuing again with that fourth goal of ensuring leg compliance and understanding Continue to update our administrative procedures uh we are still working to obtain centralized contract management we do not have that portion yet but still working on that and then the last one is for facilities utilize Capital project programs of facility improvements so Trey was joking today you'll see it on your when we go over our financial summary people started paying property taxes in January so our fund 177 started receiving funds this month uh we operate on previous year's funding until January so people started paying fund 177 so we haveed started the projects that the board approved in May of last year we've started doing those or started cutting those projects loose I guess um currently so and then the last page we have our Awards and recognitions of our district so comments questions Miss Maxwell yes M Dr SL thank you so much for putting this together thank you Communications team to uh really format this and put us some creative and visuals it's really nice looking by by the way um so I have questions and please don't shoot the messenger um so I think it's awesome that we have a strategic plan and is broken down by the major um components that really are functioning within the operational side so my question to you is then how do we track that we are hitting these goals with these action plans and how do we become aware of certain action plans action steps that are not feasible for whatever reason it could be something that it's out beyond our control um so that if the Board needs to come back if you guys need to come back to us to make adjustments so you can hit these goals so I'm just curious how this is monitored and how it's tracked how can this be communicated to us that we're hitting the marks or that we're hitting H some Road Blocks along the way that are keeping some of these action plans from us H in so something I've seen some other districts do that I would like to start doing um is anytime we are hitting something on here is connecting that to a board action so that any let's say that we were when we go to do our staffing model approval this coming year um which is something the board always approves then we will add that this address is objective um create efficient operations optimize the investment in our our students and connect to that action item so that the board would have an idea of where we were on that item um I think that would be one way to be able to do it we do address this every year and so at our two Retreats I also think that's a place we need to right um is there okay aside from the action steps is there deadlines that these are supposed to be hitting or depending on which actual item it is yes like I'll give you an example we have we discussed one in leadership today that we have a deadline for one these that's at the end of February so depending on each one yes will it be possible for us to get that as well if there's specific things that we want to hit a Target and I guess if we're going to hit some targets can we get like a not necessarily every time we meet or anything like that but maybe like a progress report maybe I can do that five monthly like every two months or every three a quarterly report or something um just so that we can all I know you guys are working on it it's not that we don't trust that you are working on it it's just to keep that communication going of what where we're at and how we're doing and so that way if the Board needs to come and be involved that we already are all be happy to I I'll update one as an appendix so that it doesn't hold up passage of our strategic plan but that way it can be just an appendix um and doesn't mess the formatting or anything yeah that's fine thank you so much I appreciate it any other questions or comments okay next we have human resources we have new first one is new job descriptions for JC senior Army instructor SI s Ai and army instructor AI job descriptions I'm not artificial intelligence um these are our actual people that just have to update their job descriptions as required okay next we have 10e recommendation and this is an extremely long long list 166 these teachers have met criteria for tenure in accordance with the tenure law you'll see they have to have a valid Tennessee teaching license they have to have served Rutherford County for 5 years 45 months minimum within a 7-year period the last two in regular not intering position have demonstrated an overall performance above expectations or significantly above expectations on the team evaluation model during the last two consecutive years of the 5-year period or if they held tenure under the previous guidelines in return to Earth County Schools meeting the 2-year peress year period in 10 years reactivated the reason you were seeing this so late the uh um level of Effectiveness scores from Tennesse Department of Education they used to get released in August September at the latest they were released in November December and so that is why this list is so late uh we had a superintendent study council meeting on Friday the department in future F years would like to speed this process up but it is a 2 to three year at the very beginning and so these teachers technically by process actually earned their tenure earlier than this but we just now got their levels of effectiv back and if you see somebody for anybody that's new and I know that Mr vaugh knows this is a principle but if you see somebody that has like as an administrator um Dr ralon and it says special education coordinator they only get tenure as a teacher they don't get tenure as an administrator I think we have a principal on here it's only tenure as a teacher so they are guaranteed a teaching position not an administrative position if somebody's listed it's just that's the position they're holding right now same for instructional coach next we have there any questions next we have legal we have transfer student under discipline the first one the board's been requested to admit to transfer student from another school system under discipline the student was remained for assault of another student according to policy 6318 the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student transfers from another school system under suspension or expulsion director of school's recommendation is to deny and you all have a manila folder and that was email to you as well if you have any questions please see Miss Ridley and we have