##VIDEO ID:ZFhzxAa28D0## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e uh first meeting January 21st 2025 Williamson County School Board welcome uh board members please record your attendance okay we're going to open up with the pledge um and Dennis Driggers would you lead us please to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible moment moment of silence okay the first order today is public speakers we've got a we've got eight so far and that's what we'll have and you'll have three minutes and it's recorded on your right at the podium so you can keep an eye on your time we appreciate it if you'd uh go by the guidelines so the first one up Carol uh yes sir Mr Cash Angelie babo if you'll come on up hello I'm Angelie babo vice president of social activities of brenwood high school Deca Deca is a student Le organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing Finance hospitality and management my fellow officers and I wanted to tell you a little bit more about deca's impact on Williamson County schools and to thank you for your support of us eight high schools in our district have a Deca chapter and members have have the chance to compete in local state and international competition participate in community service projects build leadership skills by serving as officers and to learn more about a variety of clear career paths with over 1,400 members in Williamson County Schools Deca chapters are helping many students gain the confidence and experience that they need to be successful in their chosen Fields thank you you your next speaker is AA methan hello my name is AA mat alagan vice president of hospitality of Brentwood DEA our chapter helps members get involved and make an impact on their Community whether through taking part in our school's annual trunk Retreat for elementary schoolers or through making blankets for blanket Nashville students engage with people from across our area building relationships and organization skills that will last beyond graduation additionally competitions provide awesome opportunities for members to work on presenting and receive feedback from business professionals competitors may choose to work on a project such as a startup business plan or marketing campaign or to compete in a roleplay scenario either way this experience prepares students for job interviews and presentations we are so excited that more than 500 Williamson County Deca members qualified to compete at the State Career Development Conference next month thank you your next speaker is our IIA mahotra thank you hi I'm Aram Malhotra vice president of marketing of brunwood deca serving as a chapter officer allows students to learn how to lead others and organize events and they can participate in the Tennessee ctso chapter chapter officer leadership training during the fall all Deca members can attend field trips to hear from a variety of Professionals for example the Tennessee Titans hosts a learning lab that teaches students about sports management and Dollywood offers a similar experience relating to hospitality and tourism competitors can travel to Chattanooga for the State Career Development conference and a variety of C cities for the international Career Development conference these opportunities help members get excited about available career paths so it's no wonder that according to Deca Inc 91% of deca members report that participation in Deca prepared them academically for college and a career and uh next up we will have um I'm sorry Lucy Wyatt hello I am Lucy Wyatt president of brunwood DEA thank you for taking the time to listen to us today before we close we wanted to give a shout out to are three amazing advisers Mr Hunter schmeiser Miss Melissa bashore and Miss Lisa nce coach schmeiser has been a bruntwood Deca adviser for the past three years and he teaches marketing one and Computer Applications classes he is also a football coach Miss bashore and she is sitting in the green dress has been a Deca adviser for the past 15 years and she teaches accounting business management and social media marketing classes she works tirelessly to oversee our awesome school coffee shop called the Bruins Den Miss nce who is sitting in the pink has been a Deca adviser for over 30 years she has invested a lot of time and energy in her students from teaching marketing to and Entrepreneurship classes to helping coordinate the State Career Development conference fun fact Miss nie was a Deca member when she was in high school and her Readiness to serve as an adviser shows how involvement in Deca as a student Fosters a desire to lead as an adult lastly thank you Schoolboard members and administration for your support of deca in schools your backing helps us continue to provide amazing career Readiness programming for Williamson County students thank you uh the next two public speakers will be Nat King and Gary Goen good evening my name is Nate King and I have five students currently enrolled in Williams County Schools I'm also the uncle to five more enrolled in the schools my wife is an employee of the school district along with both of my sister-in-laws my mother-in-law and father-in-law graduated from the from Franklin High School I say this to let you know that we're bought into Williamson County schools and what happens in this county is very important to us this summer I had the opportunity to um along with our athletic director at Franklin High School Jay Johnson to take uh my County Commissioners and my Schoolboard representative Donna Clemens on a tour of Franklin High School to see the athletic facilities there I also brought this um subject up in a meeting we had last summer with Mr Golden um with the athletic Department's um booster clubs within the county the facilities at Franklin High School are below what the standard should be for 202 5 many of our areas have not been touched since the 1980s you were provided with a packet this evening I believe and also emailed you earlier today pictures of the facilities at Franklin High School there are over $650 million in the 5-year Capital plan for new schools in the county we are not at capacity looking at your numbers we have close to 12,000 seats available in the county for students yet we are trying to build eight new