WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=yUa5UTctysE

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: yUa5UTctysE):
- 00:00:00: Moment of Silence, Pledge, and Greg King Remembrance
- 00:02:15: Discussion on Funding for Astroturf Replacement Policy
- 00:07:45: Recognizing Rutherford County Schools' Perfect ACT Students
- 00:15:13: Kyle Carter's Central Magnet School Thesis Presentation Introduction
- 00:15:54: What if we are wrong about phones? Thesis start.
- 00:28:48: Board Member Comments and Kyle's Presentation Recap
- 00:30:08: Disconnect Between Students and the Board Addressed
- 00:31:28: Lunch and Study Halls Open for Cell Phone Use?
- 00:34:40: Cell Phones as Incentives and Addressing Teacher Complaints
- 00:37:02: Rutherford Prep Charter School Application Committee Review
- 00:38:02: Charter School Purposes and Authorizer Responsibilities
- 00:43:27: Rutherford Prep Charter School Application Summary
- 00:47:16: Clarification on Enrollment Numbers and School Comparison
- 00:48:20: Review Committee Recommends Denial of Rutherford Prep Application
- 00:49:58: Section One Concerns and Questions from Review Committee
- 00:51:54: Community Support Survey Results: Charter School Approval
- 00:54:56: Section One Strengths: Instructional Plan and College Readiness
- 00:57:40: Section Two Concerns: Governing Board and Site Security
- 00:58:47: Section Two Strengths: Organizational Structure and Support
- 01:00:11: Section Three Concerns: Budget and Finance Deficiencies
- 01:02:51: Staffing levels and Contingency Model Discussion
- 01:06:59: Existing Building Capacity, Nurse Availability and Commission Status
- 01:08:21: Chart Discussions and Building Capacity
- 01:10:57: Concerns about Enrollment Targets and Budget Projections
- 01:13:07: State Budgetary Guidance, Isolating Funds and County Commissioners
- 01:14:58: Rutherford and Eagleville: Projected Predictions
- 01:15:59: Updated Financial Reports and Debt Load Concerns
- 01:17:55: Budget's Revenue and Expenses
- 01:18:11: Section Three Strengths and Additional Information
- 01:19:18: Section Four Concerns: Existing Charter School Performance
- 01:22:05: Reviewing Annual Authorizer Report Data for Existing Schools
- 01:27:39: Review Findings and Analysis of Review Committee
- 01:30:27: Rutherford and NEI Score and Rating Progress
- 01:31:14: Section Four Strength-Leadership patterns with NEI
- 01:32:04: Denial Recommendation and Concerns about Debt-Load 
- 01:33:13: Committee Thoughts
- 01:35:06: Decision for Approve or Deny and Quality Requirements
- 01:36:13: Capacity Interview Discussion and Financial Ratio Concerns
- 01:38:50: Suspending Rules and Allowing the NEI to Address Board
- 01:39:27: NEI Finance Person explains debt
- 01:40:47: Private Lending Commitments and Financial Turnaround at KA
- 01:42:06: Nashville Collegiate Prep
- 01:44:00: Building Cost Per Student Calculations and Facility Features
- 01:47:29: Board member recognition of Facility Site
- 01:48:51: Additional Financial Discussion 
- 01:50:36: New Enrollment Projections Clarification
- 01:53:35: 765 Population and Enrollment History Discussions
- 01:57:34: Human Resources: Athletic Director Job Description Update
- 01:59:30: District Textbook and Material Supervisor Update
- 02:01:04: Future Changes in Classification in coming year
- 02:03:35: Wired Human curriculum updates
- 02:04:58: Staff and Hard working member shoutout
- 02:05:31: Transfer Student Approval and Denials
- 02:06:02: McFaden Property Demolition Request
- 02:07:06: Highlights to Next year
- 02:16:29: Simon Springs discussion
- 02:23:40: Montaharing and the curriculum
- 02:26:57: Miscellaneous comments and discussions


Part: 1

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the meeting with a brief moment of silence or prayer and the pledge of allegiance to the United States flag. No one is required to participate or be present for any of these and being in this portion of the meeting is completely voluntary.

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Tonight's um prayer and pledge will be led by Mr. Stan Bot. >> Miss Maxwell. >> Yes. >> For Mr. B, I'd like for us to remember the family of Greg King. He's uh been a SRO for brother county for a long time.

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Very special young man. Um his brother Joey King was my SRO at Oakland and uh I don't see any way could ever get any better than what Joey was. And Greg was the same type of guy. So I

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just like to remember his family. head. Um, just remember him in this tonight. >> Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. >> I think that's very appropriate. He's a good fellow. Uh, please join with me in a moment of silence, personal

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reflection, or silent prayer. Dear heavenly father, we ask that you hear our prayers, that you know our concerns. We ask for patience, understanding, and wisdom. But most of all, please grant us peace in the next two weeks. I think we all need it. We

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ask all these in your most precious name. Amen. >> Amen. >> Amen. Ice to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God,

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indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. First up, I'll give everyone a moment to look over the approval of the agenda. Just take a look at it. See anything you want to question or add to?

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>> Oh, >> yes. Mr. Ba, >> this is kind of off the subject, but I'm going to ask this question or at least try to get the discussion started. It I was going through the supplements and all that kind of stuff with the coaches and everything that goes on. And I know

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most of those, if not all of those, are paid through each individual school through their operating funds or whatever. But it made me stop and ponder uh and this may be a Dr. Svin this may be your question or it may be a Brian question. Do any of the schools I know

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some of the improvements that each one of them have made over the years are on depreciatable items and and I guess first one that comes to mind is the astroturf that's been installed on different fields. Are we encouraging uh any of the schools to um as as my father

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and grandfather would say lay back some money for when those surfaces uh expire or wear out? What is there a policy that we've developed here over the years? There's not a policy other than the funding to replace is strictly on the

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schools and that was upfront when those were put in place was that that funding had to come from the schools and how they see fit to do that is >> up to them. Am I concerned about how that's going to come to fruition? I am. >> Uh I think the thought about putting it

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in policy is most of these are funded from outside boosters. They do run through our books, right? But >> we could definitely have that discussion. I don't know how we would Mr. Mr. Ronnie, anything you want to add to that? >> And and and not to put I know this is kind of off-wall, but it just you know,

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we're we're in the middle of budget season. We're going to come up this is a longterm uh problem. Could be a problem. >> Probably three or four years away from >> it could be. I just want to if if there's something we can encourage Yeah.

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>> different schools to do. as of right now. I mean, just knowing from some of the facility fees and things that they collect, most likely it's not being stored back to be able to pay for >> okay, >> deferred maintenance on these projects.

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So, um it is something that should be highly encouraged, I do believe, but as of right now, I'm going to guess that the majority of the schools do not have the funding to pay for these large amount of projects. There's something we we something we probably need to

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encourage them. I'm not Mr. B. You got a 10y year lifespan on these surfaces and it takes a million right now probably to put them on and by the end of 10 years. The cost wouldn't surprise me if it didn't double, right? And I think that's

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what was in the back of my mind. I'm all for these coaches getting supplements. That's not what I'm talking about here. But I I know we I know human nature is this way that if you see a great big pile of money somewhere, it's easy to

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Yes, that's okay. Let's spend it on that. I don't know if y'all's household runs like mine and Terry's does or not, but we, you know, every now and then, yeah, we'll we'll go do that. And then sure enough, soon as we spend that money, we wish we had it cuz the heat and air unit will go out or we got to have a roof on the house or something

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like that. So anyway, I I don't know. I'd like to have I don't want to dominate the meeting tonight on this, but at some point in time in the next 6 months, could we bring that put that on the agenda to get through? >> I think when we get through this budget year, maybe let's bring it up in August

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se July or some when we're a little slower. How about that? >> Sound great. I'll bring it up to we have a principal meeting, our monthly principal meetings on Wednesday. And so I'll bring it up to our high school principles to go ahead and start thinking about like what is I'm sure they all have a plan, but what is their plan? >> What is their plan? That's what I'd like

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to know. And and if they can learn, we can learn what the plan is. If they can help each other with what their plans are, it may keep us from having a stumbling block four years, 10 years down the road. Thank y'all. >> Yeah, that's very good. I was actually told that the booster clubs were putting

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back money, but I haven't seen anything in writing, so that's a good good point. Well, you know, if >> if it cost $2 million in 10 years, you know that they need to be putting up $200,000 each year sitting back. >> Yes.

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>> And when you look at it from that standpoint, somebody better get on the stick cuz it be on it before you know it. >> Mr. Tidwell. >> Yeah. Dr. Sullivan, can you give us an idea what that's going to cost? I mean, we're speculating here, but you said first one's coming up four years from now. Is that Blackman?

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>> Roughly should be. they were the first one and that's just totally a guesstimate. I haven't gone I haven't had a um just a check to see how worn out theirs is. Um I know that they were 10 years is their life cycle if they're not used other

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than for the sports they have the school. But one of the great things for us is that we allow community use and so that's definitely going to lessen the lifespan a little bit. But I'll have to get um from each school kind of where they're thinking life cycle wise. That'll be part I can add that to our principal meeting agenda.

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>> Thank you. Moving on to the consent agenda. Is there anything else that you'd like to bring up, take a look at, add to >> Okay, next moving on, we uh don't have any

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speakers tonight, but we do have um the RCS difference ACT recognition. We have several and we just have them under speakers. It really should be under the RCS difference, but since we have a presentation to the board and then charter school information, we put

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it under speakers so that the students didn't have to stay here for 45 minutes instead. Or they're more than welcome to stay here if they want to. But um Dr. Martin's going to lead us in recognizing our perfect school ACT students. >> Good evening. So, I'm honored to talk to

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you tonight about some of our most accomplished high school academic students. So, as an elementary principal, there is nothing like the very first day of school and watching a 5-year-old in their first day of school as a kindergartener. As a high school

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administrator, I can tell you there's nothing like the last day of school and watching those 12th graders walk across that stage. Trying not to get sentimental. got one this year. Watch them walk across the stage after 13

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years of hard work. And as an 18-year-old, when you've invested 13 years of your life, that is more than all of your life almost. And that's everything that they remember from being that kindergartener to there. Um, and so

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it is just such an honor to recognize these students tonight. In Rutherford County, we have 21 perfect ACT 36 scores. That is a composite. That's not just for one section of the test, but is

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that that's the entire test in its whole. These students, after talking to them, um some of them did this on their first time, some of them took it three or four times. Um, no matter what, it took um, perseverance, determination,

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and lots of grit and preparation the past 13 years to get to this test. Um, I always explain it to parents. This is the Super Bowl for these students. And so, we are so honored that we get to recognize them tonight. So, they will be recognized at their schools and their

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individual graduations as well. Um, but we wanted to give them just a little something from the board to recognize their achievements. So, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. or Mr. Evans to say their names. Dr. Evans, >> doctorate of something for sure. Useless

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knowledge. Uh, so thank you Dr. Martin and Dr. Sullivan for asking me to do this. This is always great to be able to celebrate our students. Um, Dr. Martin has a senior graduating this year. She gets very weepy, so we won't bring that up. I have a junior who is right behind hers. I'm hoping he's on this list next

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year. So, uh, happy to do this. Uh, I hope that I can say all of these names as close as possible as to what they are, but, uh, I'm from a very small town that has a southern accent and so I screw things up. So, please bear with me. If I mispronounce your name, it's not intentional. I promise. Our first

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one is Jonathan Timothy Ryan Bell. I got that one. And this is and um Jonathan is from Central Magnet School as are the rest of these. I'll read the other schools when we get there. Van Doyle Breedlove,

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Ethan Andrew Bright, Win Mave Co, Evan Gibson, Elizabeth Joy Holesman, Jaden Clara Johnson, Yoy Kyong, Jim, Anna, Dada, Kundakula, All right. Grayson Lynn,

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Alistair Ross, McCarol, Jacob Gregory Priu, Austin Henry Shaffrap, Andrew Ryan Smith. I got that one. All right. Carson J. Strader, Aiden William Strickland, Rachel Lee Swikert,

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Karunia the Dutulla Benjamin Zang Zhao. Okay. And then from Eagleville School, David Harrison. And from Seagull High School, Isabella Jordan. If you guys would join me, we're going to go right out in the lobby here and do

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a photo for everyone that's here. Congratulations. I hope they're all going to MTSU. >> Hope a few are going to wear the orange and white. >> He was. >> He was. He was. >> I swear. >> Uh, so I wondered about the smile. And I

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am, while we're doing this, I am changing chairs. I'm not going to shrink the entire time. >> I started noticing as we were talking, I started noticing. I just kept going. I was like, this is going to feel awkward the entire I'm going to present the budget over here and just keep shrinking

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as the numbers go down. So, If if the public like to know what we do before the board meetings, we swap chairs. >> Switch chairs to see what Yeah. Well, that was me. >> Better get here early to get the goods. >> I was the last one in here. That's what happened. >> That's right. >> Next.

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>> Yes. >> Snooze, you lose. >> Yep. >> Next, we have Mr. Kyle Carter, who is here to present his thesis from Central Magnet School to our board. I was not there, young man, but I heard it was very impressive and I'm glad you could come and present to us tonight.

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>> Thank you so much for having me. Get him set up real quick. >> While he's getting set up, this is a very interesting topic that ought to be interest all every board member. So, it's going it's going to be really good.