another one number two the board has been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline the student was expelled for reckless endangerment bringing in using a taser at school according to policy 6318 the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student Transformers to another school system W under suspension or expulsion director of school's recommendation is to deny okay thank you next we have number 12 security software so this is a security software recommended motion to approve the bid for security software is presented uh the wording was changed um from what was originally posted as advised the board has the copy in front of you this is just replacing eventually what we currently have um so they we have this as part of our cleanup financial matters which is actually the next item it is going ahead and purchasing for this year up until next January 31st is that right Mr ran I think that's correct goes through February 1st to January 31st so it covers two fiscal years any questions if you have questions we can talk afterwards but it is a security item so was advis to change the wording of it understand next we have number 13 financial matters so this is our midyear cleanup fund 141 fund balance Amendment this budget amendment cleans up expenditure line items at midye on the bud on the revenue side the budget is amended to reflect State Grant allocations not including the original Budget on the expenditure side the larger items of this cleanup Amendment reflect the increased cost of school maintenance supplies and parts instructional support supplies of materials security cyber security Insurance maintenance contracted Services equipment Transportation equipment and Elementary School startup funds this amendment has a net increase of both current year revenue and expenditures of one point of 1, 310,000 with no use of fund balance and so you will see that this is State Grant we received a little bit over 4 million in direct outcome or sorry in outcome funding from the state in December we never budget that we still have not used that we always like to use that at the end of the year as part of our final year end cleanup so we have not touched that portion yet just to see what still lays out there between January and June I do anticipate electricity charges being more this month just for one because of the temperatures these last couple weeks and the number of portable heaters that we have purchased over the last couple days as well to run in some of those places understand so that's that's our just midyear cleanup the revenue and expenditures match okay number two number two is fund 177 fund balance and expenditure approval this amendment moves funds from account 34685 committed for capital projects to account 91300 335 maintenance and repair services buildings the amount of 200,000 the movement of this money from fund balance will go to replace Stewart's Creek High auxiliary gym floor which was damaged due to a break in a water main in an adjacent mechanical room it was by the engineering department the floor is not repairable and will need to be replaced and the deductible is 250,000 so it is cheaper to pay it ourselves than to use the deductible and when did this happen couple months ago right end of October end of October all break yeah mechanical failure The Joint came loose it's a 6in water loan oh gosh okay number 14 engineering and construction the one below it is the we're asking to move the money and then number one is we're asking to actually do it so okay okay and then the second one is Whitworth Bean in basketball locker room request principal April sneeds reques to replace the existing basketball lockers the cost for the project is 2,800 from materials only with the labor being donated the requested at no cost to the board engineer construction has reviewed this request and has no objection yes Mr B yes sir yes voluntary prek Grant we never budget those funds until we actually receive them Yo correct yep yeah we go ahead and budget our expenditures for voluntary prek we just don't get that fun fing until later on in the year and so we already have it budgeted to spend once we get the funding it just goes into 141 so if they ever got rid of it we would get rid of it yes another District would take it yes yep okay number three Rock Springs Elementary and Walden Road alignment project right this is all you this won't take but a few minutes but I know this has kind of been a topic of conversation and I've been working with the city of lever uh and their Engineers Reagan and Smith for about 6 months now um they put a lot of thought I would like to commend Gary L Scott tat Lovich uh with the city for including us in as part of this conversation and and they included us very early um so I greatly appreciate them bringing us to the table what I'm going to show youall tonight is not the complete document and I'm not going to get into all the details of it but I just want you to understand a little bit about what's going on John can you pull those up for me this is not the complete document because they asked me not to share the complete document because it's still got a few minor tweaks and changes this will be going out for bid uh they hope by the spring with the hopes that during the summer this project will get started they are hesitant to give us a schedule on how long this will take until they have a Contractor on board they do agree with me that it's probably about an 18month to maybe a 2-year project and there's a lot of Logistics in making this happen um if you look at the third page John it's T2 A4 that one you want to there you T2 A4 the numbers on the it's the there you go you'll scroll down what you will see there is the existing alignment of Rock Springs Road kind of goes up and then it at Lake Road it turns back to the left and comes down the hill what you see there lower the straight line that was where Waldren Road will be going uh horizontal uh that is the new alignment what you see there is some temporary pavement that they're going to be installing they're basically going to relocate a section of walren Road they'll build it so that we can continue to use walren road while they build the new section then once the new section is built they will transfer the traffic over onto it so they can tear out the existing section as part of that tearing out the exist ing section where the where Lake Road and walren Road intersect currently there's about a 10 and 1/2t elevation