schools in the next 5 years we have schools that have not been touched in over 40 years when it comes to the facilities um and it's just time we start looking at this because if we don't start looking now what's going to happen is it's all going to pile up at one time um I had I I was one of my County Commissioners made the comment he has seen nicer prism facilities than we have for our students the showers as you can see from the picture there two poles in the middle of a room for the boys football freshman football and basketball locker rooms the girls have stalls there were new stalls in um the Stalls were replaced in December um they didn't need to be replaced we needed new showers our press blocks in the stadiums used over 50 times during the school year we're putting a new roof on it this week we don't need a new roof we need a new Press Box we need to look at how we're spending money in the county um we own the county now owns the baseball and softball facilities we need new bleachers I'm I'm tired of asking parents to pay for things that the county should be paying for the the soccer team needed a new scoreboard parents had to fundraise for it it's a $5,000 scoreboard we're not talking about a Jumbotron that we're seeing pop up at stadiums now that's the kind of stuff that the county needs to be paying for we're not asking for a $20 million football stadium what we're asking for is facilities that represent 2025 and not 1980 thank you [Applause] yes hello my name is Gary coin that's c i n I'll be very brief I know you've already I know you've already voted to ban or restrict several books in a special December school board meeting I'm here to say I disagree with this ban and these restrictions just remember when you try to ban something it simply calls more attention to what's to what you're attempting to suppress it's human nature for people especially young people to pay more attention to something you don't want them to see hear or read thank you for your [Applause] time we have two more uh public speakers Cara Winburn and Theodore Pisa hi my name is Cara Winburn and I'm here to address school lunches with you first I would like to tell you that about 5% of students are vegetarian and about 2% of students are vegan that means that at triny elementary is roughly 700 students about 35 of them are vegetarian I got this information from uptodate.com and healthychildren.org this is not a very large number of vegetarians anywhere but this isn't just about vegetarians it's just about healthier school lunches overall about 55% of trinities of students at Trinity buy lunch so this is about better options for all my research led me to find a graph by prare therapy.com this graph shows how healthy school lunches are in each specific State and the state of Tennessee is 17th Place out of 50 states so it is a little bit over average if even just one County changes to healthier lunch options tennessy placement on the graph could go up I've prepared a selection of easy to prepare inexpensive healthy and delicious options egg sandwich wraps which are about 11.8 grams of protein egg wraps were a which are about 15 g of protein lentil spaghetti that is about 13 GS of protein spinach pasta which is about 7.2 g of protein bean burgers which are about nine gram of protein tomato and cheese sandwiches which are about about 19 g of protein and a side of edamon which is about 17 g of protein the right food can boost student performance and it's good to expand their taste buds at a young age thank you for your [Applause] time I'll try to keep this brief hello I'm the Pizza I am a I'm a gay father here in Franklin Tennessee and a parent of two in the system it is an embarrassment how this board is making decisions on behalf of our children now my orientation here shouldn't even matter but it's worth acknowledging that parents like us exist when there are members of the board so openly ignorant our children deserve an education not censorship representation and not repression taught acceptance and not intolerance last month this board stealthily took it upon themselves to attack our rights and ban books B book bans silence diverse voices and stifle progress the immoral actions of those Seated on this board Donna Merit your resignation here tonight it's wildly inappropriate to be colluding with partisan activists regarding access yes thank you Mr wch okay so it's wildly inappropriate that we have members colluding with partisan activists regarding access to educational resources this goes beyond an attack on education it is an attack on our kids Futures red taping book access denies these kids a chance to learn about the complexities of this world and all of its nuance and these bands erase voices who challenge ignorance reclaim history and celebrate diversity and this board chose to embrace fear over critical thought myopic perspectives will see this as protecting innocent children the truth is this denies respect and belonging to anyone not meeting your standards of normal this is cowardice dressed as control trying to identify as leadership actions such as these are all thanks to the harmful Jer gerrymandering tactics enabled by this state there is no iCal basis for holding Schoolboard general elections during the primary when there's low voter turnout and it's time we ask the state to move them to the general election and give parents their voices back and parents we only get one chance to ever get it right and now is one of those chances and I hope we still have Republicans with dignity left to stand up to the mess demand better for our schools and demand Bill Lee do better by our kids and this includes dismantling and eliminating the taxpayer funded Val C scam he's pushing for so hard we must not let ignorance and exclusion Define the future of Tennessee and nothing is going to be made great in this country through normalizing bigotry censorship and revisionism while we raid and burn down the libraries thank you I just like to thank all the public speakers and uh especially our students tonight you guys did an outstanding job W just absolutely great I'd like to thank our officers for being here Mr Eddie cess and Ali hemara I hope I got it right and uh what a great performance from the jazz band from Thompson