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So, thanks for coming. you help us out making our decision. >> Well, thank you all for having me. Um, hopefully everything's interesting, but it's also kept factual. Um, I understand this is a pretty complex and definitely not controversial topic, but I try to be

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the sequel to other students who presented to the board at the very beginning trying to error on the more side of being factual and saying, well, this is what we thought would happen and this is what actually happened. I just asked the board if you remember two things from my whole presentation. Remember first the main idea that I'll get into a second and my three

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recommendations. Everything else it's filled with different personalities and different quotes. But those two things are the main idea. Like I said, our main idea is going to start out with what if we're wrong about phones? But I think everyone knows if I'm standing here, we are wrong about phones. So, that's more

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of a statement rather than a question because I don't think anyone could say all the way back in 2007 when we first had the first iPhone that we thought this was going to happen or we had AI because we just didn't know what was going to go with phones. Now, I don't

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say we're wrong as the board is wrong and I don't say we're wrong as the students are wrong and I definitely don't say we're wrong as the teachers were wrong. I mean, we as a county because we as a county are responsible for our students education and if we're wrong about phones, we as a county need

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to own up to it and try to fix it. Now, this is Tennessee state law and I'm not going to touch on it too much because state law is state law. However, this is Rutherford County policy and a couple different things I want to move on and speak about. First is the word stored at

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the very first line. There's going to be wireless communication devices. So long as such devices are stored and not in use, students may possess. Now the name of the game for laws and policies is killing vagueness because vagueness causes conflict. And I asked the board,

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if we say stored, what do we mean by stored? Do we mean in our in our pockets, in our backpack? Do we mean on the desk? Do we mean in the desk? That kind of vagueness causes conflict between both teachers and students because we're looking at having two different interpretations and having every teacher with their interpretation,

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which then causes issues down the road. Moving on, I'm not used to one numbers. I'm not one to use numbers, but the biggest one I want to say is 14%. And you're looking at me probably like, why did he just put 14%. But 14% is how many students are satisfied with our school's

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phone policy. You may ask why that is so low. And I say that fageness causes conflict and that conflict comes in statistics. Now these are not questions that I pulled straight out of thin air. This is from the Stanford tax program that's called toolkit for assessing

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schools that was created by Dr. Jonathan height the same person who made the laws based off of research that our policy reflects. Now Mr. Height said that policy was going to have overreach because policy is not oneizefits-all. What happens in Nashville is not going

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to happen in Rutherford. What happens in Rutherford is not going to happen in Knoxville. We can't have a blanket policy because it doesn't work. So, we created joint with Stanford and NYU Stern the toolkit for assessing schools. And essentially that asked questions that we're able to use every single year

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to better our phone policies so we can better our students. And that study really found that implementation was our killer. It wasn't necessarily the phone ban itself because phone bands are good. They drive upgrades and they drive down

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inefficiency. However, there's some caveats to that. This is what general good implementation should look like. You have your wear, your what, and your stages. Where is obviously in Rutherford County schools and what can be a couple different things. You could have a policy like the phone ban and then you

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can have a policy like the metal detectors. those metal detectors that we started both in the same year at the same time. On top of that, Rutherford County policy implementation is kind of like driving a car. And this is a Rutherford County student driving his very first car. Normally, just like driving a car, and with good

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implementation, everything's good. Everyone's happy, and we all know where we're going with one good direction. Now, that's only because we started, we set our goals, and then we eased into it. We went from 0 to 60. Now compare that to what normal policy implementation with the phones look

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like. We went 0 to 100 at the very first day and then changed past three times. I can count no less than three times we change policy on personal devices the first day of its implementation. What that causes is chaos for students and teachers and admin alike. Why? Because

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poor implementation leads to students not understanding the most recent updates in policy. because that recent update happened in an email that they never saw 15 minutes ago. Now, what does that chaos cause? That causes students to perceive staff and other Rutherford

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County employees enforcing a school cell phone policy unfairly. I said I'm not one for statistics, but another number I'd love for you to look at is 20.5 20.5%. That is how many percentage of students say 0% or never is a policy implemented

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correctly by Rutherford County employees. Compare that to what Rutherford County employees believe they are enforcing their policy fairly. You see 40% say they're almost 70% complacent in allowing for a fair policy. Now that's not just a statistic that has no

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correlation because we were vague and because we had poor implementation from the start. We have teachers and students who both believe they have two different uses of a policy and two different interpretation that further causes conflict and has so many students being written up purely because implementation

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was poor. Now, these are a couple different challenges that teachers face while they are implementing and enforcing the phone policy. First off, we have students in the hallway that they don't know their names, which is a common thread between many teachers. We have so many students in Rutherford County, we can't put names to faces

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quick enough. Now, the next one I want you to look at is knowing whether or not it's been approved to use for educational purposes. I had a couple different teachers come to me and say, "We don't know what's approved and what's not approved." And I actually suggested a spreadsheet by school that admin approves. And lastly, the keywords

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I want you to look at is at the very bottom where it says students fell in line easily after that. It's coming from a teacher. The only other time I've heard that is coming from a prison where a prison warden says prisoners fall in line. But our teachers are educators. We shouldn't be using that kind of language

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when we're talking about our students. We should be building up and educating them, not policing them. Because a byproduct of policing students leads to quotes like this, where a student had to call their mom because they were sick, but the front office wouldn't let them because they didn't believe that student

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needed to call. Well, I'd argue managing student health is both in Rutherford County policy and in Tennessee state law. However, because of poor implementation, both student, teacher, and office staff didn't understand that that student should have been allowed to use their phone or personal device to contact

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their parent. That hurts students and then causes that next student who's sick to say, "Well, my teachers and staff members aren't going to let me call my parents. I should just break policy, causing more conflict." Like I said though, this is not all bad. I agree with the phone ban. Some classes

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are less inefficient. It's only causing lack of communication. Grades are going up, like I said, and teachers are reporting that there's less phone related behavior. There's less phone related issues, and there's just less phones in general. People are talking to

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each other. One other thing teachers were saying is they had a lack of positive admin interactions with staff after this phone ban went into place because of how much conflict was being created between both admins and teachers because now teachers are on edge. They're going to get caught and punished for students being on their phones.

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Compare and contrast that with what admin is saying. They say they helped with personal interactions. However, teachers directly contradict that. And lastly, admin is saying that state policy is very pleasing. While I would agree that many agree with the policy,

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I'd argue that even admin doesn't know that it's not state policy. It's state law which dictates a policy. State law only dictated that a board must create a policy. It did not dictate that students may not use their phones. It's a clear misrepresentation and miscommunication

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that leads to more conflict. Another miscommunication that can be found especially in social media is actually from our own board members that are posting saying only phones have been banned bell to bell. Now I pulled this in March. However, this same comment is

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in March when we started in August with this. Now, if we have schoolboard members not understanding that personal devices that have a wireless communication are banned, we can't expect admin and teachers to do so as well. But on top of that, if we don't have admin and teachers following what

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policy Rutherford County puts forth, we will have students who don't follow policy as well. I was sent a couple different anonymous pictures after my thesis. A couple of which with teachers with 30-inute phone calls or admin and principles at other schools posting

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students on their Tik Tok pages with the caption, "Hope your day gets better. Shut the f up." in reference to their student getting expelled. Those same pictures are currently live and they're actually on reels on multiple different places. I had one student and it's a direct quote is saying teachers who

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don't have their phones out during class but for emergencies are teachers who don't have conflict in their classroom. Why? Because if they follow it, students are going to follow it more of the time. But if you have teachers posting and you have teachers on their cell phones, you're going to have students say,

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"Well, if that teacher admins not following my policy, what are we going to do?" Because those same teachers in black who are upset with a student in yellow using their phone are probably the same teachers hiding their phones behind their clipboard and they're using it in their off time.

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Further, there's a couple different posts from different substitutes and teachers who are saying mixed reviews, saying that policies are hard to enforce like this, and they're saying that they don't have these issues. Now, I understand it's state law, but there is a couple different things we can do because we can always adjust a policy to

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be more compliance with state law. Currently, Rutherford County policy is more strict than state law mandates. State law requires during instructional time, Rutherford County policy dictates bell-to-bell. Now I end this and I wanted like I said to dedicate about a third of my presentation to what do we

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do because this was not meant to be a argument of saying everything is wrong. It's well here's some issues. Here's how we fix it. So I structured and told the people I was presenting to to draw a line through their paper if they're taking notes. Why? Because that blank space under the line means we need to draw a new slate. We need to act like

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this policy was never in place and implement it again next year. And what we're going to do to fix the issues that we have is a tiered system. Everything can be given right here right now and everything can be implemented starting Thursday.

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So for a first, we have office spaces designated as emergency contact zones. The board already pays for a pass system that every student uses on their computers. Why not add a section at the office, no questions asked, where students can be tracked how much time

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they're using by day to use their phone to text or call for emergency purposes. Emergencies don't normally take more than 5 minutes. And if we have that, then we have less students getting written up for responding to their parents or works emergencies. Second,

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allowing students to have their phones during lunches and study halls is a common threat, especially in Wilson County and Williamson County. This is something they did. Why? Because just like a job, students are allowed to have breaks. Just like Rutherford County employees able to have their planning period and their lunch, they're allowed

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to use their phones during that time and any personal devices in the same way. Why are we treating students as if they don't have a job, which is school, and we're controlling what they do when they're supposed to be a talking to their friends or b studying on their own. If a student wants to listen to music during non-instructional time

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being study hall, I don't feel and the facts dictate that students should be allowed to use their phones, their music, their personal devices. And lastly, most importantly, we need to create a feedback loop. Just like I started with this presentation all the way back in August, we need to create a

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feedback loop for students. If we're going to start with a blank slate, we need to ensure that we're able to come back next year and say, "This is what worked and this is what didn't work." Because the main goal about a policy is not unplugging Rutherford. It's plugging in Rutherford to technology. It's plugging them into the real world and

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it's plugging them into being functioning members. And with that, I want to thank everyone for meeting me with my presentation. I'd love to answer any questions everybody has. >> Yes, Mr. Charles. >> Thank you. Um, thank you so much. Um, we were actually invited to attend your uh

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presentation at Central High School and Mr. Vot and I we were there um and we were very highly impressed and pleased with your presentation. So thank you for coming. Um one thing that I said there in front of the students I will say here is that um I know many have not

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participated with scope but scope is a really good conference um to attend and see kind of the action happening when students are actually trying to implement policy. So going through that and hearing your presentation has made

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me want to say and um look into why not create that what you're talking about the feedback uh tool some sort of where we allow our students um provide feedback of when it comes to policies that we're thinking about um implementing

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um whatever wherever they are on the stage but I think it it'll be I think it behooves us if we have some sort of method where our students can speak into and provide feedback about policies or maybe there is a policy that they think

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that we should have that we didn't think about whatever idea um that they can get involved in in that process a little bit. >> Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, Mr. Vaude. >> I'll make I'll make this comment and I told Kyle this when we were over at

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Central that I didn't ask him to come and I appreciate y'all allowing him to speak before us. I thought it was a very articulate argument or presentation. It was very thoughtful. Uh, and it being his senior thesis, I thought, well, what

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better people to present it to than us. I I didn't ask him to come here to rehash all this cuz I know it was tough on all us, not to burn Dr. Sullivan or the staff or anybody you know what we did but it gave me pause after I left there and this was the best thing that

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came out for me Kyle is it made me understand as a board member there is a disconnect between us and the students we serve and sometimes that needs to be you know I'm I know we're the adult in the room right you know we have to make

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those decisions but I think if we had uh maybe different information or better information sometimes it it might be a different outcome or the policy might be different. And the final thought was I told Kyle I said when he runs for US senator I'm I'm in I'm he's he very

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articulate. I want I'd send him to Washington represent me right now. Anyway, Kyle, thank you for doing this and thank the board for allowing him. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Miss Max. >> Yeah. Kyle, I got a question for you. You said in lunch and study halls. Thank

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you for coming first off. Yeah, it's challenging to come here and speak for a board and put your presentation out that especially when there's differing opinions on it. So, appreciate you coming up. Um, but you said lunch and study halls should be open for cell phone use and you said the facts dictate

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that. What facts dictate that? So actually um I emailed my thesis to all of you which uses a liyker scale which measures student well-being and essentially students are continuously saying that yes they're talking to their friends more often but they're also not getting communications from their

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outside friends at other schools their parents and their other co-workers. And for those students that maybe their family relies on that income stream that they provide their bosses aren't able to get a hold of them. And lunches being at the very midpoint of the day provides a area for students to be able to check

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their phone, look at what their boss says or what their mom says and also connect with those students that are at another school which then includes and improves social well-being. >> Do you think the overall benefit outweighs some of the harm that goes along with that? Because as you mentioned there was academic

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performances upgrade uh relationships have gotten better. So in your studying, you mentioned that as being a positive and of course there's always going to be some negatives as well. So which one do you think outweighs the other? >> I think student wellbeing outweighs test scores. Um I think if we are increasing

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test scores but having students not having a good mental and social life, they're not going to be prepared for the real world because you can have just like we had perfect 36 at ACTs. But if you're not able to speak to people and communicate via cell and face to face of course, but if you're not able to

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communicate and you're being told 247 what to do and not have a space to express yourself, you're not going to be successful in the real world. >> I think it's interesting. Look, and I I'm not pushing back at you directly. It's just an interesting topic to talk about. U just because the facetoface interaction, that social part of

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relationship building is probably to me has a lot more weight than even the the contact we see like on social media and stuff. people say stuff on there they wouldn't say face to face because of the difference in relationship. So I think that's if if you see the I'm going to say the millennials past a lot of us

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look at the generation below that didn't grow up straight with cell phones the whole time and we think that there's a disconnect between that relationship building. Um so it's just an interesting back and forth between a student's perspective and the board's perspective. I enjoyed the presentation. Um, I think

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one thing that you did mention that I fully agree with 100% is implement implementation is key. If it's not implemented, then it doesn't matter. If one teacher's doing it one way, another teacher's doing it another way and the policy says that it's to be done this

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way, then that looks very unfair, especially for students that happen to land in a class that is getting a little more freedom than one that's, you know, a little bit stricter. So, I think that's something very important to to look at. Um, you're I got your three points marked down here. So, we'll look

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at those as we move forward. Uh, but some interesting ideas and thoughts. I just wanted to push back a little bit. >> Perfect. >> Dr. Svin. >> Yes. I have a question for you. Thank you. Um, thank you so much. Um, seeing this, um, presentation has made me got

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my wheels turning a little bit. Um, do you think that we could is don't have to answer now. Something that you can think about. Um, do you think that we could look into using the cell phone as an incentive? For example, let's say that

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the class in elementary school did very they hit some kind of goal and because they hit a goal, they can have a a time where they can be on the phone or something like that. like could we look into is that something that we can look into in looking at um the beha the cell

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phones being used as incentive for hitting some kind of goal for each school for each grade because it'll be different for middle and high school >> be different for each grade and I'd like to talk to our principles because they'd be the ones most impacted by anything like that >> and of course it'd be up to the board to change our >> absolutely >> policies as well. I know that student

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perspective may not love it from a teacher and admin perspective. I think we've >> we've enjoyed it. I hate to say enjoy cuz we expected it to go >> south and we've >> been much more successful than we anticipated. >> Yeah. And and I will be honest um and I

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appreciate the the the feedback, but um I had a lot of teachers called and complained before the cell phone usage of the the the battle that they were experiencing in the side of the classroom because the students were too glued to the phone and not really

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wanting to pay attention. And um and I'm not I don't want to speak other issues that were resulted out of that. So that kind of eliminated all of that all of those issues have been gone. Um but at the same time hearing the students and

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and seeing that you know it it is it was it's too it's strict sometimes when you're like I don't know maybe if we can have some flexibility in looking to >> we do like during pep rallies and that different types of things we do allow them to have them >> during. Yeah we do allow that already.