change there the road will be going lower they're taking as you come up to Lake Road it goes up I call it the roller coaster you go up the hill at Lake Road you turn left and you go down the hill for a short distance around the pond and then you go back right to go back toward ralden Road all of that S curve is coming out that elevation change is coming out to do that is quite an undertaking when they lower that Road intersection 10 ft the water line and everything that connects us is all going to have to be taken out and lowered there's a new development on the Dobson farm that is coming from the north that will come to Lake Road they're currently under construction with that section and they hope to have it completed first prior to this work uh being ready so that they can refeed the school's waterline from up Lake Road so that they can take everything out where we're currently connected we found out through this process that there's typically when utilities are built it's owned by the utility provider up to our meter uh um there's no easements on this project they were never deed to the city but they still have rights to it so when we redo this water line we're going to fix the easement part for them to have their easements for their utilities um that's phase one phase two once that is completed John if you will go if you'll look to ta7 the next page that is um Lake Road where and that's our entrance off of it what they're going to do is actually build a new temporary entrance so that they can tear hours out when they lower the elevation at the inter intersection of lake and walren our inter section with lake is going to go down about 6 and 1/2 or 7 ft so they're going to build us a temporary road so that they can take our current one out build the new one and then they'll shift us back over to the new one and take the temporary one back out if you go to the next page T2 B4 there you go you see the alignment that's in that cross-hatched area that's the alignment of the new road and you'll see the existing Lake Road is at the top that single line next to where it says speed limit 15 and it kind of goes up and down the page that's going to be the new alignment of Lake Road down to the new walren road they will have to get all of that built prior to taking the old walren road out so it's going to be a swap of traffic but what we've been been able to coordinate is that we will maintain both entrances the entire time wow when we first started working through this they were asking for us to condense to one or the other which I wouldn't I I couldn't we worked very hard to figure this out cuz I could not make one entrance work as narrow as that work road is to get buses and cars in and out there's going to be a lot of traffic patterns that we're going to need to communicate to the parents as we go through this they're going to do exhibits for us so that we can periodically as we get ready to change the traffic patterns we'll be able to send those out through our parent newsletter so that the parents are communicated with it will increase our dismissal times and I'm sure we will have some arrival um things to work through based on time because it's going to create it's going to be a traffic nightmare but we we have worked very diligently to work through all of our utilties so that there no is no disruption there probably is going to be a summer that we will probably be without water for a period of time but we're going to Comm once they get a contract contractor on board then we will get a little more in depth with them on schedule and how to coordinate it and make it work right now we've got the as I call it the Dr s it the 30,000 foot look we've got that worked out we feel like we have a good plan I think the city's been very accommodating we have too I mean but we've worked together been a long a lot of long meetings to work through this um in the end when we get through it it'll make everything you know for the community and for us a lot better um the roads will be wider they'll be safer those curves are going to go away uh the elevation changes are going to go away and there'll be a lot of things that probably should have been taken care of 20 years ago that weren't taken care of now so I just wanted to give you a little bit um for you to see what's going on there is a lot of coord ation there but the but we've been able to maintain both entrances throughout the whole project is this just going to be two lanes yes it's going to be wider though I hope it'll actually but when it's finished it'll be wider and there will actually be turning Lanes onto Lake Road where right now there's not it's just a two-lane narrow road that that there will be traffic improvements there'll be turning Lanes all of all of this is a major Improvement for the area who's uh who's paying fits uh the city and the developer that's developing next I don't know what their agreement is everything they are doing on us is at no cost to us everything is being taken care of by their project that's good that's why we've worked so hard all of this temporary Paving and all these kind of things to keep us open I've tried to be fair but I also wanted us to be kept whole as long as we could it would have it would have been a big deal if we'd have lost one of those entrances for any length of time miss miss is always good too yes sir yes Mr Rosal sorry I thought you were done um is there any side sidewalks over there and there is not for some reason I thought it had sidewalks um is it going to cut into the elevation of the school or since is they going to Flat the road or anything like that no the the school the pond the parking lots other than the two entrances uh coming from the one on the um South Side that comes from walren directly into the school that one the elevation changes there but it's only like a foot or 18 in it's not much um and that the but they are reworking all of that we've given we will be giving the them the easements they need they'll taper the so that we can mow the grass cuz it'll create kind of a U-shaped bowl like a ditch but that they will take care of all that all of that'll be left in a condition that we can maintain it when do the do they expect to start this project they're hoping to get started Sometime Late Summer Okay other questions yes and they're they're looking at there's portions that they're going to need to buy some easement from us and we will potentially end up getting a little extra grass to mow so my concern is veterans