Station Middle School uh they have just uh they've reached Heights that no one could believe they could do and uh Mr C just keeps on plugging away and gets better and better so thank you to all them uh first order on the agenda will be uh approval of the agenda do we uh have a motion Mr Welch second Mr Beasley um let's see do we have any discussion no discussion these will be a Voice vote all in favor of yes I nay none passed uh approval of the consent agenda do we have a motion okay Mr Bostic the motion the second is Donna Clemens uh and this will also be a voice uh vote and is there any discussion on this okay let's go to a vote um all in favor opposed okay so moved this is what we voted for for the approval of the consent agenda approval of November 18 2024 school board meeting minutes approval of December 9th 2024 special call board meeting minutes report of annual review board policies annual agenda item approval of shade structure at Arrington Elementary approval of a shade structure at Scales Elementary approval of city of Franklin easement request for Innovation Hub project and recommendations for field trip fee requests uh Communications will superintendent gold thank you Mr chair and thank you board members just want to D do a double check in the microphone is on uh I want to welcome those of you who are here for our for our January meeting Mr chair and board members you know we actually have one voting item on the agenda uh tonight uh other than the consent agenda it's an item that is on our annual agenda uh we actually have another item on your annual agenda that the board approved back in November that's our calendar for the for the next school year for 2526 so if those if some of you have looked at their annual agenda to determine what our calendar will be like next year that was already approved in November we've got that posted on our website uh the item I Mr chair I will address and just a little bit when we when we hit that but I did want to give you a little bit of a review of our work session last Thursday night we had one voting item on the agenda and we met until if I'm not mistaken about 10:30 p.m. uh and that that seems like kind of classic uh that that that's that that's the process we'd go through uh but we had a lot of discussion about some really key items last Thursday night and I wanted to give just a brief mention and a reminder uh especially to let folks know that if you'd like to go back and look uh our our work session times uh are on our website and you can go back and review so number one we spent a good bit of time talking about special education kind of with what I think of as a special education primer we talked both about the federal parameters uh and uh the emotional impact of uh our our service to students with disabilities we gave you guys some statistical information with that reminder that especially for our students with disabilities every service we provide is personal it is individualized a lot of acronyms exist out there because of federal law uh but the first acronym is that individualized uh education program that we're making sure we give that individualized service to our students with disabilities so for those of you who are interested I I definitely encourage you to go back and look at that uh look at that discussion at the work session about 25% of our students have either an IEP an individualized education program uh either for a for a disability or as as is described in Tennessee for giftedness or a 504 plan uh which is you got the little nutshell of that which is accommodations for students uh who have a disabling condition that might affect one or more major life activities uh and we also provide in addition to that individualized health plans for students who have particular Health needs uh and and I just want to reemphasize the importance of making sure that we take care of each one of our students on an individual basis we also spent some time talking about our science textbook adoption and we've been making sure we do that monthly as you all prepared to adopt science textbooks for the next six to eight years depending on the on the on the State schedule we are going through that process right now we are actually having review periods for our our community members for our stakeholders parents teachers to review those books that the state textbook commission selected that we have narrowed down and that ultimately you all will vote on if I'm not mistaken it's just a couple of months uh in in in March uh so I want to keep that on you all's radar we added a little piece and sent a message to our families through our InFocus newsletter that we have links to some of the state sele on the State website you can go to our web page for the science textbook adoptions click on that find some electronic versions of the of the textbooks that this that the state has given us to choose from so again Mr chair I encourage folks to look through that uh and through that process we also had a discussion finally of our of our upcoming budget process the County Commission is our funding body they fund about 2third of our total budget the state fund somewhere around a third and usually we get maybe 1 to 2% of our budget funded from the federal government uh we let you know that absent any substantial change at the state level that if we are to give the some some projected um pay increases that County government is working on we are going to need their help if we don't get additional funding from the state it it will take County government discussion the County Commission budget committee has already started that discussion we plan to bring to you our proposed budget a month earlier than we did last year so that you have time to process through that so come February we will be presenting you with our proposed budget with the caveat that we won't really know the revenue side yet uh so I want to make sure that we emphasize that incorporated into our budget proposal will be a proposed pay increase plan that takes into account all those things we've been discussing these last few months uh some some income from from uh and and pay for some of our lowest paid staff members supplements for Arts Athletics uh and and and academic supplements we plan to to we're