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>> Okay great. I didn't know you allow them doing pep rallies and things like that. So there is some little bit of a wiggle room there. Yes. >> Okay. >> Y >> any other comments or questions? >> Thank you very much, young man. Very impressive. >> Moving on, Dr. McCann and Mrs. Walters

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are presenting the Rutherford Prep Charter School Application Committee Review. >> Dr. McCann, welcome to what always happens to me when I go over the budget. Everybody leaves. >> Personally, >> I don't blame them.

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Everybody leaves. >> They did. It always happens to me about budget, so I'm glad it's not me. >> Well, I appreciate them supporting their fellow students. Agree. >> By the way, thank you guys for coming tonight.

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Okay. Um, thanks for your time this evening and forgive me if my voice gets a little froggy. I'm kind of getting over a little bit of sickness here, but I think I'm on the tail end there. But I'd stand up here in a mask, but you probably would have trouble understanding me if I did that. So, um, but, um, before we get into the review

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of the application, I do think it's important, um, that we touch base on a few, um, charter school 101 principles. I know you've all been trained in my charter school 101. Nobody's new on the board this year, but the state does require as a part of our annual evaluation that we do train the board

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members each year. So, I think it's just important that we touch base on on the key elements in in what it means to be a charter school authorizer. Okay. So, if you'll oblige me just for a minute, we're going to run through a couple of these uh reminders. First of all, remember the state has identified six

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purposes um for charter schools. Um and I think the keys for us, I'm going to point out a couple of them that and the first two I think are key draws for our parents um and and families in our district. Numbers two and six. Um number two, that we provide options for parents

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to meet educational needs of their students. and we afford parents substantial meaningful opportunities to participate in the education of their children. So, parent and family involvement is a key draw. From what I'm finding out from talking to parents of kids that go to charter schools, um this

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is a big deal for them. The additional options that they have, okay, and that we're providing them. A key concerns for us as an authorizer to monitor I think are numbers one and four uh which kind of speak to making sure that we're monitoring the performance of the

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charter school so that they a are helping to close those achievement gaps for our students um and measuring their performance of not only the kids but also the faculty um and the organization to ensure that those kids are have the opportunity to reach proficiency on

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those state assessments. Those are key draws for us of those six purposes for charter schools. And just a reminder, the three things that a quality authorizer really has to do is first of all maintain high standards but attainable standards for both our applicants and the schools that we

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monitor and we do that by using our performance standards framework. Um it's also important that we uphold the school autonomy and give them the freedom that they need uh to operate how they wish to. but yet hold them accountable for

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the outcomes, not the processes. And by that I mean we have to not assume direct responsibility for the success or failure of individual schools, but we have to hold them accountable for those outcomes. Okay. And then lastly, to protect student and public interest.

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They are using public funds. We have to make sure they're doing that properly. Hold schools accountable for their ethical conduct and compliance with all applicable laws. And your own board policy 1.9 says that for applicants they must present a clear

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and compelling mission, quality educational program, demonstration of community support, solvent and sustainable budget and contingency financial plans. a clear demonstration of the effectiveness of the model for the target student population, effective

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governance and management structures and systems and founding team members demonstrating diverse and necessary capabilities at all phases of the school operation. And then lastly, and this is an important one, clear evidence of the applicant's capacity to execute its plan successfully. Okay, just a reminder of

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where we are in the timeline. We're at that third box. We got the letter of intent uh was submitted by the applicant on time and their application on time. We're at the point where we need to vote. We have 90 days upon receipt of that application. And that 90 days are

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up May the 1st. Actually, I think it's May the 2nd, but that's a Saturday. So, theoretically, we could say Monday, May the 4th, but I backed it up to May the 1st just to make sure we get it in, get that vote taken on time. And this is your last meeting before that, unless you or Thursday is your last meeting

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before that. So, unless you wanted to call a special um meeting to vote, you'll need to vote on Thursday. Okay? And remember um if it's approved, if you approve it this Thursday, we move right into the negotiation phase to develop an agreement with the applicant. If not, if

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you choose to deny it in this goround, they can submit a amended application within 30 days, and we've been through that in in the past years. You know how that works. and then we have 60 more days to review it and then you'll take another vote and if you deny it again

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then they can appeal to the commission but again if you approve it we go right into the negotiation phase. Okay. And then here's our specific timeline of what what the committee did. Um this year we've been through several meetings and trainings and they all submitted rubrics to me both before the capacity

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interview and after the capacity interview that they revised based on the responses we got. Um, as a part of that, um, I will say this that, um, the applicant did a fantastic job of providing updates on things that we asked for at the capacity interview. They got us everything we asked for. Um,

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so they almost have submitted an amended um, application just through that natural process. Okay. But and we had a nice long capacity interview with them. I think it was two and a half hours, wasn't it? So um, but but it was great. It was a it was a it was a good

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interaction. Okay. All right. So, we're presenting the board our present to you our report to you tonight and and again, you'll need to vote hopefully on Thursday. Okay. So, that's where we stand. So, let's get right into the review of the actual application.

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And I and I will start out by saying that um probably and um I have to say this is one of the more thorough complete applications that I think I have have have reviewed um since I've been in this position. Okay. But so let's talk through the initial

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application for for Rutherford Prep. Uh first of all, just a reminder of who the members of the review team were. You'll notice that there are two principles. There are two parent community members that are on there. Uh Miss Rosales again served as our faithful board member representative on the on on the

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committee. Um and you have multiple central office staff with various areas of expertise not only in accounting uh or federal programs. um facilities and operations, but also curriculum as well. A strong committee. I will say this um

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and I think you remember this, but just to just to remind you, we did have one parent who was chosen in the initial lottery of the parent volunteers that we got um who ended up having a conflict of interest because he actually used to work for the organization. So, we we determined that he should not serve on

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the on the committee and we replaced him with Dr. Ogan who turned who really got up to speed quickly and gave a lot of great feedback. Okay. So we received one application this year from Ruford Prep Charter School um

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governed by a group called Rethink Forward. Okay. Um that is their sponsor. Rethink Forward is their sponsor and they have engaged with Noble Education Initiative to serve as the charter management organization. This is a group that oversees the operations of the

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school. Okay. the proposed location. They're looking um in an area similar to where Rutherford Collegiate Prep is located. They'd like to get close to that so they can share some services, maybe cut down on some costs. Um but they have identified four locations that are possible in the Blackman area in

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that zip code of 37129. Okay. Number of schools currently in operation. There are two um Ruford Collegiate Prep, Nashville Collegiate Prep, and NEI also manages Knowledge Academy at the crossings um in MNPS. Although that's a different governing board. They share

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the same board chairman, James Bristol, but um it's a different governing board between those two. Okay, so here's their mission statement. And basically, I'm not going to read it all to you. I know you've received this application. You've received this

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recommendation from us. Um we're just going to try to give you the highlights tonight in a more condensed version. But basically, they're aiming to provide a personalized, engaging, and challenging learning community. They employ the community instructional model, which you may think of that more in terms of a

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open classroom model where the um the grade level shares a large common space um for for whole group instruction. All the classes in that grade level, but then those rooms are easily dividable with partitions. This is the way they build their facilities where they can break out into small groups, smaller

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units, do some intervention, do some enrichment, um or just work in small groups together. And that's how that's their that's their model for instruction for the in in a nutshell. Okay, here's what their proposed enrollment looks like. Um year one, they hope to

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open with 765 kids um expanding the grades of K6 and 9th. Um, and then they're going to add a grade seventh and 10th the following year. Um, and then they'll add 11th. Finally, they'll get to where they are K12 in year four, but

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their full enrollment won't hit till year five with this uh,565. Just as a point of comparison, Ruford Collegiate Prep, the other school that that they govern in our district, um, right now has 409 students. They're

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projecting 600 for next year. their full capacity um according to their original application um says 770 students at their and they're just K8. Okay. >> So, >> Maxwell, >> yes. >> I'm sorry. Can I ask a question about

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that >> on this particular U graph here? So, is the 765 is that cumulative including the the school that's currently already in operation? >> No, this is this is a separate school that we're talking about. This does not

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include Ruford Collegiate Prep if that's what you're asking. >> And they're proposing Yes, that's what I'm asking. They're proposing opening with 700 I'm trying to see if I read that right. 6 765 students their opening year. >> They are that's what they're proposing to if if they hit their if they hit their targets in year one. >> Okay.

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>> This is what they hope to do. >> Okay. >> Okay. And I'll let Miss Walters talk to you a little bit about the overall summary. I'm going to go over the summary of the valuation that the um the committee used. We use a rubric that has four

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sections to go ahead and do the initial uh recommendation for the application. Uh the four sections, the rating for all four sections must meet the standards of the rubric in order for the application to be recommended for approval. Um as you can see in the table, there are four

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sections. Um and then we give a rating for each of them. The first is educational program design and capacity and uh the review committee rated that as meets standards. Uh second is the operations design and capacity which uh the committee rated as also meets the

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standards. The third section is the budget and finance which we gave a rating of partially meets standards. And then the fourth section is the agenda uh attachments A through C which we rated also as partially meet standards. um

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primarily for attachment A which uh gave a relationship between the proposed uh charter school of Rutherford Prep and uh comparisons to other schools that are in the in the same network of as that. Um so ultimately the review committee recommends the denial of the initial

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application of Rutherford Prep based on uh the application failing to meet uh the standards of the rubric in two of the areas of budget and finance and the attachments and agenda. Um we're going to go through each section, all four sections, and talk about um some

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strengths and some um concerns that we had for each section that ultimately uh led to the rating of each of these. We'll start off with section one, educational program design and capacity, looking at the concerns and questions that the review committee had.

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The first was the ready reading curriculum that the charter intends using is not align with Tennessee state standards uh K through 8. Also, uh while the community instruction model that Dr. McCann um went over that

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the that the charter uses is unique and innovative, uh current levels of uh performance call into question its true effectiveness. There was a disconnect between what was stated and observed practices uh due to uh using our uh due

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diligence conducted by the committee. After talk talking with the charter commission, which is the authorizer of the president or present Rutherford Collegiate Prep, um they stated that during their annual site visit, that they noticed that uh those classrooms

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that have that grade band all in one big area, um they weren't necessarily using those partitions uh for small groups, uh different differentiated instruction. Um and they saw students primarily on devices at that time. and that was

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throughout different grade bands. Um it needs to be noted that when uh we as a charter committee went to the school to observe that is not primarily what we saw. We saw the the partitions being used the small groups happening. Um but I think it needs to be stated that when

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they had their annual site visit uh the charter commission was seeing something something different. Uh I also do want to remind you that in this section section one the review committee did give an overall rating as or rating as meets the standards.

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Also a lack of community engagement in the development of the plan. Um it was stated that there was not a lot of community outreach to see whether uh they were in proposal of a development plan of a new charter school.

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uh we as a review committee uh went ahead and compiled a survey that was sent out on school messenger on uh February 11th and was open until March 31st. Uh we asked the community to go ahead and give us some feedback on their

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support or demand for a ch the new charter school in the area. There were 355 uh responses to that. Question three states, "Do you fully support the approval of a new charter school application submitted by Rutherford Prep?" Out of those 355 responses, uh

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298 responded that they were not in support um of a of the new uh charter school application for Rutherford Prep and 57 stated that they were in support of it. We went ahead and looked at um

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the answers from the survey and we compiled uh some narrative to go along with that. Why people were in support and why they were not. Um looking at the pros there were 20 responses that people felt that it gave more educational

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options and a school choice for the community which is the whole purpose of charter schools. Uh six responses stated that charter schools have a back better academic outcome. Five responses uh agreed with that school model that

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community instruction model that the school intends to have and three responses uh believe that traditional Rutherford County schools were overcrowded and that will alleviate some of that. Looking at the cons, um there were 154 responses feeling that funding

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and resources were being taken away from our traditional Rutherford County schools. 64 responded that uh they felt there were low academics in the school and the current school is failing and they had reservations about NEI as a corporation as a whole.