where there ends up being a no man's land it's not big enough to build off but it creates an aggravation uh and and and so that ownership you know it cuts down on Frontage and then you don't you don't touch the road and if the county want if we needed to do something later on if we lost the road Frontage those are things Genera in my mind right now most of this has negligible imp impact for us everything south of the current road is not going to be I it's either going to be the cities or the developers everything South on your drawing is actually East but everything south of the existing road to the new road it will be be the developers of the cities to maintain it will not be ours the only thing they're doing from us is purchasing we will actually lose a little bit I I'm going say maybe a couple hundred feet I mean it's I don't with that that area I don't think by the time they get that new section in there it's going to be large enough to do much with I don't think but I don't the for somebody else that's reason I said Mr Reed is involved I've been sending him some of the documents they've been sending us on purchasing easements and those kind of things so I'm going to leave that part to Mr Reed okay next up I'm sorry yes Mr thank you um and on top of that they've already got about 30 houses in the arbor Town built so they'll be that whole subdivision on top of the traffic nightmare for that because it really doesn't have anything to do with the school system except for going going to the school and get into the Williamson County Line uh yeah but we're that subdivision is coming right along there because I just came through there on um Monday and they've got about 30 houses up already and they just started right before Christmas how many they going to have eventually 671 in just that little neighborhood yeah see they say average two kids per house that's about what 1,200 kids mhm it's not bad they want to give us some land to BU a to school longer it is bad considering we've already built an Annex and it's just it too it's just about full yeah yeah yes Mr tidal I just want to say uh I I'm thankful that L the city of L reached out to us and we have this collaboration going on I wish that that was the way that it always it seems to work better to have everybody that's going to be involved sitting at the same table so I just want to say thank you absolutely to them that are watching from the beginning at least since I you told me about it in June or July I mean it was it was early summer that's that's fantastic yes it is they'll have to schedule a time too where when there with that water that c can operate without water so we've worked that out we're going to do that during the summer but we will have to work around their maintenance schedule you know we'll have to I don't know what we'll we'll adapt and I'll come up with a plan for us once I know when how long and what and how I think we can get the majority of the water line installed to where in theory it should be just a couple of days and we should be able to get the water back on cuz we're not moving the meter the meter assembly and everything is going to stay where it is that's another thing that I tried to keep um cuz that would have increased quite a bit of time for us um but all of that going to stay we're going to tie back in at the same place that we are now um and if we can keep that agreement that we have there um we can utilize the water before we can drink it the chlorination test usually takes 48 hours so we could be you still using water they flush anyway so we could use that water to clean and strip and mop and that sort of thing we just wouldn't drink it for a couple of days we'll make sure all that takes place during a time that we don't have students there any other questions comments okay next we have U Mr Reed with two resolutions one one I'm sorry I thought there was oh y That's Right are experiencing a substantial influx of students for whom English is not their dative language and whereas many of these students are not fluent in reading or speaking the English language and whereas federal law mandates that we educate all children and whereas for example rord county has experienced a significant surge in its ESL population with an increase of over 140% in the last decade and whereas in May 2023 BR County schools had 6,214 ESL students which has grown to 8,373 ESL students in the current school year and whereas this growth has been necessitated an additional 25 positions at the start of the school year for the English as a second language program and whereas as demand continued to rise rord County Schools added 19 more growth positions ESL primarily funded through local and state revenue due to title three funds only consisting of approximately $1.3 million and whereas need for more positions has placed a considerable Financial strain on our local Revenue primarily derived from our taxpayers and whereas the pressure of increasing numbers of ESL students is thank you is creating exceptional Financial pressures on school systems to provide the services which school systems are legally required to provide and whereas additional title three funds are needed to meet the legal requirements imposed on school systems so that the cost of the same is not overwhelmingly borne by local property taxes local funded taxes and state funds whereas the increase in funding is needed to adequately serve ESL students I'm sorry the whereas the increase in funding needed to adequately serve ESL students is $3,500 more per ESL student now therefore be it resolved by the ruford County Board of Education as follows the Board of Education urges our state legislature and Governor to advocate for the current Administration to expedite the closure of our nation's borders and for the federal government to provide additional funding for title 3 program to fund the services the federal government requires school systems to provide to ESL students so that's the resolution that You' be considering on Thursday part of that's already starting today yes president Trump I think is sent the sent the bus down there to start closing it up so yes Miss sharp I don't know if you want to change that language but the Border was closed officially yesterday at 12:01 there wasn't an executive order yes there was yesterday the only executive order that he signed was to send the water patrols down there but they wasn't a executive order to say we're closing the borders per se a 12:01 there