looking at that right now and plan to bring you a proposal based on what we hope we get funded uh from the County Commission to to try to meet some of those needs of of our staff members I'm going to give you uh an early thanks uh Vicky Hall I know you and your team in in in conjunction with the Williamson County Education Association have been spending time discussing that so I wanted to give you guys a heads up that that is coming finally I got to share this we mentioned last week that the ACT data for our gra our most recent graduates our 2024 seniors actually came out last week on January 7th so they running about six months in AAR on getting us the full data but I just am so proud that our students were number one in the State uh we were the highest performing highest performing School District on act in the state this past year there were lots of details of of of the stats that that make us extra proud of what our students are doing and what our teachers are doing and in supporting them but I want to emphasize this key Point those ACT scores the College and Career Technical education certifications uh the DECA students all those Student Activities open doors for our students and uh so it's just it does my heart good to see that especially here in from the students as you mentioned Mr chair uh with that that is what I think Mr chair is a four to five minute summary of our 4-Hour meeting uh back at the at the work session uh I want to introduce to you Miss Carol Birdsong who is going to give us some student and staff spotlights well we're going to continue celebrating y'all and we are going to start tonight with national yes first place national awards this is one of my favoritest things things National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences these are the folks that produce the emys these are the student awards and this is Michael gerovski and David Ward they are at Brentwood High School and they won a national award for commercial video production their commercial was called stickers and Sloan Ashworth is their teacher also Franklin High School's Anna Ray Jones fabulous talented young lady won an Emy for best sports story or segment I'm not supposed to call it Emy won a student Award for best sports story or segment for her film 22 games her teacher is Carrie Thompson congratulations to those national award winners and now and let's move to Athletics where we have Mr Tennessee this seems like it happened so long ago but we haven't had a meeting to recognize Eric hazard from paig high school who is your Class 5A Tennessee Titans Mr Football his coach is Charles wrath bone and then over at Ravenwood Donovan star is your class 6A Tennessee Titans Mr Football uh Donovan's coach is Will Hester so now we're going to move to the cheerleaders the Tennessee cheer coaches association All State cheer team from Brentwood High School Skyler L uh krinski Blakeley Shimmel Ellie grce sne and Lily vest their coach is Amanda BC and from Fairview High School Haley Hughes her coach is Paige Jones and over at Paige High School Anna Kate Fox and uh her coach is Aaron holder and then also Ellie Grace was named the cheerleader of the Year by the Tennessee cheer coaches association and again she's from rwood high school and now y'all it's so exciting that we have joined uh the Tennessee Middle School Athletic Association because we get to recognize some middle school students for their state championships this is your fair viiew Middle School wrestling team and they are your state champions Joe Brown is their coach over at Spring Station Middle Addison bordon won the state championship in girls wrestling the 114 pound category coach Toby Dell is Addison's coach now we're going to move on to the Arts and to allate band from Brentwood High School Jay Sun Todd Glenn and Leo B Centennial High School All State band Zachary Marlo from Franklin High School Judy Shu figan sailor Lydia Smith Ryan Marina Adam gallers uh Nolanville high school we have William Watson and Katie Shaw also State band um All State band from Paige High School Eli Wallace Sloan Armstrong and Libby Greeno and all state band Ravenwood high school we have kayn Dunley Isabelle monm Bacher Joseph McCoy Ellie Park and Edison shin and Summit High School we have Adam pin sa McDaniel Yan bar and Nick Edwards now to All State Orchestra brenwood High School Joanna Lee Jen Park Unice young Andrew Gan Noah Kim Oscar Zoo Audrey and Aaron Kim from Franklin High School this is Taylor Henry All State Orchestra All State Orchestra Independence High School William hunken Krauss and Kirk M from Nolanville High School Ethan o and Anam man drill All State Orchestra from Ravenwood High School Alice Co Megan low Phoebe Kelo Luca Hernandez Palmer Shayla Mulla CL on J he and juban park and we have a staff Spotlight from Brentwood High School this is Rachel Lia little uh National Association of biology teachers Tennessee outstanding biology teacher of the year congratulations to all of our students and staff members Mr chair that's my report uh any uh question or comments for Mr Golden okay let's move on uh board chair report I've got nothing to report tonight everything's quiet on the on the Western Front here uh new business approval of open closed Zone schools uh it's an annual agenda and we're going to need a motion Donna Clemens Tony Bostic second uh gonna open this up for discussion um I'd like to ask uh superintendent golden though to kind of give us an overview on this so you know kind of it's It's New to a lot of people so if you would please thank you Mr chair uh annually we recommend to you open Zone schools based on a state law now years ago we've actually been doing this even prior to the state law the state law changed a couple of things so the basic the basic structure is we evaluate the available seats at our schools we project our growth at those particular schools over the window of time uh where our board policy may have a student at that school for example if a student attends an open Zone school as a kindergartener our policy establishes that they can stay at that school through the last grade or fifth grade so they could be there six years uh and and so the numbers that we have for you is um are based on our projections of that now