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27 responses uh regarding they felt there was maybe lack of oversight and accountability um for the charter school and then 23 responding that they worried about staff standards teacher retain retaining teachers uh standards for

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teachers and then 15 uh stated that they felt it was more of a money maker that divides our community rather than bringing it together. >> Miss Maxwell. >> Yes, sir. Just ask a question about the survey real quick. >> Um, >> how do you when you say you've asked the

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community, what does that look like? You reach out to like black men parents. >> It's a school messenger survey. >> Okay. So, these are students >> Rutherford County >> that are already in the public schools here, traditional schools. >> And then it was put on our website, too. So, anyone could go to Rutherford County, click on the link, and be able

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to take the survey >> and do it from there. Okay. Great. I was just curious. >> Any other questions? >> Nope. We're going good. We're here. Okay. So, um I will say this. You'll notice that we did reate section one as meets the standards because the committee felt like the strengths of the

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application outweighed the concerns and questions. Let's talk about what those strengths are. Um, first of all, their instructional plan is rooted in evidence-based, proven strategies from researchers like John Hattie, um, Robert Marzano, Carol Dwek, all folks that are

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recognized in the educational world as having um, extensive knowledge of what works well in schools and and and they refer to those strategies throughout their application. We also felt like their 9 through 12 offerings uh did um provide an extensive

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college and career readiness program, many options for kids. They are a Cambridge model school. They offer multiple career pathways for their high school kids, multiple honors classes, and multiple AP courses. We love their daily schedule because it

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reflects a commitment to providing support to all levels of learner. They intentionally schedule two blocks in their day. One is called a success block. Um this is where they can focus on some tier one type interventions, some enrichment, small groups,

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differentiated instruction, but they also have an RTI block built into their schedule where they can focus on providing those tier 2 and tier three type interventions that are required by the state RTI model. Um and they would be the first one of our charter schools that actually has that actually in their

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daily schedule. So, we were definitely fans of that. Uh, great. Uh, one thing I left out though is is their pupil teacher ratios. They're perfectly aligned with those state maximums. Uh, 20 to1 in lower grades, 25 to1 in the middle grades, upper grades, 30 to1. And they commit to

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having their CTE courses meet that mandated threshold of no more than 25 to1. Okay. So, let's go on to section two, the operations design and capacity, which we also rated as meets the standard. Yes, Mr. Vaughn, >> I got a question about in section one,

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you talked about the reading program that uh was not aligned with the state >> curricular model that um ready reading is is their is their reading program that they've adopted and it's not aligned with Tennessee K8 standards.

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>> That's a problem, man. Um, typically charter schools, um, oftentimes one of the waiverss they request is not to have to use state aligned materials and it would be up to us if we if we granted that waiver, but right now that's that's the program that

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they are calling for. >> So state lets them do by what they want what you say. Thank you. >> They're still mandated to teach state standards and they're still held accountable for assessments that are aligned with state standards regardless. Okay. So, let's go on to section two, operations, design, and capacity.

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>> Yes. And like Dr. McCann stated, uh the review committee uh rated this overall as meets the standards. So, I'm going to go ahead and talk about still some uh concerns or questions that we had after looking at this section of the application. Uh, one thing that stuck

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out to us is that no parent representative is to be included on the governing board within the first six months of approval, which is required by the application criteria per state law. Uh, they stated that there would be a parent advisory group that would be put

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together, but uh, those parents would not have an active uh, position on the governing board or have any um, voting rights. Um when it comes to that another thing that we stated was that the sites there is no site that has been

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secured yet for the proposal of the facility. There are four possible locations that are being considered but as of right now there is no u proposal for an actual site. >> Okay. So let's talk about a couple of concerns, a couple of strengths we had rather um that again we felt like

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outweighed the concerns that we had for their overall operations. First of all, they have very clear well- definfined organizational structures um in in the organization both rethink forward and and noble education initiative. Um clear division of roles and responsibilities.

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A lot of support from above for the school. They will get a tremendous amount of support from above. Um and um they have a lot of experience in providing those important support services like transportation, food service, which we know can be a challenge. Uh student health services.

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We feel like these are all key recruitment tools um to to to to draw families to their school. The fact that they're providing transportation, number one, is is definitely a plus. >> Okay. >> I got a I just got a question. Um >> what about their food service?

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>> I'm just interested because we had a charter school that challenged with that. >> How they operating that? How they do? >> They have extensive experience with that. They have their own providers. They have vendors. um and and they have um shown a history of uh um running a

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proper food service program at their schools and we feel like they that they'll have that they've probably already got that ball rolling. So, let's get on to section three. This is the first section where we had some concerns. Okay, let's just kind of talk through these a little bit. Um and and

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let me just start this by saying not only did did our review consist of just the application review, but we conducted a tremendous amount of due diligence um in speaking with not only the applicant and ourselves. We had a lot of communication back and forth, but also

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we we uh uh talked several times with the state charter commission who is their current authorizer of two of their schools and MNPS which is an authorizer uh of one of their schools. At least at the moment they are. So we have had a lot of uh a lot of input into all this.

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So but let's talk about concerns first of all for budget and finance. Uh one concern of ours is that their staffing FTE budget doesn't provide full ELLL staffing to meet statemandated ratios. If you go by their percentage of predicted ELLL students and the number

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of teachers that they are budgeting for, they're one teacher short of hitting that that that 35 to1 ratio um uh throughout the state. Okay. um which which is a concern for our ELLL department. Um you know that's a that's a district-wide average that we have to

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meet. Um but we like for all of our schools to to be within that ratio, especially to the large number of ELLL students we have in our district. Um there also was a small discrepancy between the budget and the narrative to provide for sufficient health services. The narrative says that they there will

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be a school nurse. Budget doesn't provide for that until year three. Um they do however provide what they call a clinic assistant for the first couple of years. Um but that's not a licensed medical professional. That's just like a a pair professional. Um that still has

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to be overseen by a licensed medical professional and we're just not clear about about that in those first two years. Okay. But the narrative does say they will have a school nurse. A big concern for ours, this is probably one of the biggest concerns we have in the budget and finance part is that

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contingency model for enrollment deficits. If they don't hit that 765 and we don't know exactly what the threshold is, um because their only contingency model says, well, if we don't hit our targets, we'll back up and open with only 100 ninth graders and

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we're going to house them at the current RCP facility, which is a state charter commission authorized building and school. So, we're concerned about the feasibility of having two different authorizers monitoring two different groups of students all in the same

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building. And and if they have they do have room in that facility to house these additional kids. Question for me is though is if they have room in this facility, then why are we proposing to build yet another one when we're not filling the one that we have? >> I had a question when I saw Yes. I

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thought it was very um optimistic when it said 150 nth graders. What has told them that they thought they could get 150 nth graders? >> 100 100 nth graders. Well, I think they place a lot of stock in the fact that they're um they're adding eighth grade

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to their school next year. And most of those >> I'm assuming those children would go on. >> They feel like they're holding on to their m their older kids as they come. They added seventh grade this year. They add eighth grade next year. and they feel like they can they can keep those eighth graders and move them into ninth grade.

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>> Okay. What do you know outside of u not to get we offer a lot of things in high school. You know we have band, we have uh cheerleading, we have football, we have sports. Are they going to be offering any of those things or are those children just expected to you know the laws is they can

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>> It's a great question and and in our discussion with them yes they do plan to offer those opportunities for their kids. It may take a few years to where they have enough money and enough student enrollment to offer everything, but but yes, that is in their plan is to offer all those extracurriculars for their kids. >> Okay. >> Okay, Mr. Maxwell.

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>> Yes, Mr. Tidville. >> Oh, I'm sorry, Tammy. Did you >> I'm sorry, Miss Short. Sorry. >> Um, uh, my question, could you just so we all have a clear understanding distinguish between the differences schools because it's a separate school. So it' be like they're want to build

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this application is for a completely different school similar to like Antioch versus the Blackman one that's already existing. Yep. >> They want to build another option just like that. But if that plan doesn't work back, we're going to go back into the option that already currently exists.

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>> Yes and no. that that I if if they can't build a facility right off the bat and house it with with with 765 kids or close to it. Um that's their plan is to start to back up start with only a 100 kids all ninth graders and they're going

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to house them at the current Rutherford Collegiate Prep facility. Now that's like having two schools in one building which is not unusual for charter schools. Sometimes in one building or one whatever facility they can find sometimes charter schools can have multiple schools in the same

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building. The difficult part there is that they're both under the same governing body. They're both under the same um CMO but they're authorized by two different entities. So how would those shared services be handled? How would you know in the funding they they indicate they would be basically paying

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rent to Rutherford Collegiate Prep. So there >> for those nth graders >> potentially the accountability could be different. Is is that what you're suggesting? >> It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. We have the same standards for the most part. Um our our performance frameworks are modeled after the state charter commissions anyway. So the

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accountability would be very similar but it would be hard for us to monitor that. Be very difficult for us to monitor that. >> I don't want to get too far off the questions at the end but I'm just I don't know. I just feel like the 700 is a large very large number. Um a lot. Why

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not start with that to begin with? Start with the contingency plan to begin with. Build up the funds. Look for the place. When are they proposing opening? Not this fall. Next fall. >> 2728. >> Okay. >> 2728. >> More. >> So

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they currently have the building here in Blackman. Um is there a nurse? I mean surely they have a nurse already existing in that building. >> I believe they do have a nurse. Do you have this in in Rutherford collegiate prep? >> They have a full-time nurse. >> Yeah. So, this

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>> clinic? No, they just have a clinic assistant. >> Clinic. Okay. Because I mean that's pretty general and it is very common from what I've read. New York State has many many charter schools that are all in one same building. So, um

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it I know it's been done before where charter school opens under the commission. they they build another one, another school, and they could petition us to for both of them to come under our authority versus just the 9 through 12.

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>> That I don't know. I don't know how that would work. I'm sure that's something that could happen. Um um but I'm not sure how because they're under a 10-year agreement with the charter commission right now. >> Would it have to go back to the charter commission? >> I don't know. That's a good question. >> Is that something that

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And and honest honestly, I asked them this question um when we first met when we first got their LOI um thinking that you know I I we kind of suspected maybe the same thing that well maybe they're just looking to add high school, make this a bigger campus all in one under

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one authorizer. And they said no, they want two campuses. They want two feeder systems for their high school. So they want to keep Rutherford Collegiate Prep as a feeder for their high school and then this new Rutherford Prep K12 will have a feeder into the high school and both technically would feed into the

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high school. So >> thank you. One last question. So is there more property at the location that they have? If they don't find another piece of land, if they're looking for one, would they be able to build? >> I haven't asked that. I'll have to ask that question.

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>> Okay. >> I don't know. >> Thank you. Yes, Mr. Rosales. >> Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. This is a lot of work. I didn't want to start asking questions because there's a lot to cover still and we're only at the section three. >> We're getting there.

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>> Um, but can we can you go really quickly? Can you go back to the enrollment chart if you don't mind and tackling that 109th graders for a second? Um, all right. So, see, year one, they're starting out with the

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ninth grader, and technically they're supposedly in the other school, but then year two, they're adding 10th grade. I've been to We've been to the building. There's not going to be I don't think there's room in that other building >> to add another grade, but we know. They

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will have to >> those ninth graders they have room for those ninth graders. I don't know about 10th after a year after that but that would give them another year to to to build a facility if they need it. >> I was thinking that this facility was

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was going to be used to put the high school the new one to put the high school in not the current I guess I'm confused. The new one is going to be K12, >> right? >> The new one is proposed. That's the one we're talking about here in their application is a brand new K12 facility.

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>> Right. So that's why um I'll talk to you after. >> That's why I'm a little confused. >> You can ask ninth and 10th grade because I was thinking that was going to the new facility, not the current facility RCP. Um but I'll get clarification from you,

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>> Miss Maxwell. >> Yes, Mr. Is it is it a good understanding to say that the current facility will exist as it is, which I it's K through eight, right? >> Well, it's K7 now. It'll be K8 next year. >> Yeah. Expanding. Um and this school that's being proposed is similar to

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Eagleville. It's K through 12. >> That is correct. >> Thank you. >> Will say this while we were talking about um enrollment targets. Um, one thing to note, um, um, is that, um, for Rutherford Collegiate Prep, their target

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in year 2 was 565 kids. They have 409 at the moment. Um, KA at the Crossings Knowledge Academy, their target was 850. They actually have 400 at the time. So, that's a concern is being able to maintain sufficient enrollment um, to to

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be able to afford a new facility, number one, and and to pay off the debt load that we're going to talk about here in a second. um whenever they're they're not quite hitting their enrollment targets yet. Not to say that they won't, >> but that's where they are right, >> Dr. Sullivan. >> And that is my only concern. This is the best application honestly that we have

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seen. My only concern is that part about the targets. Um there absolutely is a true up and so Mr. Ren is going to go over this a little bit. So, we'll just take our our charter enrollment. We have worked with the state board. We've worked with some representatives with collegiate prep and I'm hoping we're

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going to continue to make progress, but I'm looking at next year's budget with three potential charter schools coming on board where we project um projected enrollment and that could be a 15 or$20 million fiscal cliff that we hit just on projected enrollment. Um

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I'm hoping we'll make some leeway, but when you just for us for example, I will take our two um authorized charter schools. Mr. Ren, what is I think one's going from 205 to you remember what?

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>> Believe it was 240. >> So that's only $350,000. That's not a a big increase. Um what was the other one? That's Springs. >> I I know. Well, >> maybe Mr. McY, Dr. McCann, you may know better. I think it was AAR was actually going to 380

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>> and and they're hitting their targets like year after year. They're getting pretty close. Um Rutherford Collegiate Prep is at 410. They're projecting 600. They haven't met that yet, but we are required to budget at the 600.

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If they don't receive that, then we will get that money backed up. But you all know what once our budget's passed, our budget's passed. And so there's I can't get that $2 million back once it goes to the county commission. You guys saw when I tried to get the $70,000 what happens. Um so it it goes there. I'm just not

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able to get it. And so for our budgeting purposes, you all are going to see we're putting about $3 million into projected enrollment that we very well may get back, but I'm not able to use it for our insurance or our cola raises.

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The rest of it was very well earned. It's for students that are already there. I'm very concerned about that the next year when all three open at once. >> Yes, Mr. Vault. >> Well, all right. Which leads us to this question then. Should we or is there any guidance given by the state from a

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budgetary standpoint that we isolate these funds here, you know, and build a box around it, for lack of a better way to put it. And the county commission knows this. This is this is like playing poker. We don't know what the cards are. >> No.

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>> And and and really they don't either. I mean they can make great >> they're doing exactly like they should be. >> But the dilemma as I see it is we have always been able to for 30 years here project an increase in enroll enrollments. You can see it you know

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over the last 30 years it's pretty definite. But with charter schools in the mix now and now the scholarships, let's call them scholarships, that that it really creates a little bit of a budget nightmare that we if we're over

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if we're overzealous, then we're then then we've got a pot of extra money here. If we're not right, >> then we're >> then we could we could be behind the eightball and never come out from behind it. Yeah. >> Or it would take three or four years to come out from behind it.