there was an execu border the borders closed and they're talking about closing the borders Northern I signed some hundreds of executive he he signed but there wasn't one at 121 that said we're closing the Border it was one to S you just might want to check out and change the language if the bord is already closed you need to change we'll just we'll look at that Mr tidball yes so this is this primarily for we're advocating for federal to change the title three okay yes well even if it's closed or whatever it's just saying that taking s that that's what we're wanting to do um because right now at the state level there was there's no support in trying to get some funding for ESL because of a particular perception um I am an ESL language speaker and so um it puts all of us in a type of vote that's I think it's unfair in my opinion um and so with our state legislatur and Governor they're the better ones to help us to Advocate and get funding from the federal side because they have a lot more pull in that sense and that's just my opinion and that's why I presented this thank you I would say in the director's Rumor Mill the funding that we are most concerned about about losing federally is title two and title three title two is professional development and title three is around our English as a second language so those are the two that we're most concerned about losing course who knows whether not that actually comes to fruition that's just what's in the Nationwide Rumor Mill have you heard anything about tenure someone told me yesterday Rumor Mill yes but okay okay that's what I thought lot of rumor Mills and uncertainty so yeah any word on dismantling Department of the in Washington since we're hiring people I don't know no I think so I don't know if y'all seen it or not but they hired Our Miss Penny Schwin I saw that yeah all your legislators your federal reps yes Mr V whoops I think I probably miss who are we sending this resolution to is this going to the state it's going to the feds who's it going to we're doing it just to feel good well let the state legislators okay so I did a quick Google search about the Trump executive orders and the headlines are Trump signs these executive orders related to The Border Trump signs sweeping actions on immigration and border security on day one Trump sign executive orders to Kickstart his immigration Crackdown there's nothing here that says specifically that he signed something to close the border well we have a resolution that's asking for more help from the federal government and we we don't have enough funding to to do what we need to do and take care of the children that we need to educate so and that's what we're actually asking for so thank you very much and next we move to book review um we're going to do it similar Thursdays as we did last time um read out the books they are in order this time and I do appreciate that I'm sorry so we shouldn't have to be going back and forth and um I will go ahead and read off the uh the title and I will read the recommendation from our Librarians that's okay with everybody that worked everybody and uh okay we are next we have financial report all right financial report first if you will look at the two-page document so we are going to look at Revenue so Revenue the first 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 so from 40110 down to 41110 current property tax all the way down to marriage licenses those all make up maintenance of effort along with 44110 investment income 44120 lease rentals and PPP and then the last one is 46 6851 so I'll repeat those the first 4110 all the way down to 41110 current property tax through marriage licenses skip down to the middle of the page an investment income and Lease rentals those two and the last one that makes up main maintenance of effort is state revenue TVA 46851 regardless all of these are our revenues the main ones I just wanted to highlight uh we did a quick update in or we did an update in September quick one in October at our border r Treat we had one in November and didn't do one in December because we didn't have a December meeting property tax will really start to move now that we are in January and December so you should expect big months you'll see trustees collection Clerk and Masters all of those are well within averages where they should be sales tax is always a couple months behind so it looks at 52% of the year it's trending in the right direction because we are a little bit more than 50% of the year and we're already over 52 that probably already includes November um probably December hasn't hit the books yet I would imagine I'd have to check with Michael but Black Friday is probably already included in that which would be my guess is why that is already over 50% um for that portion wheel tax business tax um mixed drink tax um we have not hit that um I've got an email from Mr Reed to to send him some data because he's working on that so you'll see we have not hit that one yet um but that's a collection portion that we're in talks with Murphy's Boro City about for how that portion is calculated marriage licenses are up more people are getting married than we anticipated I guess we had a January 1st people decided to get married investment income is way up and that's one that we have been gaining I hate to say gaining but gaining quite a bit of funds from you'll see we're already at 163% of our budget those rates have been coming down and so we budget it well we we don't actually budget our Revenue Michael Smith budgets in the County Commission budgets our revenue and so as that continues to Trend down I expect it to to continue to fall a little bit and then state revenue all of these are above 50% so kind of what we're looking at one thing to keep in mind is even if these go above and we collect more money than we were budgeted at the end of the year it goes into fund balance uh we don't get the authority just because it comes over what we're expecting like right now that investment income is 900,000 over we don't have that extra 900,000 to spend it goes into fund balance at the end of the year and so that's why I feel pretty good we talked last month about we need roughly $8 million to go ahead and purchase Science Tech textbook so we don't get behind the other counties uh purchasing on July 1st we have a healthy fund balance that we need to be able to to look at for one-time purchases I had a good meeting with um our chair of health and education Phil Dodd Michael