the state structure uh requires that we have a window of time for families to choose this we can't open the window until two weeks after your vote and then our board policy closes the window on April 15 uh so families have that window of time to make a request we'll have an online request set up after that two- week window opens and then on April 15th we will count the number of seats that have been selected or requested from families if one of the schools have more seats selected than available seats we will have a lottery based on the state law requirement for those seats uh so far I think if I'm not mistaken we're the third year of this law with the required Lottery we have actually conducted one Lottery but there were enough families who changed their mind that that we actually need didn't ended up not having to implement uh that Lottery but that's the basic structure uh of of recommendation couple of other items that we discuss as an administrative team we look at construction that might be going on on particular campus uh in addition to the growth uh last year those of you who are on the board last year you may recall that paig high school was was finishing up the last phase of their construction but we determined that the that the impact of construction was such that we could open Zone it likewise we make that same recommendation this year for brenwood high school and rwood Middle School uh that we project the construction will be finished to a point where the traffic flow will be fine we'll still have some work to do on the exterior uh at Brentwood middle school but we do have a recommendation for open zoning I want to give this caveat finally Mr chair uh based on some discussion we had at the work session this open zoning is for students living in Williamson County in Williamson County Schools this is not an open zoning out of County this is exclusively for uh those who live in County to choose another school um within their uh next to their zones so certainly open any questions you may have okay open for discussion okay Mr Beasley yes sir um I just wanted you to give me that date again for open enrollment I believe it was in March and it was a twoe window thank you uh there's a there is a well the we cannot open the window for two weeks after the board vote so we will actually open the uh the the vote on I'm actually looking for the date sorry February February 4th thank you so we will post this on our website February 4th the deadline to submit applications is April 15th so if if you hear from any of your families our recommendation is calendar February fourth pull up our website uh for uh for enrollment at that time excellent thank you Mrs Clement thank you Mr Vice chair um so and I think you said this at the work session but I just wanted to make it more make it clear for All Families students May apply to more than one school correct how many and if so how many and that is correct correct we do not place a limit on that students can't apply to any school at the April after the April 15th deadline they will need to commit if they've been approved for multiple schools and then the the only way to do it is to go through our website correct that is correct okay uh and now I will say if anybody has any questions certainly we're open to phone calls if someone doesn't have access we'll help them access to to to the electronic version we'll help them through that I have one more sorry I just realized one thank you um I know Brentwood middle um I have some students Zone to that area um we have opened up for 100 um do you think once the completion will uh once the construction is complete do you think that there will be more um is it do we kind of keep that number low because of the construction we're finalizing everything thank you for that question uh we you you've actually answered the question with your question you correct this it's it's been many years since we've opened Brentwood middle for open zoning uh and and we've determined that it's an appropriate amount to make as a maximum we are very curious as to how many students might choose it because it has been a few years the students who could choose it um were actually not even in school uh the last time we'd open zoned it but yes we want to make sure that we don't overcommit because our board policy actually allows an out of own student to stay in that school until they finish we even have a sibling Clause where if a sibling comes with their older with their older sibling they can come so we try to be very careful to minimize the risk that we over open Zone and end up having to rezone uh to to to deal with overd doing the open Zone Mr Johnson yes at the work session I was I asked about no one's Elementary because we have three Portables uh were you able to at least get an estimate of how many students might need to take advantage of open Zone since Jordan has 93 spots open and Sunset Elementary has 18 spots open to possibly get rid of Portables uh thank you for that question some of this of course depends on growth yeah uh but but we we do project if we could if we had somewhere around 40 or so and it depends on what grade level they fell uh then we we would have that possibility of removing those now I will say with a caveat that uh there's a cost to to move those Portables you actually have to move them in the middle of the night uh and and uh and have a contract so we would also do that evaluation and project out for the next year as well 40 or so is my best estimate okay and I also uh just want to point out this isn't really a question but looking at the data you know mil Creek Elementary has 185 spots open but because the middle school is at 117% capacity you know we can't use those Elementary spots so that is correct thank you for pointing that out um uh a few of our schools that share space um for the for this purpose we do look at both numbers mil Creek uh uh Sunset and Thompson Station thank you any more questions okay it's time to vote if you're if you're in favor of approving the open closed School zoning press your yes Buton button if you approve it oh I do recommend approval oh I'm sorry the vote is8 Yes one no okay 8 yes four no well that's approved and that uh does it for the meeting and we can adjourn thank you