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>> Yeah. And that's that's my only concern that the state were trying to figure it out. We just didn't make as much money as >> Ryan. So there's no there's no you're not listening to me. That's No, that's I'm picking at you, but that there's no guidance from the state. There's no guidance from anybody about isolating

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this money. I mean, we can't we're one of the unusual counties. I would say us and probably Williamson. >> They don't have a charter school. >> How many charters in Williamson? >> It's just us by the comproller. We're the only one by the comproller that has one. All right. So, we got to be pretty

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prudent here. >> And I've I've talked to the state board as well. They are very interested in doing a study about the financial part because they haven't done one. So, we got a hedge. >> We've really made a lot of inroads and so they're very interested in doing that portion. >> I just want to be able to get that done. We've worked together trying to get this

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stuff done. Like, we've developed a great relationship. I just don't want it to get lost because we're I'm looking at next year very concerned. >> And this is like I said, their application's amazing. I think it'll be great. Yes, they absolutely they've been great to work with. Great,

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>> Miss Sh. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, Dr. Sullivan, can you by Thursday give us the numbers that Mr. Edel Charles and RCP has predict predicted for this area? >> I'll look at that for two. >> Thank you.

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>> I will say on a positive note that of of their the schools in the portfolio that Nashville Collegiate Prep does appear to be hitting their enrollment targets. Okay. um in Nashville right now in that Antioch cluster where they are. So, and we'll talk a little bit more about about

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those Nashville schools here in a minute. But um >> before you move, I just want to say I was not being negative. They have been great to work with. Like they they have been they've been phenomenal to work with. >> They have been great. >> And the state board and charter commission, they all have been great to work with in part. >> Yep. Yep. And then and then lastly, our

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last concern on budget and finances, and we just kind of got this information recently because it was not in their original authorizers reports, but the annual authorizer reports for both um uh or for the charter commission have been updated and both Nashville Collegiate Prep and Rutherford Collegiate Prep were

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rated as falls far below for financial performance. And we'll look at those authorizer reports here in a second. In our conversation with the charter commission, this is mainly this is not a concern over their financial operation and their ability in the short term to manage things financially. They're very

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strong in that area. Um this is based on the concern over the heavy debt load that they have built up because they have built two new facilities. They built Rutherford Collegiate Prep and and a new Nashville Collegiate Prep uh building as well. So that has added significantly to their debt load. Um,

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but I I will say this is and again the communication has been great. Um, when I sent them a copy of our report last week, um, Dr. Carney got back to me today with some responses to a couple of our concerns. And one of the things that she reminded me of and and I wanted to point out to you is that um they are

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using a bond financing structure for the for those facilities which is similar to what you know a school district would do um to to build new facilities which kind of gives them a little bit more ability in the long term or to make things sustainable over the long term. Um and

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and that's very typical for new school financing uh to happen. And they do have a significant amount of private funding that that that is provided to them. So, but it's still my conversation with the with the charter commission, even they are concerned over their ability to handle that debt load, especially when

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your enrollments are not at what your targeted rates are at this point. I mean, that that's that's where your funding comes from. Okay. All right. So, um for those reasons, we did decide that um to rate section 3 as only partially meets a standard, but

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there were some strengths, too. Okay. We've talked about the enrollment deficits already. So let's talk about the strengths of this section. Go ahead. >> All right. So looking at the strengths, the first one is that the budget provides a reasonable and conservative approach for forecasting revenue and

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expenses for both of their uh scenarios. Also, Rethink Ford has contracted with NEI to provide financial services to the school. This definitely helps alleviate administrative burden on the school so that the administrators can focus on academics, us, the student population,

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and some of the just uh regular day-to-day things that they don't have to worry about the financial um burdens that come along with running a school. And I will and I will piggy back that up by saying that that uh um to me is a de

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definite welcome relief in in comparison to our current charter schools whose um um administrators are wearing multiple multiple hats. Um it's very hard to manage that to my in my mind is the advantage of having a strong CMO um to

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provide that top-down support that support from above. So at the school you can focus on what's important. Okay. Okay. So let's move on to section four. This is new to the um application this year. Um section 4 is now basically some attachments and some agenda, but they're

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also scored and rated as part of the applications. Now there are multiple agendas. Our uh our applicant was only um responsible for addressing the first three of the agenda A, B, and C. And our main concern, like Miss Walters told you

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earlier, lies with Agenda A, which is the relationship with existing charter schools. And our concern here is that um that their academic performance has not been particularly strong. Okay. Um and that's that that that's over several

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years, not just the one year for Rutherford Collegiate Prep, but Nashville Collegiate Prep's been in existence five years, and then KA at the Crossings has been through its entire 10-year term. All right. So, let's talk a little bit about what those numbers look like. Okay. Um, here's a comparison from the 2025.

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This is just the 2025 report card. And I wanted you to see this because the the schools in yellow are the current um NEI schools. Okay? And the in green are our two um Rutherford County authorized charter schools. So, you can kind of

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compare the performance. Um, and you'll notice that Rutherford Collegiate um, Prep, their numbers as a firstear charter school are very, very similar to American Classical Academy Rutherford, also a firstear charter school. Their achievement percentages are around 25%

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meets or exceeds the standards. Um, they both had ones for Tivos. They both had D's on the report card. So that can give you a frame of references how their performance was compared to one of our first year charter schools. But then you'll look at NCP um and they're like I

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say they're in their fifth year of existence. They're in a TV three and a port card report card grade of C. Um knowledge academy um did get a four on TV and that'll come into play a little bit later when we talk about the charter commission here in a minute. but they're also a C on their report card grade. And

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this is in the 10th year of existence for them. By the way, I will just just so you know, Knowledge Academy is a 5 through 12 school. Okay? So, they have upper elementary, middle, and high school. Um, right now, RCP um is a K6. Um, and

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they're adding seventh grade next year or eighth grade next year. Right? They had seventh grade this year. They're adding eighth grade next year. Um, but this is from the 20 school year 25, very similar to the report that I presented to you about our current charter schools. Okay. So, let's take a look at

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the annual authorizer report data um for those other for the three charter schools in their portfolio. To do this, I'm going to have to exit out and um click on my link here. Let's get it to work. There we go. Okay.

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So, what you're going to be looking at here is the published um annual authorizers reports. Um, and we're going to start with Rutherford Collegiate Prep. Um, this is they are a Tennessee public charter school commission authorized school. Um, and you'll notice that for their three indicators,

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academic performance and financial performance, both are rated as falls far below the standard. Organizationally, they meet the standard. Okay? So, and if you scroll through the academic performance section, you'll notice that as there's a lot of red there, a lot of

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falls far below standard. They did not meet their goal for mission specific goal um or students with disabilities comparative to RCS and ELA. All these um a lot of red for the academic, but this is their first year just like American Classical Academy was all lots of falls

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far below. TBO TAS compositive one financial performance also rated as falls far below. Now for their near-term indicators, they meet the standards. Okay, they did they did meet the standards and this is according to their audit report. But you'll notice for financial sustainability, they fall far

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below in three and don't meet in one. And again, that's related to the heavy debt load that they have incurred at this point with the building of two new schools. All right, let's take a look at um organizational performance. and it's a lot of green meets the standard. They

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have a strong organization. The concerns here are two. Um they fall far below the standards for student retention rates and teacher retention rates. They're not retaining teachers and students. Now, let me say this. This is their first year of existence. And and what they

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find out and they'll admit this, they own this. They own their data. Um they take full responsibility for it. Um and they say that and it makes sense to me too that um in that initial year getting used to that community instructional model we realize it's not a good fit for

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everyone students and some teachers. It's just not a good fit. Um so sometimes that's what happens. You don't retain your teachers, you don't retain your students while you're while you're learning how that works. Okay, let's look at Nashville Collegiate Prep. Again, they're in their fifth year. They

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underwent their five-year performance review this year. And uh um academic performance do not meet the standard. Financial performance falls far below. Academics, a lot of yellow for does not meet, but there's some green in here too to celebrate and some blue even. They seem to be doing a really good job with

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their with their English language learners compared to MNPS. Okay. And again, their scores are compared to MNPS whereas Rutherford Collegiate Prep was scored compared to Rutherford County. I hate to interrupt you, but I they don't have a high school level yet at

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Nashville Collegiate Prep. I thought they did. >> Uh Nashville Collegiate Prep is just a K8 right now, right? They got high school now. >> Open this year. >> Oh, just this year. Okay, here we go. >> So, there's no >> That's why they built the new building. That's why they built the new building. >> Is there any charter school in the state

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of Tennessee that has high school? >> Oh, yeah. There's a lot. >> KA at the crossings, which we're fixing to look at a minute. >> Okay. >> Okay. And again, financial performance again, they they fall far below uh falls far below the standard um for again

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those sustainability measures. Near-term indicators, they're meeting the standards, but it's it's the sustainability that is the concern because of that heavy debt load. >> Now, let's take >> Can I ask you a question right there? You we keep coming back to that, but how is that rated? It it in my mind, it's

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got to be debt load per student per year. What? So what is what? >> Well, when you look at the when you look at the performance framework, all those measures are looked at that debt to asset ratio, what's their debt to their assets? What's their debt service coverage ratio? What's their unrestricted net position? All of those

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are are analyzed as a part of their their audit and the performance frameworks. >> So what is that number? I' I've got it in my head what our number is, and that's the reason I'm wondering what the debt load is and how many students. I could do the math in my head pretty quick, but I

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>> I know you got you got a rubric to follow. I got common sense to follow. So that's that's the reason I'm trying to get my brain. >> A lot of common sense. >> I don't know. I'll ask you later. I I will come up with it later. >> Okay. >> Organizational performance for them is also is good. A lot of green, but again

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their concerns are student retention rates, again, English learner rights where they don't meet the standard. And again, there's teacher retention. And again, this is in their fifth year. That's why it's a concern. And attendance, they've got some attendance issues, too.

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Okay. Now, let's take a look at here's KA at the crossings. This one, right, this particular, um, review was done by MNPS because at the time they were an MNS school. They still are at the moment, I believe. Um, and they for academics,

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uh, this is again in their 10th year. They do not meet the standard. They do not meet the standard. Um, financials, um, they're all listed as pending. They have not updated their um annual authorizer reports based on the audit because we've not received apparently they hadn't received the

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audit at the time they wrote this report and then not updated it accordingly. So we're not sure what their their financial performance is at KA. Organizational performance a lot of meet standards does not meet for English learner rights

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falls far below for credentiing does not meet the standards for background checks. So that's a little bit of HR stuff there it looks like. But other than that, a lot of meet standards for the organization. The organization itself um generally is meeting their standards. Okay.

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All right. Let's go back to where we were. Okay. So here's some other questions and concerns that we have. Um, and you need to know this that Nashville Collegiate Prep is currently designated as a TSI school by the state department of ed. That target is support and improvement.

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And that labels is when you finish in the bottom 5% statewide for the performance of a student subgroup. In their case, it was for black and African-American students. So, they are a targeted support and improvement school. According to TDOE, KA at the Crossings, um, and we talked a

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little bit about them. They were denied a renewal of their agreement at the end of their 10-year term by MNPS. And we have watched the um um the the board presentation for that that video and the hearing to find out why exactly that was. We've talked to MNPS. They provided

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their um um their report to us so we could read through it as well. Um and basically it's a failure to achieve their stated goals over the course of their term and their goals and really their other two schools um both RCP and NCP say the same thing. Um if you re I

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mean sorry RCP and RP the new one their goal is at the end of year one to be a TOAS level three. You're approved by one level each year thereafter. So by year three they should be a level five. Um they've never reached that level. They just reached level four in year 10 aka

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at the crossing. MNPS rated their application as does not meet or partially meets in all the areas. Um they also mentioned that they did engage NEI as a CMO midway. I think it was in 2019. Um um NEI was engaged to become

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their C their CMO to help turn the school around. However, they did not go through the proper channels and get that approved through MNPS. Um, so that was a concern for for Metro Nashville as well. The commission, so it went to the commission to be reviewed.

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Um, and the commission review committee recommended denial even uh because they partially met in academic success because they failed to provide a sufficiently rigorous academic mo model and partially met in future plans and projections because they failed to provide a detailed evidence-based plan

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for future growth. Okay. However, the commission did approve them and have granted them a five-year term for renewal, not a 10-year, but a 5-year renewal. And they place a lot of stock in the fact that they did reach level four in that last year. And they see

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that as a positive sign of growth for them. So, the commission says, "Yeah, we're going to give you another five years. Let's see if we can't get it done." Okay. But as a result, we ended up scoring them as partially meets the standards for that addendum. Yeah. Uh, but let's

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let's back up a couple years. All right. Because I think it's important to track progress. And if you look at these two schools, Nashville Collegiate Prep and Knowledge Academy going all the way back to 2021, uh, they've had T-Bos scores of three and two, two and two, and then up to

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four and three uh, for the next year. Now, NCP dropped back down to a level three, you'll notice for 25, but KA came up to a level four for 25. But there's a report card grades as well. Uh D's for both of them in 23, a C for NCP and a D

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for KA in 24. Okay. So it's it's just important that you know the history, but there were some strengths too. Miss Walters, go ahead. >> There were um one important strength strength to note is that they have a strong pattern of leadership within the

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organization with clear uh delineation of roles and responsibilities. um their very strong leadership has actually led to limited leadership turnover in the corporation which is something that definitely needs to be noted as an important strength for them. Um Rethink

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Forward presents a pattern of conservative financial budgeting and operations including a uh healthy fund balance which is uh important in itself. Um and then overall like we said in this section we as a committee um rated it as

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partially meet standards for this section. Oh. Um, so in conclusion, um, the charter review committee recommends the denial of the initial application of Rutherford Prep, uh, noting these three

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major concerns. Um, as according to our recommendation, uh, poor record of academic performance and teacher and student retention rates for the network schools. uh the contingency plan that we've talked a lot about um for not me meeting that initial enrollment which

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houses uh 109th graders in the current RCP um facility which puts two student bodies under one facility under two different authorizers um and then two commission authorized school ratings as falls far below for the financial

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performance and that uh is due to that heavy debt load that they've taken on uh the charter commission itself uh voiced its concerns about um their financial uh performance continuing to hit that false far below for the next several years due to the heavy debt load

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that they have taken on building the new facilities. >> Okay, before we wrap it up, everybody okay? You hanging in there? All right, it's a lot. It's a lot. But before we wrap it up, I do want to say this that um like I said before, that poor record of academic performance, they own it.