Smith and Miss Maxwell last week so that we could talk about our overall budget priorities there will not be extra money available and so we really have to look at all options bus contractors along with high school along with raises we basically have about $4 million uh for looking at Revenue um for us that comes down to a 5 to 10% increase for bus contractors unless we take costs out of somewhere else I don't know if that's app parent responsibility z uh lessening how many contracts they have I I don't know where that extra comes from what my big concern comes down to is if we're looking at because that's all it comes down to is is m is dollars and cents my big concern is if our because ultimately it's going to come down to our board um County Commission ultimately is going to tell us that it is up to your board to decide what type of raise you guys give your bus contractors if we go in at a 30 35% raise our fund 177 will be gone um because they are was told we are not we don't have the revenue for it so that is the only new place that funding will come through just conversations we have we have multiple months we're in the middle of the negotiating portion for a budget this is normal budgeting tactics that we do every single year it is not a secret to the County Commission any longer that that's what the bus contractors are asking for because that was during public comments at the County Commission meeting um I do think that there's probably ways that we can look within that Transportation budget and try to either move routes or look at different routes and try to save some funding I think you brought it up last meeting Mr Derby about how can we move some funds so that we can try to get that percentage higher that's really what we have to be able to do if we have to if we need to get to a higher percentage we have to lower the cost somehow one thing that I'm going to send to the board as soon as this meeting is over as part of the last contract negotiations I think it's good for everyone to to kind of wasn't here there was a lot of conversation about dead head miles we used to have was it 40 miles try it used to be 40 Mi so contractor rates were guaranteed at 40 Mi it was increased to 60 m miles to try to take care of those dead head miles uh I we asked Trey to Wanda really and Trey to run rout or run a percentage how many routes actually are run at 60 miles every single day um and I will send that report to you it is in the hundreds and over 150 routes each day that run under 60 miles and so those we do not ask for reimbursement for those routes that was a lot of conversation last May about concerns about GPS we don't ever go ask you're guaranteed for 60 Mi so that's what we pay for 60 Mi and so when we're talking about negotiations that that dead head route to already be over 60 miles already or to be under 60 miles there's already extra funding being earned there they get paid based on the mileage rate if they turn it in yes yes yep yep I'm must end up the board I guess it's I need to make it public so I can tell you no you're good it's 185 routes are under 60 miles with dead head included so that has a 2/3 of our bus routes are under 60 miles all the buses are the same now right I mean you got the large buses are all the same the the special ed buses are they all the same size we do have two or three different rates based on seats so [Music] yes because we do have some we do have some 90 passengers and we've got a few that are less so that's why you have a different seat rate okay I was just trying right my mind and we've narrowed it down we used to have a whole lot we've down to about yes we're we're down to about four or five then the star R and I don't know that that's what it was called but the rout that ha all the high schoolers in open that was a larger there was a different rate there and we do have different rates yeah okay so so it's not time to get rid of the seat rate then no I don't think so not contract no okay just trying to get my arm around the calculations that's again that's a we're going to have a whole lot more conversation about contractors and all that kind of stuff I just wanted you wanted you all to have an idea of like dollar and cents where does it come from it's got to come from somewhere else um and you all can see I just want you to see where our revenue is Mr Tidwell uh yes can I just verify here again you said 185 routes are under the 60 miles that includes the dead head is that 185 routes are under 60 miles with dead head included yes thank you and I'll forward this to you all as soon as we're done thank you um and it's by Route by calculation so yes Mr Z yes when are we going to going to get the results back from the bid that went out with next board meeting next board meeting like on Thursday no the no the following week okay next one how much is in our current fund balance 177 I know they took out some money out of there like they trim a little bit how much is in the actual budget like yes how much do it pass for us to have in this fac is it 177 or 141 177 177 that's it's about 7 million is a 7 million and how much did they the total in that budget is 18 and some change the overall what was passed on the property tax was a little bit over 18 what I'll caution just to remind everybody is that is an unshared penny so when it comes back into 141 that is 10 pennies and about 15% of that is going to have to be shared so if we bring 177 money back into 141 it is going to be more money that is going to be shared back to the city so it's going to lose 15% of its value the 18 million is going to lose 15% but they trimmed some of it um do the lives budget Cycles because they were wanting to just like 0.1% they okay yeah well they're going to have lots of conversations about 177 I don't Envision a scenario where 177 stays in its current form um whether 177 what my idea would be for 177 if legislation leg General Assembly passes um education saving accounts there are a lot of talks about school facility funds in that I would Envision that would become our fund 177 and then my request for 177 would be use that to fund a high school because there is no way to fund a new high school without that um in our current County government and that would be a hard argument to make to at least just this is just Jimmy speaking to our delegation to say you we gave you money for school facilities and you guys didn't use it for school facilities that that'd be a tough argument I think to make on that particular note do you have any kind of projected ideas of what that might even look are we talking about a fraction of what we would have in 177 if which part as far as the if it were to pass the SAS I think the what they call the bulling nickel is pretty safe so 5 cents on the property tax so you're looking at about 7 million I think that's pretty s safe or what I could I say that's pretty safe I could see what would have been 5 cents at that time being safe has a has the penny gone up like the cost value because I think it was like one it always goes up a little bit um but County government did give a 4% raise in December so that's going to take their portion okay what's the what's the chances of us getting some of the Lottery money zero right now it's part of the education savings account yeah yes Mr I have a question about something you mentioned earlier about the numbers here in the budget and how they're they're a little bit better uh the projections are and you also mentioned because of the Black Friday in November is likely included that but is that typical it is so so are they always typically better than what we on the year um ours have been typically better because we are growing so it's based on last year's number of um people that live in the county and as we continue to add add I keep saying students residents more residents are spending more money um and it's just a different Philosophy for budgeting and so our County philosophy is keep maintenance of effort low and we have a higher fund balance uh County to our West has a maintenance of effort increases a little bit every year but their fund balance stays at the 3% minimum um just a just a different philosophy yep anything else and then I will go over expenditures on Thursday that's the big document over here nothing difference just a lot of numbers thank you so much for bringing this we nice we could hit up Amazon to get us hard this would be yes yeah you did no yep yep yes it was next we have the director's update director's update we are schools are closed tomorrow so that's not a decision we make hastily um we are closed due to temperatures and so that is not a precedent I wanted or like to set and it's not a precedent necessarily that we are going to set lots of factors go into that um of course you know with those type of decisions you can never make everybody happy we look at our Portables we have over Trey how many Portables we have over 120 but like 160 something total portable classrooms 153 and so those are tough um our bus stops are tough at this time of the year with its 3° it is different for us and that normally when it's 3° we're at school for snow uh I don't know the last time we had it that cold and we weren't out for some type of precipitation snow or sleep or freezing rain or something they we also our buildings I don't think it's a a secret we have our maintenance staff Mike for once is not at one of our maintenance sure he's checking buildings would be my guess um Mike worked all weekend we spent about $10,000 in emergency purchases over the weekend making sure we had portable heaters three buildings that I knew would struggle today and it's it's just one of those that when you look at the 2hour delay versus a full day um two hour delays are awful from a school operation standpoint basically kids get there they eat breakfast as soon as they eat breakfast they eat lunch you have a modified schedule there's not really a lot of learning that happens they go home the parents complain because as soon as they dropped them off they turned around they couldn't go to work we had seven still inclement weather days and so I made the decision to close um I know that doesn't make everybody happy I would rather just close the entire day since we had the day and not have to worry um with that extreme weather as far as where our students are so we still have six days as far as we have we did also join the National Weather Services 1:00 briefing today to look at forecast they talked about how February their long-term model forecast as February is warmer and um more rain instead of because of the warmer than average temperatures and so we we factored that into account as well but we debated between the 2our day and the the full day for all day just about so always always we're not the only school system that's closing tomorrow no there are several there's yeah there's a bunch but usually there's a group of us that try to stay together and I know we're not together so we're all over the place we broke apart from each other which is a sad [Laughter] day yeah sad day we well we're not by ourselves but we usually stay with our more um Metropolitan districts and I went with the more rural districts today so any other questions yep okay Mr VA do you have anything to bring to us regarding the Tennessee uh legislative Network okay and federal just you know nothing's happened up there yet right not yet uh I would like to lead off General discussion with um I spoken with Mr Reed who's been working on uh behind the scenes uh regarding the Lee Road property and can you give us somewhat of an update yeah as you know the family members have had some things work through with respect to ownership of the property that they have a um court hearing date on the 14th where because a re a settlement has been reached in regards to all that so they have to get Court approval from um a conservator ship standpoint so that is happening the 14th so every should be everything should be closed out quickly thereafter good thank you yes M Arby Mr Reed so what would can you kind of give us just a I mean I know you really don't have exact dates or anything but kind of a next steps timeline as to what we might be looking at uh so if um so they've got the date of the 14th um they will have some things to get done between themselves that after that which would try to take a week to two weeks so I think by the end of February or 1 part of March you might be in the position to have a contract being presented to the board thank you thank you any other General discussion yeah um I just like to take hats off to our maintenance department again for checking the schools cuz boy I tell you you know in this kind of weather it's uh they spent all weekend doing that and they'll probably spend all night tonight do it and I just like to say thanks to him for for the all the work he do Madam chair yes M Derby I just want to uh give a big congratulations to the marching B from Stewarts Creek High