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They don't try to deny it and they've taken a lot of steps to address that. They've changed administrations. They have brought on new people and hired instructional coaches and put uh other positions in place to help turn that around as much as they can. Okay? So, it's not like they're pretending that's

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not that's not an a thing because they are owning it. Um and again, that financial performance due to that due to the debt load. Um, sometimes you have to spend money to to to attract more kids and and have nice facilities. And we love their facility, by the way. If

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you've never been out to see RCP, um, it's a nice it's a nice setup out there. Very nice. Okay, so reminders for you guys. Okay, let's keep in mind the committee was very scrutinous with the submitted application, and that's our

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job. That's our job is to is to eye this with w with much scrutiny and give you as much information as you need because ultimately you have to make the decision for what's best. So we only feel like it's important that we give you as much information as as we can. Um if denied,

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if you decide to deny it Thursday, we have to give specific reasons why. And then we have then they can submit their amended application, we said within 30 days. But when approved, RC uh the board of education, you guys, all of us as

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authorizers, we become legally liable for anything that's in that agreement, application, and practice of the charter school. It becomes our responsibility once they've been approved. Then a quality authorizer. I say this every year and I have to remind you of this. This is not my words. This comes from

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the state and the charter commission and NA. Quality authorizer makes decisions to approve or deny based on what's best for students, families, and the LEA regardless of political or other external pressures and ideals. I know

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that's a challenge, but next steps. This is the last slide, I promise. Please carefully consider the report given to you tonight, the report that I sent you last week and the application itself. If you not looked through that application, please take some time to do

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it. I know it's long, but there's a lot of information in there. Um, vote by resolution at Thursday's board meeting. You have to draft a revol a resolution approving or denying. Provide that resolution to the charter school within

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and I'll do that within 5 days. And again, if you do deny it, provide specific reasons why and accept that amended application within 30 days. But if approved, we go right into the agreement negotiation process and we can work on developing an agreement between

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us and the applicant. Questions? >> Miss Maxwell? >> Yes, Mr. Rosella. >> Thank you. All right. Um, so obviously everybody knows I was in the capa in the interview. I mean interview in the committee. Um, and I was also part of the capacity interview.

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I I don't know if you will agree with this assess assessment, but I felt like the capacity interview was one of the better interviews that we've had compared to other charter schools. I think they were a little bit more prepared in answering some of the questions.

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>> They were very responsive to our questions and all of like I said before, all the things we asked for, they provided. >> Yeah. And I wish that during the capacity interview we had received the um the audit from the charter commission

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so we can ask them specifically about the financial concern to the debt to ratio >> because we didn't discover that until after the fact. So, it was kind of hard to um ask that question because we asked a ton of questions that were related to

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the application that we received and they were very thorough and they answer a lot of the concerns that we had. in um with that being said, I'm really curious to understand that piece and how they

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can um share with us how they're able to handle the debt to ratio. Is that something we can ask right now during the meeting or do we >> I almost promise you they'd be willing to provide that. I do have the response Dr. Carney sent me this morning. >> Okay.

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>> That details some of that and I'm I'm I'm happy to share that with you. Yeah, that'll be great if we can share that information. >> Consider that between now and Thursday. >> That'll be great because like I said, we didn't get to get we didn't have that information before. So, we wouldn't know

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to ask that particular question when we were there. So, it's not something that we just grabbed out of thin air and just slap it on. Good point. >> It was that fact that >> we were not aware of what that outcome of the audit was going to be. So, we didn't the committee that was sitting

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really didn't get to answer that question and I'm curious to know >> keep keep it keep in mind too that that that could be part of considered part of the process if you were to deny this initial application to submit an amended application. They can then provide all that those answers. Okay.

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>> That's their chance to do that. I'm not saying you have to do that, right? >> But I'm but but that that would be an opportunity. But again, I'm I'm I'm happy to share Dr. Carney's responses with you. Yeah, if you can share that with all of us, that'd be great. Thank you, Mr.

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>> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I would like to ask to beggar pardon to suspend the rules and allow them to come and address those questions since everybody's here. I don't know if everybody's going to be here Thursday. And that would give us some kind of I I believe that's what you

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were asking for. So, if we could suspend the rules and allow them to address us now, if there's someone here that can address that. All in favor of suspending the rules and allowing them to come and speak and answer some questions. All >> in favor say I. >> I opposed.

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>> Okay, >> we suspend the rules. >> Specifically about the deadline. >> Yes. >> Yeah, specifically about the deadline. >> Hi, thank you for your time. Appreciate you uh bending the rules, I guess, if you will. I do want to say because I've

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had these discussions with the commission on the financial side. I'm the the finance person for NEI. Those metrics that they use, they are not they do not take into account that this is a

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school that is just opened, opened a few years ago and is in the ramp up stage. So, it takes time to be able to be at that fully mature amount where you're hitting those metrics. There's no handicapping or no consideration of the

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fact that you're in a growth stage. Our debt service is being paid. I mean, we're paying every dollar. We paid it last year. We're not at full enrollment. We paid it the first year. We weren't a full enrollment. And we're going to pay it next year. And and we're not we're not taking away from the classroom.

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We're still putting what's needed in the classroom. And if you see the pictures of this facility, I think you'll be very impressed. E even the one in RCP that has this beautiful slide that's very safe that goes down the center of the building I think is very creative, very unique. Um

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we have lenders that have lent us private money, not taxpayer money, $110 million to build these campuses for the people of Nashville. We would love to do the same for the people of Rutherford County. Uh we did we do have already in

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fact a commitment from a lender for up to $50 million to build this K12 that we're looking for uh to build here for for the people of Rutherford. So just like we're making all our debt service payments, we we actually led uh I should

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add a turnaround of the financial situation at KA at the crossings. It was when NEI came in, we came in because there were some financial concerns at the school and we literally turned I think uh Dr. Carney or Corbett here can

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uh present that to you. But if you look at when we took over KA what those financials look like to what they look like now is completely night and day. And so there is the Oh, sorry. Oh, I thought I was getting buzzed.

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What is this for? Your >> So, uh, just in closing, I mean again with debt service being paid and commitments from lenders the way we have, just bear in mind that those commission metrics were not do not take

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into account that we are not a full school and that is purposeful. You don't just open your doors and just fill it up. That's not the smart way to open the school for its longevity. So, Corbett, anything you want to add? Yeah, thanks Richard and and thanks for the

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opportunity to speak tonight. So, u I would just add that, you know, prior to the bond financing of the facilities, we were green in all their financial metrics for the years in which we were operating Nashville Collegiate Prep at the with the commission and we had multiple conversations with them as we

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were leading up to doing this financing. Um and you know and so and we can we will continue to have those conversations as they recognize also that the structure in which you know we're the only one they have that was building facilities such as this. Um,

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and so the the SPF as it sits right now doesn't clearly um have a designation designed to show, as Richard was explaining, that you're going to build the facility and then ramp yourself into it. Um, so that you're able to go and grow responsibly as you put that

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together. Um, at the same time, uh, you know, the as we have the opportunity to go and, um, as Richard said, we're going and making sure that we're making those payments over time. There's also multiple ways to manage debt is my last comment around that as you would all know just from the way in which you

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would also manage your home your home mortgage for example. So you know over time as you grow into it there's different opportunities and ways to to go and structure that and as we have private financing ready to go to help assist us in constructing a beautiful facility here in Rutherford County for

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Rutherford Prep once again with no taxpayer money um in order to help you all and partner with you as we go and work with your growth. Um, just know that this is an opportunity for us to to go and look at that conservative responsible budget as your committee

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pointed out that was put before you both from a revenue and expenditure standpoint. It includes those projections around what we are looking to spend and make sure we make those payments year-over-year as those revenues grow from that increase in enrollment. >> Thank you. Does anybody have any

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questions? get back to that one question that I that I keep trying to figure out if you can help me with this. And I and and I know you're taking on debt load on the front end. You know, you're not going to be at full enrollment, but if I understood it right, it's a 1500 student

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complex, right? Is that right? >> 1565. >> 1600 students. All right. Rough numbers right there. Um the cost of the facility and the land, the debt load, what's the total right there? >> Yeah, right. cuz I I'm wondering if we

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can learn something from you guys. That's another reason I'm asking. >> Absolutely. So, right now the project is looked at at 50 million. >> You think you can do it all for 50 million? >> Based on what we've been able to accomplish both in Rutherford here with Rutherford Collegiate Prep as well as what we've been able to build not that

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far away in in Nashville. >> Right. Right. >> And I'm not trying to grill you. I'm I'm I just wanted to make sure there wasn't some private funding on top of the 50 million cuz I heard that and I'm looking back at the debt load of what we carry when we build a new building about what

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it costs per student per year. That's kind of how I look at it. I'm know the rest of the board may look at it that way, but the the depreciated cost over say a 50-year period of time because I'm assuming it's a 50-year building, but I don't want to get in trouble here and

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assume anything. So, that was what I was trying to get to, which if that number is right, then it's about $670 per student per year over that 50-year period of time plus your maintenance and upkeep. That's what I was trying to get to. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yes. In this facility be like

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117,000 square feet. Um, so yeah, so I know that as you're doing your calculations there, your numbers guy can tell. So, so yep. So, that'll help you there on sitting on approximately around 20 acres of land. So those are the numbers in which the project taken a look at because we are going to have some of those athletics and some of

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those activities. Yeah. So >> I was going to ask you know if you're going to have gyms and and stadiums those things cost >> they absolutely do and that's why u we just actually handed uh and Jeff can point that out. We can hand those to you. We brought you some pictures of our Nashville Collegiate Prep campus that

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has the high school up there that has the gymnasium, the football soccer field, the baseball softball field, the blackbox theater for drama, the arts, um a college and career center, a student union. And so the high school component of the building in which we have

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proposed in the application replicates the features and that's why you see the individual classrooms mentioned in our application. these different rooms that are in um our Nashville Collegiate Prep School. We would all we would love for any of you to anytime to come up and walk that campus and take a look at what

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we've created up there as well as what we've done here because the model that we proposed and that's what's in our application says that the facility would be really replicating from a K8 perspective what you see at Rutherford Collegiate Prep and then the high school is really a snap-on model of what we've

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done up at Nashville Collegiate Prep. So you can see all these additional um ancillary facilities designed once again the college and career center, the student union, uh the blackbox theater for drama and with an outdoor amphitheater area. There's some once

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again you'll see that the the arts and athletics are alive and well as we're building that facility and that we look to replicate that same type of experience here at Rutherford Prep. >> Okay. So Miss Maxwell. Yes, M. So, I have to disclose now that you're talking about this just occurred to me. I think I passed the new facility. It's on

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Cambridge, right? >> Say that again. >> Is it on Cambridge? >> It's on Old Hickory. >> Yes. Old Hickory and Pettis, right? >> Yes. Just off of Correct. >> Okay. So, I pass it all the time on the way to go to my mom's on the back side. I don't see the front side of the school. I see the back side of the

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school. And it's it's pretty spacious um school. I just put two and two together just when you were just talking to me just now. Um it's a very nice spacious um school where it's at. I mean there's a lot of acres and it was a farm, wasn't it? A farm that you guys

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bought over there. >> Yeah. So that >> I think that was a farm on that side. Um cuz I used to live on that side of town >> when I was little um before I moved to Rutherford County. But yeah, that was a farm and it was a pretty big farm. I don't know who who the name of the owner

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is, but yeah, I it's a really nice spacious. Um I thought there was a baseball field, too. >> There is. Yes, we built it. There's a baseball softball field. Yes. And so that's one of the photos in your in your handout there as well. So >> yeah, and it's Yeah, it's a really nice nice facility, nice building just from

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what I saw just literally driving on the road turning on to um Oh my gosh, what is that road right there? It's right by that stop sign. Yes. Thank you, Pettis. Yeah, Pettis. Yeah. Yes. >> Yeah. It's nice. Okay. Yes. Anybody else? >> I'm sorry. >> Yeah. I just wonder what you're talking

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about building that 50 million. What will that be the cost square foot? Do you have that? >> How much? >> Me, too. >> I knew if I gave you the numbers, you'd start calculating. >> Okay. Okay,

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>> just uh to augment what was said before, we have how many kids now? 1400 roughly throughout all the campuses, RCP, NCP. >> Uh we are at almost 1 1500 between the two >> 1500 out of how many seats >> out of 28 95.

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>> Yeah. So, you know, just from a percentage perspective, we're not hardly at 50% of capacity, which again is why those metrics, those commission metrics really need to be handicapped. uh because we are in the ramp up phase.

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So I just wanted to re augment that. So >> thank you. >> And I and I just want to iterate one more time too. You saw that even with building the facilities, what they consider to be those near-term measures, days cash on hand, etc. all in the green. Uh and so the year-over-year

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budgets are still projected to move even as the uh and then as the revenues will increase with additional students coming in. You'll see the the the debt to ratio will will start to be addressed obviously as the schools grow >> long term. >> Yes, Mr. Tidwell.