School um and I want to thank too I think I heard a rumor I don't know if it's true or not but um that some of our legislators and stuff were kind of key in getting them to be able to actually perform in spite of the cold weather so just a huge shout out to them they did a fabulous job if you didn't watch it go watch it it was awesome um and a huge thank you to all the supporters I know we had several large donations from some of our local businesses lots of parents and citizens of Rutherford County that um gave funds for them to be able to do that trip so super proud of them yes it was it was wonderful and it was very very proud moment for this County and for the schools and I'm glad it worked out it went from being very dark they're not going to get to perform to excitement and they did get to perform and it was interesting to see a parade indoors I I I liked that it worked yeah whole time sit about this yeah y that's kind really a a good they were with yeah C was the last school that did it that was one of those times that's one of those times I was telling you that they got to go to Washington we got to go to to the B of bowl and you know so we never could understand they'd go to Washington Florida and California and here we were to Jackson Tennessee maybe you should I listen I'd been a whole lot better off if I had Madam chair yes maybe we can um on maybe a work session night have some of them come and speak about I would love that yes that's a excellent idea Miss sharp excellent idea because I got to go to Washington DC but it wasn't anything like that there was a uh there was a uh parade and contest uh Cherry Blossom Festival that we got to perform in that was uh that was a good time uh but nothing like this so definitely that sounds great is there anything else yes Mr Tidwell uh I don't want this to come off the wrong way and not admonishing anybody in particular here uh but uh you know we operate on Robert's Rules of Order and I like to have some informal conversation like we're having here at the end but when we get to some of these agenda items I I feel like because we are not seeking recognition what we end up having is we start having discussion over top of each other and then temperatures start to rise and I think the will of this board and I truly believe this I think the will of this board is to do the best interest of the students and so I would just like for us to kind of reflect on that moving forward uh it keeps the temp that those Rules of Order and we're never going to be perfect on them so somebody out there watching you know is going to say oh we off here you're off here it's not that as much it's just at least some of the the Baseline guidance I think would be helpful so that we don't get into those Fierce back and forths that that's happened and again it's not any in particular here I just think it would be good respectful to the chair uh as well for the order that they're trying to keep that if we keep on that so I appreciate that that that is very I appreciate you bringing that up um because there are times when we do seem to go back and forth and talk over one another and uh that's we really have to be mindful that people are listening to us and this is about the kids and that's we're all here to do the best job that we can so um and I know I said that right after there was a lot of informal conversation that nothing to do with I was going to say it way before I like I like the the banter back and forth I think that that part's good uh for the board in general my other question was and this is something that I brought up when I got on the board Mr ralis has mentioned as well and Butch has uh brought up as well to is we we've all had this different views not different views same views of a grant Rider and whether that has ever been been put forth you know forcefully or not whether we really took that step I know we looked at different routes and we've talked about different things but is that I mean just to get it out in the open and clear is that something that is going to be actually useful do our departments already handle that or is it something that maybe there are opportunities as we've alluded to on this side of the table so far U that we are are potentially missing out on yeah we um I think you actually made the motion last board and so we actually have a grant writer position approved we posted that a couple years ago the only applicants we had were teachers and we didn't want to pull teachers in the middle of the year so we'll post it again and see what type of Interest we get um our HR department has a lot further reach than we did that last time that's okay wonderful um I know that we also use a third party what I know I started keeping up with it a little bit we haven't had as much success there as we would like a lot of them are still out there as far as our applications um but it's been very small amount is it because we were focusing on um I mean at the time the directive was to look for things for bad meal debt capital projects and there was a third one is it because of what we were looking for that we were getting small capital projects are hard yeah so maybe we need to sh change the scope and add things that are bigger like a bigger fish and what are those and that's where we can tax you guys to help us identify the areas that are more critical and then that we can focus on that because I think we it was more led by the board on what the areas were so maybe we just need to pass it on your court and to tell us what are the critical areas to go for the bigger fishes and maybe we have better luck in that in that sense I think we're also in a better position teaching wise than we were two and a half years ago that if it is a teacher that has a great writing background that we feel more confident now to pull somebody than we did two and a half years ago how many teachers I know personally the one that is a grant writer at Riverdale how many do we have in the district do you know that me no CL okay I know two and a half years ago at that point we were struggling to fill classrooms and rebuild so we're in a lot better spot now okay is anything else a huge shout out to our schools for spoiling us um today and every day really um it's hard to walk back there sometimes I end up feeling really guilty about it but you guys really do spoil us and it's very much appreciated yes it is thank you very much thank you so much thank you that's awesome anything else move to approve you're Jed