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>> Um I have a question. So what is the threshold of how many students you know that that projection of 7 open with 765 projected enrollment. What is the threshold that you would fall back to the contingency plan? Is it if you only get 300 students, if you only get 400 students, will you fall back to sharing

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a building with RCP currently? >> So I most of the time when we looked at the contingency model for this plan, the one of the biggest challenges I think any of your schools and charter applicants would ever tell you that they face is facilities. And so this was more

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around the idea that should we on a timeline perspective need the additional year to build the facility open with that 100 students versus that number there you're talking about from a financial contingency perspective. Um there are some reserves that the uh that

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the foundation can utilize um should we come in with a smaller number than that 765 um from that first year with the budget etc. Um but there is additional space as we are ramping up RCP on a very uh strategic timeline. Um there are ways

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that they can complement each other by opening here in the fall of 27 primarily because once again we see these as two K8s feeding one high school. And so we have a we already have a um nested in group of current 7th graders that are

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going to be freshman in August of 27. And so as those students metriculate up, um I think that it's more likely that we would implement the contingency model based on needing an extra year for the facility than it is from an enrollment standpoint. >> Okay. And that that enrollment, what how

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did you come up with that number? How did you guys get to that number? I mean, that seems only reason I'm asking because each charter school that's opened up, Dr. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they've been off by about half. Um I don't think anybody's really gotten close. And I understand that's a very hard thing to do. I'm just curious how

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you how came up with that particular projection. Oh, >> absolutely. So, you know, when we went into the um year one for RCP, um we had 1,700 applications for RCP. Now, um I think that uh you know, as you heard

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from Dr. McCann, we've had great conversations with your all's team and your staff. Um, and one thing you'll find out about our team is we will be very transparent and humble and and recognize there are some things if we had a chance to reboot that first week over we do differently. Um, and I'll tell you so and we had over we had 700

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kids there on day one. >> Oh wow. >> And so we know that once again um that there are different way these you know as you go and you organize and you structure that up. Um and so ultimately part of that um process Dr. man talked

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about about us having a team that provides those direct support to schools. Um that is one of those where we we gave a little bit too much away on the opening. Um and uh and so as I say, lesson learned. Uh and so um when you go and you provide um the right timeline,

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the right supports, the right opportunities, including a facility that people will recognize is going to provide them with those long-term opportunities for their children K through 12 to go and take advantage of once again all those opportunities you're talking about. High school,

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you've got to have those. That is the experience. But for what we would look to offer is the opportunity to do it in a 600 seat high school, a little bit smaller than what some others might have and where students could go and dabble in a little bit to different different options and they could, you know, where

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um sometimes you have to go and specialize in larger high schools. Um and so but having those amenities and those different opportunities there um once again with the right structures, the right marketing and enrollment processes and timeline. That's another reason why when you talk about the

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contingency plan, timing it out and ensuring that we're ready to rock and roll along those and getting that out as soon as possible um is important. And I'll end with that's why I would say that we would love to partner with you all. And the sooner that we were given the opportunity to start, the faster we

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can move on getting the facility moving, the faster we can work on going and working with the community and getting going um in order to make that fall of 27 possible. any delays in timeline makes that a little bit more challenging. Um, one that we're up for, but we once again are looking forward to

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the opportunity to going and working with you all as partners to make that happen. >> Okay. And Mr. Vaughn, you had one last question and then we're going to gabble back in. >> So, the same thing, Mr. Tidel, 765,

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you know, in that Blackman area, that's a area of Rotherford County. I guess if I was going to build a charter school, um I'm not sure it'd be in that area cuz they're that's probably some of the best schools we have in the whole whole

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county. And y'all feel comfortable with the 765, but I didn't understand how you arrived at that number. I guess that's same thing Mr. Ted will ask. Maybe I didn't get it real quick, but

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how did y'all arrive at that number? >> Yeah, so the, you know, just two years ago, once again, we had 1,700 applications for students just in K through six, um, to open up RCP, um, in that same area. And so, um, recognizing

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that that is also an area once again, the whole all of Rutherford County is showing growth, obviously. and uh and at the same time um you know you all have strong schools and you also that's what attracts additional residents. That's one reason why this is one of the

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fastest growing counties. Um and so you know we worked with the district last time and where to look to target to place Rutherford Collegiate Prep. Um and so we while it would be very advantageous for us to go and place Rutherford Prep in a very um good

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proximity to Rutherford Collegiate Prep so that they could share services and resources and things etc. Um there is the opportunity there for us to look at um other options near once again just as you expand that out just a little bit. So, our CEO Sherry,

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>> good evening. Um, I would like to just say one thing to your question. Back when we uh built the current school, one of the very first things we did after the charter was approved was we came and met with Dr. Sullivan and his staff and

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we talked about what area would it be helpful for us to build a school and they outlined a plan and we were very strategic in working through that. Yes, we would love to be able to take our 2K8s and filter into our high school,

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but I would like to say that when this application is approved, that's one of the very first things we would like to do is come back and sit down with the staff and talk through um how we can benefit the overall strategic growth of this county.

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>> Okay. Thank you. If that's okay, we're going to gavvel back in and thank you so much for doing that. >> Okay. Here we go. Uh, human resources. Um, the looks like the other things, state wrestling winners, March Madness

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and strong outstanding staff will be Thursday. >> Correct. >> Next, human resources. >> So, this is an updated job description for Rutherford County athletics director. One thing I will point out is we are matching and this is in our budget request. We have our athletic director and our fine arts coordinator

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who are overseeing similar things on separate pay scales. and I didn't catch it till this came through. Um, Dr. Halford is a coordinator. The athletic director is at a 1.15. So, we're asking to match both of them to a 1.25. Um,

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that'll also help get applicants. Um, the other part of this is this job description has a classified portion, but then in the I think it's at R116, but then in the job description, it says certified teaching experience. So, it's

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it's cross referenced. And so we would like to make it classified and certified so we could have both applications which is Mr. Harris is a certified person doing it right now. But this job description is old but got revised but has classified and certified. So we're

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asking to move it from 1.5 to 1.25 to one match Dr. Halford's coordinator position and also make it so we can hire classified and certified the way it originally was. It's like a hodgepodge of a um job description from a couple years

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ago. Yep. Do what? She's got an office with um her parttime admin assistant. Yes. Y admin assistant. Yep. >> This job is getting harder and harder. >> Yeah. A lot of people don't I think

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we'll have interest in it, but >> Yeah. >> It's It's a hard job for sure. >> Exactly. Okay. Next nine, instruction. Well, we're going to >> Yep, we've already talked about Rutherford. >> Okay. Uh, number two, updated job description.

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>> So, this is D district textbook and material supervisor. Uh, district textbook and material supervisor will be responsible for ordering, inventorying, receiving, and providing textbooks to all schools in the district. They'll also provide leadership and support to the office staff. Develop a schedule for distribution of the system, mail, and

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monitor the effect effectiveness of the delivery services. So, this is also a request um to move from I think it's a classified position right now to move to a certified position um as a supervisor of 1.2. We believe this will help save quite a

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bit of money because our inventory system right now, we've had somebody who did a great job, has been in that role for decades. We need to to move into the current times um with this type of position. did a great job, but we need to move into tracking these electronically with

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barcodes so we know exactly where all of our textbooks are. It's a huge investment for our system. So, we need to know where those textbooks are. >> Number three, >> anything you want to add to that, Dr. Chain? >> Okay. Hey, >> Madam Chairman, let me go back to

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something. Are there any and I think I hear what you're saying. There's a couple of classification difference right here. Are there any other jobs that you've identified that are potential going to come to us in the next year or two that would be an

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adjustment in description just because of technology changes or job description changes or anything that human resources part of the budget cycle >> right I I just curious if you identified something in the future >> we do it constantly but as we were going

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through this Dr. Chastain will go over as part of our budget portion. We've talked about it before, but as part of our decades old process, I'm the only one that can approve positions. Dr. Chastain's the only one that can well has to sign off on positions. Dr.

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Chastain is the only one that can give them out. Dr. Anony's HR the one that has to post them. So, it's kind of our trifecta of making sure positions are approved. And she has moved How many positions have you transferred? So, we've transferred 98 positions and then we have, we're going to talk about

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it in a little while. Um, because of grandfathering we had at the high school level, movement at not filling kindergarten positions, ESL positions, um, we are right sizing about 70 positions. And so, these are different things we're doing districtwide to help

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offset some of that. And we've gotten rid of some of our central office positions in Dr. Chastain's department this year. So hopefully some of these will help that. >> And and my that was where my brain was going with all of this is because you know if you look at the structure here

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>> that and we're off over here and then you got leadership. >> Yep. >> And then you have I'm going to call them midlevel supervisors for lack of better way to do it. And then you have the structure within the schools. And so that was what I was trying to visualize in my mind just then is where exactly

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all these people fit. We they don't need to be too far out of correct I'm going to use the word kind of a crude word too far out of whack with one another because their their responsible their responsibility level is the same but the

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criteria of what their knowledge or u expertise would be could be offset and you could get to you could get to nitpicking a little bit and I don't want that that's not a successful structure. That's what I'm getting that's what I'm getting around to saying

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>> that that's not a su sustainable or successful structure because everybody >> everybody's needed. >> Yes. And I'm not a micromanager. That's not my leadership style. My leadership style is I hire you to do a job and if you don't do the job then we'll have a discussion. Here's the expectations. Right.

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>> Do your job and if you don't then we'll talk about it. But here's the expectations and I expect you to meet them. >> Right. >> Yep. I have a question just for explanation and number three down there. What is the use of wired human? What's a wire?

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>> We're going to get to so I'll let Dr. Chastain talk. >> I started to say I thought >> we're going to get to that one next. So >> what I bet a lot of lot of principles >> it is not a lot of principles would like to have a wired human curriculum. Believe me. >> Yeah. So this is curriculum instruction

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seeking approval to pie with the wired human curriculum to meet the teen. social media and internet safety guidance law TCA 4964601 through 4605 in grades 6 through 8. The curriculum is a valuebased curriculum focused on building healthy and safe screens. Modules have been specifically written

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to be age appropriate for grades 6 through 8 and contain nine modules that if approved will be delivered by teachers and their counselors depending on the topic. Teacher guides, student journals, and parent packets will be provided at no cost to the district. Dr. Chastain, you want to talk a little bit more about that because I know you've had the conversations. >> Yes, and I believe they got copies of

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the the curriculum. Um it's nine modules. We've been in conversations. We've vetted this uh and continue to vet all the pieces as they come in. Um again, just will help us in grades six through eight specifically. This is a curriculum that will help our teachers

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deliver this to our students with the assistance of our counselors. Um focus primarily on the law as enacted by the state last year. But happy to answer any other questions. Okay. I'd like to make one comment.

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>> Yes, Mr. B. >> Dr. Svin, you've you made a real good choice and the people you selected to work with here at the central office. It's amazing me the amount of work that they get done.

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Um, and it's pretty pretty impressive. >> Thank you. I agree. We have a great team. That's why we're successful. Okay. Next, >> transfer student under discipline one. The board has been requested to admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. The student is

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expelled for threat of mass violence. According to policy 6.318, the board may deny admissions of any student except those in state custody when a student transfers from another school system. And you'll see director's recommendations to deny. >> Number two. >> Number two is boards been requested to

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admit a transfer student from another school system under discipline. the student was expelled for possession of a THC vape and the students recommendations to admit in place in our online program because that's what we would do. >> Okay. Number 11, >> engineering construction McFaden property demolition. Engineering

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construction department requests approval to issue an RFP for the demolition of all structures on the five properties being purchased adjacent to McFaten School. This request will allow unnecessary liability from these structures to be mitigated until the property is repurposed.

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Okay. >> Any comments or questions there, Mr. X? Yes, Mr. Rosales. >> Thank you. Yeah. So, I just want to say that I think parents are really excited to see that we're moving something. I don't know where we're going to get the funding for this to actually do the renovations and whatever, but it's just

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exciting to see that we're doing something. >> Yeah. >> Excellent. >> So, >> yes, More. >> Did we give them a date to move out? Have they already This is quick. Oh, okay. Thank you.

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>> Moving them out. >> Okay. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Number 12. >> All right. Next we have and I just totally lost where a we on financial. >> All right. So, this is just going to be a quick version because we are still

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very much um in the throws of this. The first page that you have in front of you just gives you kind of five highlights and Mr. run. You can feel free to take over any of this uh that you want to. Um so first thing is that you have our five

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highlights. So we have as of right now and I hope this can increase but this is where we are right now a 1.7% cola increase. So the way we will talk about this is the average step increase is 1.6 six. And so together it's a 3.3%

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increase. And that is I believe about a half a point higher than the county is going to look at from what I've heard so far. Of course it's the middle of an election season. So you never know what's going to happen there. Right on par with what Murphy'sboro City from I understand is looking at. That could change at any time because again you're

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right in the middle of an election season. So who knows? But this is outside of Metro who says they're looking at 4%. Originally it was 10%. or is going to keep us much more in line. Uh 1.7 I'm hoping we can get that a little bit higher, but that's where we

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are right now. Next is medical insurance budget covers half of the state proposed aggregate. So we talked about state insurance going 10 to 12%. We tried to in this budget to cover half of it and covering half of

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12% is a lot. So we split it basically half. Half of new revenue went to the raise. Half of new revenue went to medical insurance. If the >> was it >> how much more went to medical insurance?

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>> If we did it as a full% >> 10% it would have been about $6 million. >> Oh yeah. It's Yes. If you include 143 142 it's well over $60 million. This is just 141. Yes, it's in the 70s. >> Yep. Next, you'll see we are right now at a

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deficit of 12.9. So, part of this, the way we've always budgeted is a charter school allocation. And over 9.5 million of this is well-earned. Like, that is students that are generating, they are there, they're generating kids. That is students that should be there. The extra

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3 million is based on projections. Those projections may or may not. Historically, the projections have not met, but we have to budget it based on projection. And so that money very well may come back as a true up, but we're not able to use it for our budget. And

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so that's how we have to budget that. The other one is our medical insurance increase. And so again, we only, you'll see it in just a little while. We've been getting in Tissa increases 25 20 $25 million increase. We're only getting about a $10 million increase this year.

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So that is difference in not growing in ADM and our economically disadvantaged students starting continuing to drop and as that continues to change that's going to continue to go down. You'll see nine new district position requests. Those are two in you want to

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go over what those are? >> Yes. So if I can remember off the top of my head, there's two positions for nurses. Two nursing positions. Three positions in transportation, two positions in maintenance, one position

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in finance, which is an under me for a another purchasing clerk, and then also another position for Oh, goodness. >> I don't remember the other. Is it attendance?

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>> No, Kelly kept everybody. Kelly said no money for anybody. >> I I had them all about brain, but now that one's running away. Um, I don't know. Let me look at it. I'll I'll I'll tell you what the ninth one is. So, >> I'll take it if it's open. >> You'll take the open position. Yeah. >> Okay.

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>> So, those are your nine. And then you'll see the other thing. And this is where we got the I hate to say got, but this is where the funding, and we've talked about this through our retreat, the funding for the increase in the raise, potential reduction of 70 positions due to decrease in our ADMs. looking at it from

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we have moved our and we're going to ask for a waiver from state department to go from 1 to 35. So it goes kind of along with one of the recommendations that concerns and I wouldn't make this a concern from the charter commission now or from the charter application. They

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were I think one teacher off on the ESL portion. We are also going to ask for a waiver for us to go to 1 to 35 to 1 to 40. So that saves us 15 or 20 um the way teaching positions the way that the state is moving. The state changed to

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ELPA last year testing and I won't go down too much in the weeds on this but we had was it 6 or 700 more kids? It was more than that. Yeah. We had almost 800 kids if I recall correctly test out that year than we did previously because of

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the change in the testing. And so if we don't start changing that ratio, we're going to hit a cliff in two years where we're going to have to move positions out just because of the testing requirements changing. And so as people are resigning, retiring, we just aren't

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filling those positions back. Same thing with some of our kindergarten and first grade positions. Uh so we are doing that as well because those numbers didn't increase. And so we've rightsized some of our positions. Grandfathering's going away at the high school. And so we've Kelly's done a great job. I was with her

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when she called a principal the other day and the principal didn't want to answer because they thought she was taking another position away from her and I thought she was joking and the principal said I thought you were calling with bad news and she totally was not joking. So but that's where 70 positions do what? >> Brown. >> It was not Brown's Chapel. So Oh,

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Brian's got the other position. >> So the other position is a middle school athletic trainer. >> Oh, Mills. >> That's what it was. Yes. Anytime we open a new Yes. at the middle school athlet. >> Also to add to that, going in fund 143 cafeteria, we've got three full-time positions and five part-time positions

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budgeted as well >> for the new middle school. >> For the new middle school. Yeah. All of it's from new middle school. >> If you go to the next page, you'll see revenue. So again, it's not a it's not a very a lot of changes to the budget. >> Next, you'll see revenue. This is not the format you're used to seeing, but we

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don't have it from Michael yet. And because it's a reappraisal year, we're not going to get it till second week of May, right before we pass it. The ones in yellow are your maintenance of effort. This has exactly maintenance of effort in it. The only changes you're going to see if you look

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at 46510, you'll see the TISA increases every year. So if it's almost right at the bottom of the page, five from the bottom, we were at 334 million, 361 million. This year went up to 373. So an

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11 million increase and a huge portion of that as we talked about um 3 million of it's got to go to projected charter school growth. So that leaves us with about eight to be able to cover raises and for us a half a percent or 3/4% is

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about $4 million. >> I will give you some good news while we were talking earlier. I did find $700,000 so to go towards Tissa. So >> you're the man >> towards Tissa. So, I love this time of the year because Brian will always find well, not always. Sometimes we go the

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wrong way. Our first year together, he accidentally budgeted assistant principles twice and that was he called me one morning and we were he said, "I'm in a panic. I don't know what to do." I was like, "What happened?" And he we accidentally budgeted assistant principles twice. So, we got through that. Then that's kind of the basic changes in

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revenue. So you will see if you look at the total revenue numbers on the second page, it's an additional revenue of 10,400,000. It's got we talked about this. It's not increasing as much as well because the

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the grant the um CT grant I've got innovative schools models grants going away and also that $2,000 um educator s the education savings account money is going away. Next, if you look to expenditures, so this is just a quick, and I know it's a little bit hard to read, but this is

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our format that we had to put together quickly today. You will see, and I'll ask Brian to kind of go over any increases. Regular instruction, which is our huge one, is a 1% increase, which is pretty amazing considering we are giving a 1.6%

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increase, but really it's three or 1.7, but really it's 3.3%. So 3.3% of $300 million should be a $9 million increase. It's really only going up three because of the hard work Kelly has done. And so greatly appreciate that. And so next you

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will see alternative instruction goes up 24%. We are moving a lot of our Simon Spring staff just coding wise. Um so it's moving more from one side to the other. So that's what that increases from. You also see it's gone up every

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single year. It's 3.5 to 4.6 to 5.8 as we build that staff out. >> I have a question. Y Mr. >> Since we're talking about budget S. >> Yep. >> We have 50 kids right now. Correct. >> It's over that probably >> 60 something. >> But there's what's on the choice side,

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not the alternative. How many kids? >> We don't have any choice seats in Simon Springs. >> It's alternative and special education. >> Well, the sideway special education. How many kids are there? >> Yeah. What about it? How many seats do we have there? >> It depends on each kid's individual

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needs. >> An IEP team decision. There's no set number. >> There's no set number. >> There's no set number. >> Okay. So, it's hard to project how many kids to put in there. >> For sure. >> Okay. All right. Thanks. >> Okay.

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>> You'll see special education, vocational education, um 7% increase, attendance. We are moving away from Skyward to Synergy. One of the things we messed up when we went from I now to Skyward is we tried to be cheap and we

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didn't pay for training. And so that's not a mistake. I was over attendance when that happened and I walked into it and we are not going to be cheap and not give our people the training they need. So we are paying for that. The next one, health services. Again, we're adding two additional nurses. Uh other student support, you'll see

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it's a 10% increase. Last year we were able um in structure is what we use for our benchmark testing. The last couple years it's about a million dollars. We plan on using synergy probably in one more year but we didn't want to transition that and the new attendance

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software at the same time. It's a 10% increase because we have paid for instructure out of the previous year's budget right at the end of the year when we had additional funds. We may be able to do that again this year. It just depends. So that's why it looks like a huge increase.

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You will see instructional support. Again, Kelly is done great, minus 4%. Alternative instructional support, additional part-time salary added for um is that what is SSS? What have I gone blank on?S.

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>> Oh, Simon Springs. Okay. Special ed support, salary and benefits. You have a small line item, vocational ed support. You have a degree change in benefits. Then you have technology, additional equipment, board of education was minus 21%. Can

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you explain that? I think that was the yet another changing in how charter schools wanted to be funded from the comproller. Is that right? >> It was because there was because we pay the state pays their portion of charter schools. We pay our portion the local

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portion and so that reduces the overall charter school amount that we have to pay to them directly. >> Correct. So at some point the controller is going to give us good advice about that portion. So that's why that's negative. You will see office of

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superintendent went up. That is our new apttoy portion for us to get started. And then as we talked about we are going to look at marketing and enrollment. So that I know it seems strange for us to have billboards but that is what everybody does these days to get enrollment. So we're looking at that.

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You will see fiscal services additional front office staff for popular hill uh minus 4% in somewhere was that fiscal ser yes yes office of the principal sorry it was up 3% because of office staff for popular hill we have bookkeepers

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secretaries assistant principles principles and office of the principal fiscal services went down HR went up just benefits this one looks weird but operation of the plant and maintenance of the plant we moved all of our custodians into maintenance so we could

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track it better. Is that correct? And you can explain why you're the one that decided to do that. >> Well, the way we looked at it is 72 uh 710 or two or 72610 is an operation

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account. 72620 is maintenance. Let me make sure I'm are correct on that. Yes. So we wanted to put the engineering side more so in 72610 and the maintenance and the maintenance side. Uh so we moved custodians and the

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maintenance personnel from 72610 to 72620. So it's just a change of account numbers. That's the reason why you see the difference of a negative $18 million and a positive 19 million. It's just moving those salaries around plus the additional COLA increase and benefits.

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72610 is basically salaries would be Trey and his project managers salaries and benefits and then his request from engineering side >> would it also be your electricity water sewer all of those >> pretty much that your operations like

507
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your electricity water sewer gas >> electricity is about 12 million 11 million >> it is right now hopefully we can continue to get credits like we have been >> y >> and you'll get a breakdown where all of that is. I just want to go over

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highlights today. >> Yeah, >> Madam Chair. >> Yes, Mr. Tidwolf. >> Yeah. The difference between the two, you know, said we're moving it's it's like 1.2 million, a little bit over that, but you said you're moving it over to uh I'm reading it right here.

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Operation plant, moving some guys over to maintenance of plant. And I get that, but it's a $1.2 million difference between the movement. What is that? You said it was that's all cola. >> Some of it's cola. Medical insurance had to had to change, you know, the account

510
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numbers as well. Um, so yeah, it I mean, you're talking 3 to 400 plus custodians. I mean, you're talking well over 4 to 500 people there that are >> he had a 3.3% in increase plus

511
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>> five 6% of their medical insurance. 37 million >> 11 million or 12 million be 49 million 3% of that million and a half dollars. >> Yep. >> Right. Did I do that right? Somebody correct my math.

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That's that's probably where it is. Just looking at the increases. All right. Then your next ones uh just very minimal transportation. We have a 2 and 12% increase for transportation costs with the raise. And so we cut some

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other areas to get to only two. Early childhood was 1%. You'll see regular capital outlays, a 10% increase, but it's only $35,000. And we did that to try to order some extra desks and chairs and other furnitureures cuz some of our schools have some older stuff. And then you'll

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see transfer to other funds. This is where some of our charter school stuff is. And so we've had a deficit of 11, then we were seven. Right now we're at 12.9. And I think county is comfortable with that, especially when you were looking, at least I'm going to try to get them

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comfortable with that, especially until we increase maintenance of effort to what we're actually getting closer to bringing in. That's going to that's going to continue to be my argument until we get closer with our constituents of what type of funding we are bringing in um for our

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district. when we're putting 1520 million dollars into fund balance every year. >> So, >> okay, >> questions. Happy to answer this. Just a quick overview >> comments. Okay, moving on. How about director's updates? >> I'm good. We'll have some Thursday.

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>> I have two things that I would like to discuss in general discussion, then I'll put it to the floor. Um, Montaharing called me and uh I'm very interested and I think we all really enjoyed his presentation. Um, it's very timely in this uh Nashville antihuman trafficking

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and we all received the curriculum and I know we're moving forward, but I'd like to know how we're moving forward. I know we probably are going to do the meetings where we meet with parents at night. I'm just going to be honest with you. I want to move forward past that. And I want to get this in the classroom. And I want

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those girls and boys to hear from the the individuals that would be very impactful so they know when they're being coerced and what's out there. It's just a sign of the times that we're in. Are we What is the timeline if as as far as that?

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>> The obviously we're waiting to the vote on Thursday. the timeline in terms of implementing into classrooms, we're looking at September, October to give us time to train teachers and get everybody comfortable with the the modules that we've got. >> Well, that is coming this fall. >> Okay. Question that I had. Okay.

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>> Working with our counselors um and we've got to, you know, implement all that and roll that out over the summer and into the fall. But that that is the idea and we've talked with the the the people at Wired Human to make sure that that is something they're comfortable with dovetailing other services with it. And

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that is absolutely what we plan to do. >> Okay. Thank you. That is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Uh second thing is I know of at least one person who and I've asked this before, but I just want to make sure and I've asked Dr. Sullivan to see if he could check and see how many other people are reflected about

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that. They were on the they were a longtime employee with the county. They came over with us. They're not a teacher. They came over with us when we changed the state. Now they're getting toward close to retiring and now they've lost their retirement insurance. They're

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not going to have any. So I was hoping that we could do something. Uh I think it's been thrown out there $1,000 for insurance for maybe a certain time frame, maybe four or five years. Is it something we could look at? And I would also like to know how many have been

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caught in this because I don't think it's right that if you were with a a loyal employee for 25 some odd years and they that this was inadvertent. They had no idea this was going to happen when they came on over and joined in our insurance.

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>> There's four people. Okay. >> Yeah, I'll talk. >> Thank you. I do appreciate because I just I don't think that's right and I want to I want to make it right as much as we can. Yeah, they were all county employees and then moved to the school system or vice versa and got caught in the transfer

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from county insurance to state insurance. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Anybody else? >> How do we how do we need to do that? Do we need to make a >> You would have to have an official motion, but let me put it on the board agenda officially in May so that it is official on the board agenda. Everybody

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>> do that >> with names and everything so that it is totally official in >> writing. Okay, Miss Sharp, Madam >> Chair. Okay, Jazz Fest Child Jazzfest. Um, nine bands on Friday, 14 on Saturday

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that include, uh, Belmont and, uh, MTSU. Um, there are two, uh, nonprofits there that will be giving away a car at between 6:00 and 6:30. So, we'll be talking about our sponsors and then them as well. Uh, there's going to be a

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custom car, exotic car. Uh Sloans is coming with motorcycles 4x4. So bring it bring your checkbooks uh because you know there'll be some motorcycles, two wheelers or something to ride. Um but it's going to be a great two days and hopefully the weather's going to hold out for us May 1st and 2nd.

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>> Anybody else? >> And I got one more. Sorry. Um I should have mentioned this first, but Leverne has had two fires, one Sunday and then one this morning. And I think we've had some displaced students. So, I want to make mention of that. Hopefully,

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somebody's I've already spoken with Jessica Johnson with the Atlas. Um, and she was already speaking to the family from the apartments, but then there was another one this morning from a big house on near Shriman. Um, so she as usual is taking care of those, but hopefully someone in the community will

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step forward and start a GoFundMe page so we can help take care of them. >> Absolutely. Yes, Miss Rosales. >> Yes. Thank you. Um, last Saturday, Breakthrough Tennessee, which is the nonprofit that my family and I started, um, we did an event at Stewart

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Elementary School, elementary school for the entire, um, community. And we gave away, um, cans of food, um, boxes of food, brand new socks, brand new shoes, clothes. We even gave away um, this big

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old Starbucks tumblers. They're like 30 bucks a piece, so we give those away. um lots of hygiene products, but it was very well attended. Um I think we have we had quite a few families that benefited from it and so we hope to do more of that throughout the year and

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help more families in the community. >> Mr. Tiffle. >> Yeah. Uh I know that the and I don't know if Dr. Sullivan saw this, but the county commission, the bus contract, sorry, not bus contract, the contractor's insurance, bus contractor's

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insurance went to purchasing. Um, and I think they opened it up. Did do we have >> anything? Never heard anything about it yet. >> Okay. Uh, Elim told me that it was going to go I think this past week. Um, so maybe we can look into that, see where it's at, what happened, what got added, what what the results were.

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>> Yeah. Thank you for the heads up. >> Yep. Anything else? Well, if there's nothing else, we are ajourned.